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Tech’ll Fuel Changes in MEA Education Sector- Salcito

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Anthony Salcito is the vice president, Education for Microsoft Corporation’s Worldwide Public Sector organization. Under the role, Salcito works with education institutions and partners globally to embrace technology to optimize learning environments and student achievement.
He oversees the worldwide execution of Microsoft’s vision for education and its partnership and technology outreach efforts via the Worldwide Partners in Learning, Partners for Technology Access, and Public and Private Alliances programmes.
The education innovation enthusiast has been a Member of the Advisory Board of RM Educational Software, Inc. since April 2010.
Prior to the role, Salcito served as Director of HMH Holdings (Delaware), Inc until February 03, 2012. Salcito helped launch the U.S. Partners in Learning program in 2003, which was recognized in 2009 with the Public-Private Partnership Award from the U.S. National Governors Association, among other accolades.
With Microsoft’s key role at the Inaugural BETT Middle East Leadership Forum & Expo, held in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Education Council at Intercontinental Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Salcito in an interview with peter ugwu re-echoed Microsoft’s innovations in education as driven by the penchant interest to empowering global leaders towards solving challenges confronting education systems. Excerpt 

Significances of Inaugural BETT Middle East Leadership Forum & Expo
The Forum accords us the opportunity to learn, emphasis on the need to progress. This is a time in history that is very critical to push hard and drive for innovation and change in schools. So we need to challenge each other to push harder and faster for the changes needed in the education sector.

Global Educational Challenges and Microsoft’s Identified Solutions
That is very right. One of the things we have seen as a challenge is: teachers need support, training, encouragement and that is applicable in any part of the world. We have been investing and working hard on tools for online training through Microsoft Educator Support.
I was in Skype session with teachers in Nigeria a couple of weeks ago, to train them on Microsoft platform.
 It is very remarkable for us to celebrate these teachers; make them feel special. These teachers are our heroes.
Another thing we have seen globally is that teachers are unprepared for the changes and dynamics in education.
Now, we are working in line with UNESCO teachers’ capacity framework to help them, building a community for them to share their ideas.
We also see leaders struggling for change. There is a change in skills, likewise the cultural changes; universally that is a challenge. We have working Microsoft Education Leadership Transformation Framework which is a way of assisting the leaders embrace the kind of change they want to see in schools. So, we are working hard to see these achieved.
From the technology standpoint, we see some challenges as well. Access to bandwidth is a challenge. Microsoft is working to develop technologies that can function in low connectivity domains, as well as working with innovations to extend connectivity leveraging on TV broadband or whitespaces to extend the low cost connectivity to schools.

Microsoft Office365, Azure and Relevance to Transforming Education
One of the things to note is the value preposition Office365 has with regards to skill sets. The International Data Corporation (IDC) reported that globally Office365 is one of the top five skills requested.
The peculiarity is that, it is built on Word, PowerPoint, Excel experiences, but extends to Cloud ideation where teachers can share and connect to other classrooms around the world.
It contains tools where teachers can collaborate and share ideas; teachers can have one-to-one relationship with the students.
All that functionality and capability are provided in Office365 for free; a secured cloud environment where schools can manage innovation.
They can integrate their systems such as a Module (Learning) Management System to the Office365, as an endpoint solution at a very low cost.
So, we think that it is a very powerful set of tools for schools and Microsoft is working to providing training and materials to help schools leverage it; help teachers connect it, teach. For schools that have ‘Office’ for clients, a lot of the connectivity solutions are supported, because you can take notes in OneNote or manage emails…and they synchronize, especially when you have connection; and without connection you can still do your work. So, we are thinking ahead to bring seamless, affordable and adaptable solutions to every region.

Microsoft’s Assessment of MEA, Leadership and Preparedness for 21st Century Education Requirements
I would say that the reality of embracing technology is supported. I think we need to ask: are we really ready for changes that will happen in the classroom?
There are leaders in the regions (Middle East and Africa, MEA), who are seeing the changes in the classrooms. Globally, no leader in each of the regions think they are done.
The best schools in the developed countries would want to continue to push forward and there are many other countries that want to move faster. So, there is universal acceptance and the willingness to embrace the change.
Secondly, the change is really about technology as the core element. We know, the change requires leadership, people, and holistic embrace of the changes as quick as possible.
Technology will always be the fuel for the change; it will optimize, such as the learning requirements, opportunities for students, how content can be more personalized. Those things can be powered by technology, but technology shouldn’t be just the focus of the change.

