Telecom
Airtel Shines At African Cristal Awards 2018
![](https://www.nigeriacommunicationsweek.com.ng/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/airtel-logo.jpg)
Airtel Nigeria, leading telecommunications services provider, got a standing ovation at the 2018 Africa Cristal Awards after receiving the biggest award of the event (grand prix) and three other accolades in the telecoms category for its SmartRecharge campaign.
Airtel’s SmartRecharge campaign themed Prayer Warrior (Amin) won the grand prix, grand Cristal and a gold medal while Monitoring Spirit (Whatchu Doing?) bagged a Silver award.
According to Ahmad Mohkles, Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel Nigeria, the awards reflect Airtel’s passion to connect with its major stakeholders in an emotional, tasteful, creative and innovative manner.
“As a key stakeholder in the society, we keep looking for innovative and creative ways to celebrate our customers, join in their successes and victories as well as empower them to fulfill their dreams and realize their full potentials.
“Airtel will continue to inspire narrative that will enthrone customers as kings just as we will continue to offer innovative and bespoke value offerings that will make life simpler, better and more enjoyable for telecoms consumers in Nigeria,” he said.
The Airtel SmartRecharge campaign relived love and child-mother bond through a storytelling approach.
In the Ad, Iya Rainbow discovered that her son, Segun had sent her a Christmas hamper overflowing with goodies that gladdened her heart.
Knowing that her phone had been recently recharged with Airtel SmartRecharge – albeit secretly by her son – she called him at the earliest sign of daybreak and pours her heartfelt prayers on him, never minding the ordeal this puts on Segun from dawn to dusk.
The African Cristal Festival rewards the best advertising campaigns created and broadcasted over the African continent, on any media.
More than 400 professionals of the integrated marketing communications and the media were present at this year’s festival which was held in Marrakech, Morocco from 2 to 5 May 2018.
At the last edition of the event, Airtel Nigeria won three awards.
The telco’s television commercial, ‘Data is life’, created to drive its mobile Internet value offering, placed Nigeria on the continental creativity and innovation map with the haul of three awards in the categories of African Cristal Awards film for the ‘Moments’ TVC and two regional categories of Nigerian Cristal Awards: film — ‘Moments’ and Integrated.
The 2018 jury include: Michael Zylstra, Chief Strategy Officer Ssa, Dentsu Aegis Network, South Africa; Steve Babaeko, CEO& Chief Creative Officer, X3M Ideas, Nigeria; IlhamBensouda, Chief Strategy Officer For Ssa, Mim, Morocco, South Africa; Pascal Lacase, Creative Director, Maurice Publicité Ogilvy & Mather, Mauritius;
Others are Alex Barry, CEO, Agence 6ème Sens, Côte D’ivoire; Ali El Forkani, Senior Strategic Planner, Tribal Ddb & Rapp, Morocco; Vincent Saccomanno, Ceo, Dagobert, France; Terence Calasans, Managing Director & Executive Creative Director, Mccann Conakry, Guinea And ElkeCathrall, Director Africa, IPG Mediabrands, South Africa.
Telecom
Gombe Commissioner of Police Visits GBB Command Centre, Strengthens Collaboration on ICT-Driven Security Solutions
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Galaxy Backbone (GBB) Limited welcomed the newly appointed Commissioner of Police for Gombe State, CP Bello Yahaya, on a courtesy visit to its North East Regional Office and Safe City Emergency Command Centre.
This visit underscored the growing synergy between law enforcement and technology-driven solutions in strengthening security operations and fostering digital transformation in the region.
During the visit, CP Bello Yahaya was received by Mr. Ibrahim Bello, Regional Coordinator of GBB North East Regional Office, alongside key members of the GBB team.
The engagement provided a platform to explore strategic collaborations aimed at enhancing security infrastructure, digital transformation, and capacity-building initiatives for the Gombe State Police Command.
The Commissioner was taken on a guided tour of the Safe City Emergency Command Centre, a state-of-the-art facility that forms a critical part of the National Information and Communications Technology Infrastructure Backbone (NICTIB) project.
The centre plays a pivotal role in improving security architecture across Gombe State and the North East region, leveraging cutting-edge surveillance systems, real-time monitoring tools, and integrated emergency response mechanisms.
With its advanced Unified Communications System, security analytics, and digital emergency response coordination, the Safe City Command Centre provides law enforcement with real-time intelligence, proactive threat detection, and seamless inter-agency collaboration, enabling a more effective and responsive approach to public safety.
CP Bello Yahaya expressed keen interest in leveraging ICT solutions to strengthen policing efforts, emphasizing the importance of technology in modern crime prevention, data-driven policing, and crisis management.
He highlighted the need for enhanced digital transformation, improved connectivity, and expanded training programs to equip officers with the necessary skills to operate effectively in a digitally evolving security landscape.
