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Ondo State Empowers Teachers Ahead SAP Africa Code Week 2017

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SAP’s Africa Code Week (ACW) initiative, has received accolades as a critical leverage to bridge the continent-wide digital divide, as well as being a significant launch-pad for youth empowerment in the digital era. 

His Excellency, Mr. Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, executive governor of Ondo State, gave a rousing speech where he thanked SAP and ACW key and primary partners (UNESCO YouthMobile, the Cape Town Science Centre, the Galway Education Centre and Google) for their vision of every African child empowered through ICT.

Mr. Akeredolu spoke through his Deputy, Mr. Agboola Ajayi, at a two-day Train-the-Trainer (TTT) hands-on workshop organized by SAP in partnership with the State. Based on the globally-acclaimed Scratch interface developed by the MIT Media Lab to simplify the face of coding for the young generation, this TTT aimed at imparting coding skills to secondary school teachers across the three Senatorial Districts in the run up to Africa Code Week 2017 – which will take place from 18 to 25 October across 35 countries.

The Governor said he considers the workshop as very relevant since the time has come for Government and the private sector entities to work together to promote digital access, improve ICT skills and create opportunities for youths in our ever-competitive and dynamic world.

His words: “It is also gratifying to note that SAP shares this philosophy that we need to join forces to bridge the digital skills and gender gap continent-wide. I am therefore very happy that SAP is deploying their skilled volunteers to train teachers in Ondo State who, will in turn, will train the next generation of ICT savvy youths”.

Mr. Akeredolu said the State desires that the citizenry of Ondo State participate actively in the new economy, benefiting from the opportunities it presents. To facilitate this, the Government is championing many ICT initiatives such as the planned establishment of Tech Hubs in each of the three senatorial districts, to make governance more effective and efficient.

“This will provide an enabling environment for different categories of youths and ICT enthusiasts to acquire and develop different skills in information and communication technology, which can be deployed for economic gains as ‘techpreneurs’, the Governor said.

“ICT has become an indispensable and most effective platform for rapid and sustainable development in the 21st Century. It provides multiple economic and employment opportunities to both urban and rural development, increases productivity, offers easier and cheaper access to financial, educational and health services and generally enables society to function more efficiently.

“Governments worldwide, from sub-national to national, are placing huge emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related courses in the new educational paradigm. However, one common thread that passes through these four pillars of future prosperity in communities globally, is information technology. Hence, the prosperity, wealth and greatness of nations in the new milieu, where IT appreciation and adoption is king, will depend on how much of the IT concepts and benefits can be deployed, to drive governance and development,” Mr. Akinkugbe said.

Speaking further on ACW 2017, Claire Gillissen-Duval, director of EMEA Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP and Africa Code Week Global Lead said: “Leveraging freely accessible teaching materials like Scratch, ACW Train-the-Trainer workshops provide a sound, scalable structure for inter-group knowledge sharing, unlocking people’s potential and desire to serve as resources for each other. In the knowledge sharing age we live in, this is the key to scaling digital literacy initiatives in a sustainable way, across all communities.”

Also, Pedro Guerreiro, MD SAP West Africa stated that ACW, reinforces SAP’s commitment to education, creating a full lifecycle of skills support for young people in Africa. With a goal to empower 200,000+ teachers and positively impact the lives of 5M young Africans over the next 10 years, ACW is built to be sustainable and provide long-term impact.

Commenting on the success of the TTT event, Mr. Olajide Ademola Ajayi, Africa Code Week Ambassador in Nigeria, thanked the Ondo State government for embracing the initiative, facilitating teachers’ attendance and providing a superb venue (The Public Service Training Institute, Ilara-Mokin) for the event. He stated that 209 teachers, volunteers and unemployed graduates were trained by ACW Master Coding Instructors and Ambassadors over a 2-day period.

Mr. Ajayi also said: “following this successful TTT, we are working with the state government to ensure that the program is sustained, starting with teachers introducing Scratch coding to as many students as possible during the ACW Live sessions (from 18 to 25 October).”


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StarNews, Global Black Economic Forum Launch Business Competition In Partnership with MTN & USAID

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Africa’s leading video streaming platform, StarNews Mobile and the Global Black Economic Forum (GBEF), have announced a call for applications for the launch of their Business Competition in Lagos, Nigeria.

Held in partnership with MTN and United Nations Agency for International Development (USAID), the initiative will empower Nigeria’s most promising businesses that are classified as Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with invaluable investment and partnership opportunities from the USA.

Held over 10 weeks between April 8th to June 14th, hosted exclusively on the StarNews Biz Channel on the StarNews platform, this competition offers a platform for emerging entrepreneurs to showcase their ventures and gain national visibility.

With subscribers voting for their favourite candidates, the top 20 contestants will seize the spotlight and make their mark on the business landscape.

The StarNews Business Competition in partnership with GBEF delivers a unique opportunity for thriving Nigerian SMEs to access mentoring, funding, partnerships and socio-economic development tools through the Global Black Economic Forum.

With the prospect of securing cash prizes through StarNews worth up to NGN5,000,000, getting access to StarNews’s network of investors and the opportunity to gain national visibility by having their business on the StarNews web platform.

The top three winners will also receive coaching from GBEF’s Academy for Advancing Excellence and become part of GBEF’s ecosystem of global leaders committed to social and economic justice across the Black Diaspora.

Previous speakers at GBEF convenings from the entertainment sector include Wyclef Jean (Haitian Musician & Activist), Debra Lee (Former CEO of Black Entertainment Television – BET) and Ceci Kurzman (Founder of Nexus Management Group). Applications will close on April 5th 2024.

Speaking on the competition’s launch, Guy Kamgaing, Founder and CEO at StarNews Mobile, says “The StarNews Business Competition is a passion project close to our hearts at StarNews Mobile.