Skill Sets for Relevance in 21st Century Work, Education, Environments, Etc.,   
When we think about skills, from the workplace perspective, then, we are focusing on students who are great in communication, collaborations, critical thinking, creativity, and a lot of Microsoft’s products are designed to help people achieve this.
With and from the Cloud platform, companies communicate, collaborate and pass critical information to express ideas even with the PowerPoint. So, we have a number of products and the kids are excited about it by expressing their ideas with technology. Importantly, we are working with teachers to embrace how we assess the skills. Microsoft is committed to redefining the skills set relevant in the 21st century work environment by providing the kids with the tools while they are in school. As employers we need the students coming from schools to be well equipped.
Another skill that is really critical to Nigeria is entrepreneurship. We need to create the entrepreneurial mindset for students; not only to work for large companies like Microsoft, but to build ‘Microsofts’ in Nigeria.

4Afrika Initiative
A number of the 4Afrika initiatives are education specific. We work from everything around connectivity to providing tools like Office365, providing trainings for school leaders to drive the impact and providing business (startups). A number of universities are participating in that test in creating new startups.
Two key pillars of 4Afrika initiative are: Access and Skills. Access implies to connectivity; that is where emphasis on leveraging TV whitespaces or spectrum to provide access to the people. The skills development are through trainings to teachers, and molding or developing the students at very younger age.

Microsoft’s Penchant Interest in Education
Education is a priority for Microsoft as we invest, not only in resources, people, and developers, to think about how we can support the space. And this is something that will continue for Microsoft going-forward. It is needed and will thrive through a combination of working with the school leaders to drive the change, getting Insights from teachers and students on how we can build tools and products they need. Every school has a programme and expectation, so we will continue to support them in achieving those programmes.

Microsoft Enabled Hardware/Devices to Drive Education Contents
Yeah, for the most parts what we have been planning to do is work with manufacturers to produce lower cost-effective technologies that leapfrog some of the contents. There are some devices we have.
They are rugged, embrace smart-pens, convertible/detachable and are delivered to the people locally. It is really a priority for us. We want to gain and retain confidence in Windows 10 as platform for developers and hardware manufacturers to build on, while the Office365 provides the unrivaled connectivity experiences.

Message to African Leaders from BETT’16
I think, the change that we should aspire to be is big and not compromised by the realities of connectivity and budgets are presented today. We have the opportunity to change the mindsets of the kids, develop them to be employable and expand the footprints on the Continent.
Korea is one of the best performing countries in the world. If you paint the picture of connectivity downtimes about 50 years ago, you will see a completely different landscape. We need leaders in Africa to project 50 years ahead on what is possible and stand the foundation on the kids in classes today. And when you work with partners like Microsoft, be assured that with shared Insights we can together build solutions to see-off the challenges. Thank you.

       


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EAIF Commits Additional US$30M to Support Indorama’s Expansion with Third Urea Plant in Nigeria

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The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), a Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) company, has committed a US$30 million senior debt facility to Indorama, a leading producer and exporter of fertiliser.

The investment enables the construction of a new plant, port terminal, handling stations, and storage facilities in Nigeria, providing a major boost for the country’s agricultural sector, which is a crucial driver of the country and region’s economic growth.

EAIF acted as a co-lender within a broader debt financing package arranged by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), mobilising US$1.25 billion from a syndicate of impact investors, development finance solutions, and commercial banks.

EAIF’s investment increases the Fund’s lending to the company to $111 million, reflecting a joint-ambition to accelerate Indorama’s growth strategy and Nigeria’s aspirations for diversification and industrialisation.

The new funding unlocks fresh capital to enable the construction of a dedicated port terminal and state-of-the-art urea fertiliser plant, anticipating an increase in its current capacity from 2.8 million metric tons to 4.2 million metric tons per annum.