Galaxy Backbone reaffirmed its commitment to supporting law enforcement agencies, government institutions, and critical stakeholders through innovative ICT solutions, secure cloud infrastructure, and digital training programs.
By providing access to high-speed connectivity, cybersecurity frameworks, and cloud-powered command centres, GBB continues to drive the adoption of smart policing solutions and enhanced security management across Nigeria.
The visit concluded with a shared commitment to deepening engagement between Galaxy Backbone and the Gombe State Police Command, focusing on optimizing digital transformation initiatives for law enforcement efficiency, expanding the scope of ICT-driven surveillance and emergency response systems and strengthening training programs for officers to enhance digital skills and operational effectiveness.
As Nigeria’s leading digital infrastructure provider, Galaxy Backbone continues to shape the future of public safety, digital governance, and cybersecurity, ensuring that law enforcement agencies have access to the best tools to protect lives and property.
Telecom
Salesforce Collaborates with Tech Leaders to Launch AI Energy Score for Model Efficiency
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Salesforce, in collaboration with Hugging Face, Cohere, and Carnegie Mellon University, announced the release of the AI Energy Score, a first-of-its-kind benchmarking tool that lets AI developers and users evaluate, identify, and compare the energy consumption of AI models.
Salesforce also announced it will be the first AI model developer to disclose the energy efficiency data of its proprietary models under the new framework.
The AI Energy Score aims to address the lack of transparency about the environmental impact of AI models. Similar to how ENERGY STAR transformed energy efficiency standards for appliances and electronics, this initiative establishes a clear, trusted benchmark for AI model sustainability.
“Reducing AI energy consumption lowers operational costs, optimises infrastructure, and enhances long-term sustainability and profitability. We are proud to work with industry leaders to build a more transparent AI ecosystem,” says Linda Saunders, Salesforce Country Manager and Senior Director of Solution Engineering for Africa.
The AI Energy Score will debut at the AI Action Summit, where leaders from over 100 countries, the private sector, and civil society will convene to harness AI for good. By enhancing transparency, the score can drive market preference for efficient models and incentivise sustainable AI development. Recognised by the French Government and the Paris Peace Forum for its transformative potential, the AI Energy Score features:
Standardised Energy Ratings: A standardised framework for measuring and comparing AI model energy efficiency.
Public Leaderboard: A comprehensive leaderboard that features scores for 10 common AI tasks — such as text generation, image generation, and summarisation — performed by 166 models, including Salesforce’s SFR-Embedding, xLAM, and SF-TextBase.
Benchmarking Portal: A platform where AI developers can submit their open or proprietary AI models to be evaluated and added to the leaderboard. Open models can be automatically tested, while closed models can be evaluated through a secured testing sandbox.
Recognisable Energy Use Label: A new 1- to 5-star label that rates AI model energy use, with five stars indicating the highest efficiency. This helps developers and users easily identify and choose more sustainable models. Once rated, AI developers can generate standardised labels to share their models’ energy score, with built-in guidance on the proper label display for visibility and impact.
Last year, the company introduced Agentforce, the agentic layer of the Salesforce Platform for deploying autonomous AI agents across any business function. Agentforce offers tools to build and customise agents, as well as a library of ready-to-use skills for sales, service, marketing, commerce, Tableau, Slack, and more.
Telecom
Breaking….Tariff Hike: MTN Apologizes to Nigerians but Silent on Reversal
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MTN Nigeria Communication Plc has apologised to customers for the 200 per cent tariff hike.
MTN’s apology came in the wake of public outcry for raising tariff above the 50 per cent upward review approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The network provider urged netizens to ‘forgive and forget’.
Recall that MTN surprised its customers by raising its 15GB data bundle from N2,000 to N6,000, reflecting 200 per cent hike.
MTN also reviewed the 1.5TB plan from N150,000 to N240,000, which represents a 60 per cent hike.
Before, a 100GB bundle cost N20,000 but the network reviewed a 90GB bundle to N25,000.
The 600GB bundle has been raised from N75,000 to N120,000 for 480GB, representing 60 per cent surge.
The operator has apologized for the increase but no mention was made on whether the data price would be reviewed.
MTN said in a message:
“To our 15G digital bundle lovers,
You dey vex. We know.
We know how upsetting it must have been to suddenly wake up to a 200% increase on your favourite digital bundle.
We could share several reasons, and provide explanahions, bur omo, all that One na story.
We don cast. We get it and admit it. Let’s just say na mistake.
In this love season, don’t stay angry with us. Please Forgive and forget. You matter die and we will never stop showing you how much.
Let’s continue our relationship.
Thank you for your understanding.
Yours Truly,
MTN Nigeria”
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