It’s about discovering the most promising business entrepreneurs and creators in Nigeria, opening up global opportunities for them and providing them with the resources and tools to achieve their goals.

By partnering with MTN, USAID and GBEF, we want to be a platform of empowerment for these SMEs by helping them give back to the communities that are supporting them.”

According to the US Embassy and Consulate for Nigeria, over 80% of Nigerian startups are incorporated in the United States and more than 60% of venture capital funding in Nigerian startups accounted for by the US.

In 2023 alone, Nigerian startups raised a total of $398mn however, this signalled a 66% funding decline compared to 2022 due to the global economic downturn, reinforcing the massive need for a fresh injection of capital and business support for Nigeria’s emerging SMEs.

Alphonso David, President and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum notes that, “Our partnership with StarNews Mobile is a critical resource as we continue to build the collective strength of entrepreneurship across the Diaspora.

“Building a sustainable ecosystem of Black entrepreneurs in the United States and across the African continent is essential to create a future that makes economic opportunity and economic freedom a reality for all.”

A sister company to ESSENCE, GBEF advances its work by convening global summits and conferences, bringing together world leaders, business leaders, entrepreneurs, celebrities and civic leaders to address the most challenging problems facing our communities.

GBEF’s Academy for Advancing Excellence facilitates workforce and leadership development strategy, addressing the talent pipeline & employee lifecycle, providing leadership development & coaching, and conducting institutional assessments & research.

GBEF also develops and implements economic and social justice policy recommendations with partners ranging from civil and human rights organisations to government entities and corporations that advocate for economic opportunity, social justice, and health equity through thought leadership, advocacy and litigation.

Launched in 2017, StarNews Mobile empowers African content creators with the unique opportunity to monetize their work through a subscription model, boasting over 4 million subscribers and a thriving community of more than 120 content creators.

With a strong presence across six countries including Cameroon, Nigeria, Côte D’Ivoire, Congo, Benin and Ghana, the platform has also established key partnerships with major telecom operators such as MTN and Orange.

To-date, StarNews Mobile has secured over $8mn in funding with its most recent raise – a $3mn pre-Series A funding round in October 2023 – led by Janngo Capital with participation from French football players Aurélien Tchouaméni, Jules Koundé and Mike Maignan.

 


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Companies Invest More than $100,000 Yearly to Upskill their Cybersecurity Teams – Study Reveals

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Over 70% of businesses pay more than USD $100,000 for additional training annually to keep skills of their cybersecurity employees up to date, a recent global Kaspersky study has revealed.

However, the surveyed companies also highlighted that there was a lack of relevant courses covering new challenging spheres in the educational market and stated that training does not always bring them the expected result.

In its recent study ‘The portrait of the modern Information Security professional’, Kaspersky examined the topic of the global cybersecurity staff shortage, analysing the exact reasons businesses lack cybersecurity experts, and identifying the ways they evaluate and upskill their cybersecurity workforce¹.

According to the research, companies are investing significant amounts in upskilling their cybersecurity teams: 43% of organisations globally say they usually spend between $100,000 and $200,000 per year on information security courses, while 31% even invest over $200,000 for training programs. The remaining 26% state they usually pay less than $100,000 for educational initiatives².

However, cybersecurity practitioners also note that the educational market is struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing industry and fail to deliver the necessary training programs on time.

Survey results for the Middle East, Turkiye, Africa (META) region shows that the scarcity of courses covering new challenging spheres (48%) was the main problem for those searching for cybersecurity training.

50% of respondents from the META region also stated that trainees tend to forget what they learned because they had no opportunity to apply newly acquired knowledge, therefore the courses were useless to them.

The need for special training pre-requisites such as coding and advanced mathematics, which were not specified at the pre-registration stage were also problematic for 37% of practitioners from the META region.

“With a constantly evolving threat landscape, businesses should continually improve the skills of their cybersecurity personnel in order to be well prepared for sophisticated cyberattacks.

“Developing high-profile specialists within the company and building internal expertise can be an effective strategy for organisations that aim to retain existing employees and allow them to grow professionally, instead of constantly hunting for new candidates and checking their professional backgrounds and practical skills.

“For organisations served by Managed Service Providers it is also important to maintain a pretty high level of expertise internally and use the same language when discussing the scope of services and Service Level Agreement with them,” comments Veniamin Levtsov, VP, Center of Corporate Business Expertise at Kaspersky.


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Heirs Insurance Launches User-friendly Website for Stakeholders

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Heirs Insurance Group, Nigeria’s fastest growing insurance group, has launched a new website that delivers the most user-friendly insurance experience in the industry.

Heirs Insurance Launches User-friendly Website for Stakeholders

In addition to its features that aid simple navigation, the website also personalizes the insurance experience taking customers through a short journey that enables them to make decisions quickly on the best insurance plan to support their personal and business success, or access competent insurance advisors to speak with.

According to Ifesinachi Okpagu, chief marketing officer, Heirs Insurance Group, the website, www.heirs insurance group.com, embodies the ethos of the brand: the delivery of simple, quick, and accessible insurance service that delights customers and brings the uninsured much closer to taking up insurance plans.

She said: “Today’s customers want simplicity and this new website delivers on that request, ensuring that people find the right insurance solutionsfor their needs in a few minutes. We are empowering customers to take control of their lives, their businesses, assets, and their most cherished people.” Heirs Insurance Group has been at the forefront of pioneering a new era of insurance solutions since its launch with the roll-out of various initiatives including a seamless mobile app, USSD; Prince, its intuitive chatbot; InConnect, its partnership portal Digital Experience Centre; and more. With the launch of this website, Heirs Insurance Group solidifies its position as the leading digital insurance company in Nigeria, democratising access to insurance for all.


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