The expansion leverages the company’s strategic location as a freight-competitive supplier serving the needs of significant urea markets in the southern Atlantic, including Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as West Africa, South Africa and the USA.

The facility bolsters Indorama’s capacity, extending its complex beyond the current two urea fertiliser plants, which is well poised to meet the entire demand of the Nigerian market.

The third urea plant aims to maximise output to meet the food demands of growing populations as disruptions precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine crisis affect food security around the globe.

Global crop production is reliant on the international supply of fertiliser. The landmark project is expected to position Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, as a leading producer of urea among the top 10 producers worldwide.

Contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals 8 and 9 on Decent Work and Economic Growth, and Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, EAIF’s loan forms part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) objective for new infrastructure to drive action on climate and nature.

The construction of the port terminal and third plant is set to begin in 2024, with commercial operations expected to commence in 2026. During the construction phase, it is estimated that over 500 jobs will be generated, further contributing to economic development in Nigeria and beyond.

Commenting on the transaction, Olivia Carballo, Managing Director, Emerging Market, Fixed Income at Ninety One, the fund manager of the EAIF, said: “Our continued support for Indorama demonstrates EAIF’s commitment to harnessing the region’s significant economic prospects.

Africa’s potential for industrialisation is tremendous, and this landmark project is a testament to Nigeria’s enhanced ability to produce and export competitively priced, high-quality fertiliser to farmers in regional and international markets, which will remain a priority for years to come.”

Munish Jindal, CEO, Indorama, said: “Indorama will utilise state-of-the-art technology and adhere to stringent environmental standards to ensure optimal efficiency, product quality and sustainability.

We believe that the establishment of this fertiliser will position Nigeria as a key player in the global agricultural market. We are committed to maximising the potential of this project to benefit farmers, communities, and stakeholders across the value chain.

The involvement of esteemed lenders like the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund will not only help Nigeria’s in becoming one of the largest exporter of the fertilisers in the region but will also address the issues of global food security. We extend our sincere appreciation to all our partners, lenders, and stakeholders for their unwavering support and dedication to our shared vision.”

Sérgio Pimenta, IFC Vice President for Africa, said: “Reliable access to high quality fertiliser is essential for food production and food security around the world. IFC’s investment in Indorama, along with African, Asian, European, and American partners, signals our joint commitment to support the agriculture sector, Nigeria’s economy, and the expansion of Indorama, an important supplier in the global food chain.”


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Lifi.net Achieves 500mbps Speed to Rank among Fastest Internet Providers in Nigeria

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Lifi.net, a fast-growing internet service provider, has attained internet speed that is many times faster than the documented average internet speed in Nigeria as at January 2024.

Lifi.net Image

Latest disclosure by LIfi.net shows that the company now delivers up to 500 megabits per seconds (mbps) internet speed in unlimited services provided to homes and offices. This is higher than the country’s average internet speed of 26.74mbps.

As internet subscriber base increases in Nigeria and hit 161.68 million in January, the quality of internet service provided by operators to their users still constitutes concerns as 2G network which has limited speed dominates the space by covering 57.78%.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealed through its latest data that while 3G is responsible for 9.36% of internet users in the country, 4G covers 31.75% of internet access and 5G internet only serves 1.11% of internet users in the country.

This combination explains why Nigeria ranked 93rd on the global mobile internet speed test out of 144 countries tested by Ookla, a U.S-based internet speed analysis firm, in January, putting the country’s median internet speed at 26.74 megabits per second (mbps).

However, Lifi.net (NT/007/22), a licensee of NCC, is among few Internet service providers (ISPs) that deliver fastest internet speed in Nigeria with up 350mbps for homes and 2500mbps for offices while assisting new ISPs with speeds over 5000mbps at the data centre and delivering the capacity to their various hubs at no extra cost.

“For over five years Lifi.net has been a leading network company, providing quality internet solutions at the speed of light and at affordable rates. We have highly technical and hard-working personnel and partners. We are very skilled at managing Cisco and Mikrotik Routers’ deployment, configurations, and integrations, fibre laying, and splicing,” says Abraham Oluwambe, Chief Operating Officer of Lifi.net.

He added that as operators attract more subscribers to their respective networks, they should equally place a premium on upgrading the quality of services to deliver broadband at the fastest internet speed possible.

