E1 Lagos GP: Trends worldwide after hosting Africa’s maiden water racing event - ITREALMS

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History was made on October 4 and 5, 2025, on the waters of the Lagos Lagoon as Team Brazil by Claure Group claimed victory at the E1 Lagos GP presented by FirstBank. 

The landmark event marked Africa’s debut on the global calendar of the E1 Series, the world’s first electric powerboat championship, and positioned Lagos at the forefront of sustainable sporting innovation.

Trend Micro to secure AI-enabled private data centres worldwide - ITREALMS

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… New security solution using NVIDIA NIM revealed at COMPUTEX


Global cybersecurity leader, Trend Micro Incorporated, has announced plans to demo a new data centre solution, using NVIDIA technology, for security-conscious business and government customers harnessing the power of AI. 

This is just one of multiple AI security solutions being shown for the first time at COMPUTEX 2024.

Cisco names Siyabonga Madyibi GAD for Africa

Worldwide leader in Information Technology (IT), Cisco Africa, has named Mr Siyabonga Madyibi as its first-ever Government Affairs Director (GAD) for Africa, reports ITRealms.

In his new role, ITRealms reports that Siyabonga, who has over 14 years’ experience in telecom policy, will lead Cisco's government affairs and public policy strategy in Africa, engaging with top government officials and key policy makers in Africa. 

ITRealms also reports that he would be focusing initially on South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria by working in close partnership and alignment with Cisco’s Africa Leadership team, led by David Meads, the Vice President for Africa at Cisco, on policies and relationships that will advance Cisco’s businesses on the continent. 

Reacting to his appointment, Mr. Madyibi said, he looks forward to leading Cisco’s Government Affairs programme in Africa given its important and integral role in Cisco’s strategy for growth in Africa.

“With the technology market currently growing at an exponential rate and governments playing an important role helping to develop the opportunities that are being created, Cisco aims to actively partner with government departments to help drive this growth and build on these opportunities,” he said.

Cisco, ITRealms gathered noted that as the home to nine of the world’s fifteen fastest growing economies, Africa is ripe for transformation making it an increasingly attractive environment for global business investments.

Technology, Cisco officials asserted to ITRealms, is at an inflection point, in which it can transform African economies and create many new opportunities, with the increased digitization of countries.  Subsequently, governments throughout the continent are now increasingly becoming aware of the importance of growth in ICT and the benefits it can offer. 

Cisco projects that 50 billion devices - or “things” - will be connected to the internet by 2020, offering a platform for African countries to use this to achieve greater broadband penetration across the continent leading to improvements that will better social and economic prosperity for its citizens.

For the past decade Siyabonga has led the government and regulatory strategy for Dimension Data in Africa. Before that, he worked with the South African Regulator, ICASA, and for MTN, one of the leading mobile operators in the telecoms sector in Africa. Siyabonga holds a BA Law degree from the University of Cape Town and an LLB degree from the University of Natal.

Equally speaking, Pastora Valero, Senior Director, Government Affairs, Cisco Europe, Middle East & Africa and Russia CIS (EMEAR) said they are delighted to have Siyabonga on board especially at a time when they are witnessing considerable growth and investment in ICT throughout Africa which makes proactive engagement with governments a vital strategic imperative for us at Cisco.

“I look forward to working with him as a key contributor to our global Government Affairs team as we actively support African governments in the drive to increase access to affordable, reliable technology,” Valero said.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) +Cisco  @CiscoNigeria
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ITU celebrates women’s change through ICTs

ITRealms:

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) celebrates the power of digital literacy to change women’s lives as it reaches target of ‘one million women trained worldwide’ reports ITRealms.

This year, ITU is commemorating this year’s International Women’s Day with theme: ‘Progress for all’ through ICTs.

Notable is that over one million disadvantaged women in 79 countries around the world are now benefiting from newly-acquired information and communication technology (ICT) skills thanks to a partnership between ITU, the UN specialized agency for ICTs, and Philippines-based NGO Telecentre.org Foundation.

ITRealms also reports that the Women’s Digital Literacy Campaign, launched in 2011 with a target of training one million women around the world, leveraged the combined reach of Telecentre.org Foundation’s global network of 100,000 telecentres worldwide and ITU’s 193 Member States and 700 private sector members.

