E-Business
Tears-of-Joy as Winners Emerge in Microsoft Devices’ “Passion to Empire” Campaign
Jessica Yahaya, an entrepreneur with passion for agricultural produce preservation was reduced to tears-of-joy as she joined Daniel Isa, Emmanuel Ugwueke, Emmanuel Okena and Godwin Benson as five top winners in the five-week Microsoft Mobile Devices and Services (MMDS) “From Passion to Empire” campaign.
The winners afterwards smiled home with N3.5miilion each and will be mentored by the likes of Nigerian top beauty entrepreneur, Tara Fela-Durotoye, entertainment mogul, the founder and CEO of Chocolate City, AuduMaikori and techpreneur and founding partner of leading careers and jobs website, Jobberman, Opeyemi Awoyemi.
Aside that, they have won themselves direct entry to Pan African University programme to be sponsored by MMDS too.
The campaign which commenced on February 16 ended on March 31, 2015 recorded over 4,000 entries while 15 were selected for the last pitching duel.
According to Mr. Joseph Umunakwe, managing director, Microsoft Mobile Devices and Services, inspiration for the “Passion to Empire” campaign was drawn from the drives of Bill Gates, the Microsoft Founder, who defiled all odds to establish the company, today recognized as the top software and hardware brand around the globe.
“The initiative” Umunakwe, said, “targeted at entrepreneurs to test the strength of their ideas, sharpen their skills and expand their frontiers as they go through a period of intensive business coaching with the aim to ultimately, establish their businesses”.
“Like I said during a programme, not long time ago, the reason our entrepreneurs fail is largely for lack of the bridge between passion and empire. We at Microsoft have seen it as a challenge and are willing to help out to ensure these noble ideas are ultimately utilized for the society’s growth”.
He added that the first and second runners up will be given opportunity to participate in the mentorship programme, because they have innovative acumen needful to the society.
Speaking on the sideline of the Lumia devices that spurred the campaign, Olumide Balogun, senior product manager, Microsoft Mobile Devices and Services, West and Central Africa, said that the Lumia 535 Dual SIM offers five great integrated Microsoft experiences, a wide-angle 5 megapixel front facing camera, and a spacious 5 inch display protected with Gorilla Glass 3 which makes it a perfect device for entrepreneurs who want to be able to do more on the go.
Expressing delight over the opportunity, Jessica Yahaya, said that while growing up as a child in Kaduna, she was never satisfied that her family records losses each year after fruitful farming, largely for lack of proper preservation mechanism.
She vowed to ensure that both her family, community and the nation, benefit from her technological program that will ensure proper farm products preservation.
On his part, Emmanuel Ugwueke whose team, in the last five years, have been manually engraving and branding companies’ names and logos on tin covers and packs, N3.5million is a major boost to their operations and will aid in transmission from manual to automated process.
Ugwueke said, “We have companies from Nassarawa, Benue, Kogi and others, who are willing to give us business, but we are limited due to the manual process of our operations. So, when I heard about the Microsoft Devices campaign, I reluctantly applied and they email me be in Lagos for the competition. Today, a new chapter has been opened to us.
“We have the idea that what we can produce will even discourage companies from travelling abroad for their packaging branding and engraving. Apart from that, it will stop capital flight and boast job creation in Nigeria. We are thankful to Microsoft and the judges who saw sense in what we are doing”.
On his part, Godwin Benson, hopes to transform the face of tutorial in Nigeria, adding that with a mobile application, they will connect parents and students to their choice tutors from any part of the country.
He said that the educational subsector has been growing by 17% in Nigeria and will even reach over 20% by year 2020.
According him, the application is to reduce the stress, time wastages and other inhibiting factors faced in the Nigerian tutorial and non-tutorial circle.
However, Emmanuel Okena, found pleasure in tackling challenges in the waste management and disposal in the country.
Using Lagos State as the model, he said that currently, residents are faced with issues such as a disconnect from the waste managers and improper billing and payment systems.
To him, it’s time the country removed the bottlenecks and move the secure to another level using technology.
Other winners also showcased creative ways to curbing Nigeria’s multi-faceted challenges.
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E-Business
Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
E-Business
NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
E-Business
NITDA, API Partner Against Harmful Online Content

National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in partnership with the Advocacy for Policy and Innovation (API), has convened a one-day workshop in Abuja to advance dialogue on the draft Online Harm Protection (OHP) Bill to confront harmful online content.
The bill, a rights-based, locally rooted, and multi-stakeholder initiative, is aimed at addressing the challenges of the digital age.
The event, which held yesterday, brought together government officials, civil society, academics, digital platforms, and legal experts to shape a policy framework designed to combat online ills such as cyberbullying, disinformation, hate speech, digital exploitation, and gender-based violence, while safeguarding democratic freedoms and digital inclusion.
In his keynote remarks, Kashifu Inuwa, director general, NITDA urged a paradigm shift in the way society engages with digital technologies.
“For almost two decades, we have viewed digital technology through a consumer lens. But these technologies are not just products and services. They are transforming how we live, work, and interact. They shape our politics, our society, and our democracy,” he said.
Warning against unaccountable digital power in the hands of private corporations, the DG likened the digital journey to the tale of Alice in Wonderland, where initial fascination with innovation has given way to deeper concerns about privacy, autonomy, and manipulation by big tech platforms.
“We thought we were using Google, but now we realise Google is using us. Social media, once a tool of expression, has become a tool of surveillance and influence,” Inuwa noted.
He, therefore, emphasised the urgency of developing a democratic and accountable framework. He explained that following the 2021 Twitter ban, NITDA facilitated dialogue between the government and platform operators, leading to a Code of Practice that stressed Nigeria’s sovereignty and legal standards.
According to him, the same process birthed the multi-stakeholder steering committee and the OHP White Paper in December 2024, laying the foundation for the current legislative push.
Earlier in her opening remarks, Victoria Manya, co-founder, API, observed the moral and civic necessity of the bill.
Her words: “The internet did not break society, it merely revealed its unfiltered version. Every day, Nigerians are exposed to harassment, disinformation, exploitation, and even algorithmic violence. The OHP Bill is not a war on the Internet. It is a peace offering to its users, a social contract for a digital future that is safe, inclusive, and democratic.
“We cannot answer the question of algorithmic power with unchecked state control. We must answer it with shared, rights-based governance. This bill must not be written for the people, but with them.”
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