Telecom
Fundanenterprise.org Unveils Portal on Thursday
Fundanenterprise.org, Nigeria’s new donation based website built specifically to raise funds and grants to support start-up, micro, small and medium sized enterprises will officially be opened to the general public on Thursday, 22 November, 2018.
The official launch of www.fundanenterprise.org is billed to hold at Best Western Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
In a statement released on Monday by Magnus Nmonwu, Trustee, MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, said that Fundanenterprise.org is a donation based crowdfunding website ( the first of its kind in Nigeria) built specifically for fundraising activities, solely in form of grants to support start-up, micro, small and medium sized enterprises in Nigeria and beyond.
He noted that the website is owned and operated by the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Crowd Funding Foundation, a new not-for-profit organisation in Nigeria.
According to him, “Given the imbalance in the Nigerian economy, and its recent rating as the poorest country in world, it is high time individuals and groups joined hands together to make our economy work again.
“It’s high time we began to support one another in every littlest way in order to expunge the poverty index and make our economy great again.
“The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, through www.fundanenterprise.org, is here, not only to provide the much needed relief to start-ups, small and growing businesses, but to change the way Nigerians in particular and the world in general supports business operations.”
He stressed that Crowdfunding will raise funds from a large number and spread to people all over the world, majorly through a website, noting that this is a globally accepted financing method, which is a much easier alternative to the traditional fund raising through the Capital Markets and other Financial Institutions.
Nmonwu stated that Crowdfunding has been used globally and successfully to fund a wide range of entrepreneurial ventures and community-oriented projects, as well as test the community’s reception of a particular project or business idea to find out if it will be successful before embarking on such business.
He said “MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, Nigeria, believes that by bringing this practice of crowdfunding for enterprises closer home, Nigerians can benefit from the much needed ease of funding financial support for their personal and group enterprises.
“The mandate of MSME Crowd Funding Foundation is therefore solely to help build thriving enterprises, as many as can possibly be; to guarantee a meaningful life and livelihood for Africans, and Nigerians in particular.”
He further revealed that they will carry out their mandate through three (3) key functions that will include Skills Training of community members with the necessary financial and soft skills training to start, manage and grow their businesses.
Also crowdfunding website is designed to link enterprises that need funding with good people who love engaging in philanthropic activities and changing lives.
Another mandate is Handholding/ Monitoring of Enterprises which will ensure compulsory one-year handholding support put in place to assist enterprises who are beneficiaries of grants or backers’ grants from www.fundanenterprise.org.
“Existing businesses are also offered the same business process improvement to ensure that they henceforth grow more, generate their own funding needs and also assist other start-up and struggling enterprises with donations.
“It is all intended to be a communal enterprise building circle, to empower our people and build our economy.
“The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, through www.fundanenterprise.org, is here to help our country and our world, he added”
It is the belief of the MSME Crowd Funding Foundation that unless many more people undertake meaningful and viable enterprises; unless the elite and more successful people in our society make it a point of duty to support budding and struggling enterprises, our economy will continue to be underdeveloped.
The Foundation is therefore calling on everyone out there who wishes to make an impact in the society (no matter how small) to support us in this cause to make our economy buoyant again.
Donate to an enterprise today on www.fundanenterprise.org.
Nigeria will criminalize the destruction of broadband fiber cables following repeated complaints by MTN Nigeria Communications Plc and other telecommunications companies that they are losing billions of naira, according to people familiar with the matter.
Federal ministry of works, which supervises federal road constructors, is finalizing the regulation that will be signed as an executive order by President Bola Tinubu, said the people, asking not to be identified as they weren’t authorized to comment.
While there are presently laws against vandalism, the authorities are aiming to regulate construction firms more closely.
The order will enforce stiff penalties on offenders, said the people, declining to provide more details or say when it will be signed.
“Telecom assets are critical backbone that supports the economy across sectors,” said Temitope Ajayi, a senior presidential aide, who noted that the Association of Telecommunications Companies (ATCON) has been demanding the classification for years.
New rules will provide “further assurance that the Nigerian government will protect their investments against vandals and criminal elements.”
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) estimates that the sector will make up more than a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product by the end of 2027, up from 13.5% in the third quarter of last year.
The move will help alleviate pressure on the telecoms sector, which is facing increased operating costs and sales pressures from a sharp depreciation in the currency and a threefold increase in energy prices.
Repairs and revenue losses from damaged cables is estimated to have cost the sector almost 27 billion naira ($23 million) last year alone, documents seen by Bloomberg show.
MTN Nigeria, the biggest wireless operator in Africa’s most-populous nation, and Airtel Africa Plc bore the brunt of the costs, the documents show.
MTN suffered more than 6,000 cuts on its fiber cable last year, the documents show. On Feb. 28, a cut on its network in three different locations by a road construction firm, an oil serving company and someone burning rubbish in a manhole meant customers faced more than five hours of data and voice outages.
The operator relocated 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) of vulnerable fiber cables between 2022 and 2023, at a cost of more than 11 billion naira – enough to build 870 kilometers of new fiber lines to areas without coverage.
A presidential order on the matter would be welcomed, said Tony Izuagbe Emoekpere, president, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria.
“When it comes to communication infrastructure, they are destroyed at will, so we are eagerly awaiting the president’s order,” he said. “It would be a great boost to the industry, and it will also encourage investment.”
Telegram, the messaging giant founded by Pavel Durov and headquartered in Dubai, anticipates hitting a remarkable milestone of one billion active monthly users within the next year.
Durov’s departure from Russia in 2014, prompted by governmental pressures to stifle opposition communities on his VK social media platform, underscores Telegram’s commitment to neutrality despite geopolitical challenges.
With 900 million active users currently, Telegram stands as a beacon of free speech in the digital realm, particularly influential in former Soviet Union republics and pivotal during conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine standoff.
Durov’s staunch advocacy for freedom of expression and opposition to censorship by tech giants like Apple and Google reinforces Telegram’s status as a neutral platform.
Opting for the UAE as its base, Durov cites its neutrality and openness as conducive to Telegram’s ethos, serving both opposition groups and governments alike while maintaining impartiality.
In Durov’s vision, the pursuit of freedom eclipses material gain, shaping Telegram’s trajectory as a bastion of digital liberation.
To further strengthen Nigeria’s digital economy in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) have announced a collaboration on National Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to enhance and create synergy between digital identity, payment ecosystem, and secure & seemless data exchange capabilities for Nigeria.
During the meeting between the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, and Director General of NIMC, Engr. Bisoye Coker-Odusote, with some management staff of both organisations, they discussed various initiatives, which include building DPI stacks for a secured and seamless data exchange and forming partnerships to transform the national identity system.
This collaboration also aims to harness the potential of the innovative ecosystem and emphasise the use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to drive digital transformation in Nigeria.
To ensure a smooth implementation, a 12-man committee was set up. This committee will play a crucial role in kickstarting and harmonising the initiatives. It is expected to deliver a comprehensive implementation report within the next 4 weeks
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