The campaign reached its goal earlier this month with a total of 1,014,096 women trained in basic computer skills, through the efforts of 153 participating organizations and 20,000 telecentres around the world.

Myrna Padilla spent 20 years living away from her children earning a living as a domestic worker in Hong Kong. 

Now, back home in the Philippines, she uses her digital literacy skills to run her own graphic design business employing 20 staff – and all her children are getting a college education...watch Myrna talk about the power of technology skills to change a family’s destiny.

Obonyo ‘Molly’ Adhiambo couldn’t afford a college degree, and knew her options were limited – until a friend told her of a digital literacy training course being offered by youth-based organization Nairobits Trust…learn what Molly did with her new computer skills.

Yulia Korneyeva was 23 when she first learned to use ICTs at a telecentre. But like many young people hit by the economic crisis, she recently found herself out of work – and realized she lacked the proficiency to apply for the positions she wanted. Her future changed when she saw an advertisement for a free course entitled “Advanced Digital Literacy”… find out how Youlia’s training changed her life…

“The success of this joint campaign meshes perfectly with this year’s International Women’s Day theme of ‘equality for women is progress for all’, because training in today’s ICT systems is so often change that turns around the lives of unskilled and disadvantaged women and their families,” said ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun I. Touré.

“Having the skills to use ICTs opens up new horizons and empowers women, both economically and culturally. In addition, offering digital skills to over one million women at grassroots level is helping reverse the paradigm whereby, in many countries, ICTs still most often benefit men more than women.”

Recent research by ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau estimates that there are 200 million fewer women online than men. Of the world’s 2.8 billion Internet users, 1.3 billion are women, compared with 1.5 billion men.

While the gap between male and female users is relatively small in OECD nations, it widens rapidly in poorer countries, where expensive, ‘high status’ ICTs like computers are often unaffordable for women at the bottom of the development pyramid. In the developing world overall, 16% fewer women than men are online, with even greater disparities in some regions; in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, ITU estimates that there are only half as many women connected as men.

A report issued last year by the Broadband Commission for Digital Development’s Working Group on Gender, led by UNDP Administrator Helen Clark, revealed that, around the world, women are coming online later and more slowly than men. It also showed that women are on average 21 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone – representing a mobile gender gap of 300 million, equating to US$13 billion in potential missed revenues for the mobile sector.

“With technology now widely recognized as a critical enabler for socio-economic development, the Women’s Digital Literacy Campaign has been key in reinforcing ITU’s global efforts to promote the digital inclusion of women in line with Millennium Development Goal 3 on gender equality,” said Brahima Sanou, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, which initiated and led the Women’s Digital Literacy Campaign.

“Partnership is key in any undertaking, and what we have achieved so far under the Telecentre Women Digital Literacy Campaign is a testament to this. I, therefore, take this opportunity to thank ITU and all our partners in this campaign for accepting the challenge and for embracing this cause with so much fervour,” said Miguel Raimilla, Executive Director of Telecentre.org Foundation.

“We may have already reached our target, but the work doesn’t stop here. There is still so much more to be done out there, and the programme will definitely continue to empower women worldwide through ICT, in the hopes of inspiring change and ultimately bringing about the much needed results,” Raimilla said.

The campaign is just one element of ITU’s work in the field of gender empowerment through ICTs. Each year on the fourth Thursday in April, ITU and the global technology community celebrate ‘Girls in ICT Day’, an international awareness-raising initiative launched by ITU in 2010 to promote tech careers to a new generation of girls with an interest in science and maths.

Since its inception in 2010, the day has been gaining huge momentum around the world, with 2,700 events organized in 121 countries for an outreach of more than 70,000 girls and young women. Event organizers are gearing up for a big celebration on 24 April this year: stakeholders are encouraged to contact girlsinict@itu.int to let the ITU team know their plans.

ITU has also developed a range of digital literacy training materials designed to be used in school-based community centres and multi-purpose telecentres by women, indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities. 

In addition to providing basic ICT literacy, the materials show trainees how ICTs can be used to support a range of economic activities such as handicrafts, agro-tourism and agriculture. Training materials can be accessed here.

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