“Our services are not only widespread but also affordable. We believe in making quality connectivity accessible to all. We understand the importance of budget-friendly solutions. Our cost-effective broadband plans ensure you get the best value for your investment without compromising on quality.

“While providing high-speed and reliable broadband connectivity, operators may choose the floor or the peak performance of its service. At Lifi.net, we always go for the latter,” he said.


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Our 2023 Ads Safety Report

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By Duncan Lennox, VP & GM of Ads Privacy and Safety

Billions of people around the world rely on Google products to provide relevant and trustworthy information, including ads. That’s why we have thousands of people working around the clock to safeguard the digital advertising ecosystem. Today, we are releasing our annual Ads Safety Report to share the progress we’ve made in enforcing our advertiser and publisher policies and to hold ourselves accountable in our work of maintaining a healthy ad-supported internet.

The key trend in 2023 was the impact of generative AI. This new technology introduced significant and exciting changes to the digital advertising industry, from performance optimization to image editing. Of course, generative AI also presents new challenges. We take these challenges seriously and will outline the work we are doing to address them head-on.

Just as importantly, generative AI presents a unique opportunity to improve our enforcement efforts significantly. Our teams are embracing this transformative technology, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), so that we can better keep people safe online.

Gen AI Bolsters Enforcement 

Our safety teams have long used AI-driven machine learning systems to enforce our policies at scale. It’s how, for years, we’ve been able to detect and block billions of bad ads before a person ever sees them. But, while still highly sophisticated, these machine learning models have historically needed to be trained extensively – they often rely on hundreds of thousands, if not millions of examples of violative content.

LLMs, on the other hand, are able to rapidly review and interpret content at a high volume, while also capturing important nuances within that content. These advanced reasoning capabilities have already resulted in larger-scale and more precise enforcement decisions on some of our more complex policies. Take, for example, our policy against Unreliable Financial Claims which includes ads promoting get-rich-quick schemes. The bad actors behind these types of ads have grown more sophisticated. They  adjust their tactics and tailor ads around new financial services or products, such as investment advice or digital currencies, to scam users.

To be sure, traditional machine learning models are trained to detect these policy violations. Yet, the fast-paced and ever-changing nature of financial trends make it, at times, harder to differentiate between legitimate and fake services and quickly scale our automated enforcement systems to combat scams. LLMs are more capable of quickly recognizing new trends in financial services, identifying the patterns of bad actors who are abusing those trends and distinguishing a legitimate business from a get-rich-quick scam. This has helped our teams become even more nimble in confronting emerging threats of all kinds.

We’ve only just begun to leverage the power of LLMs for ads safety. Gemini, launched publicly last year, is Google’s most capable AI modeI. We’re excited to have started bringing its sophisticated reasoning capabilities into our ads safety and enforcement efforts.

Our Work to Prevent Fraud and Scams

In 2023, scams and fraud across all online platforms were on the rise. Bad actors are constantly evolving their tactics to manipulate digital advertising in order to scam people and legitimate businesses alike. To counter these ever-shifting threats, we quickly updated policies, deployed rapid-response enforcement teams and sharpened our detection techniques.

  • In November, we launched our Limited Ads Serving policy, which is designed to protect users by limiting the reach of advertisers with whom we are less familiar. Under this policy, we’ve implemented a “get-to-know-you” period for advertisers who don’t yet have an established track record of good behavior, during which impressions for their ads might be limited in certain circumstances–for example, when there is an unclear relationship between the advertiser and a brand they are referencing. Ultimately, Limited Ads Serving, which is still in its early stages, will help ensure well-intentioned advertisers are able to build up trust with users, while limiting the reach of bad actors and reducing the risk of scams and misleading ads.

  • A critical part of protecting people from online harm hinges on our ability to respond to new abuse trends quickly. Toward the end of 2023 and into 2024, we faced a targeted campaign of ads featuring the likeness of public figures to scam users, often through the use of deepfakes. When we detected this threat, we created a dedicated team to respond immediately. We pinpointed patterns in the bad actors’ behavior, trained our automated enforcement models to detect similar ads and began removing them at scale. We also updated our misrepresentation policy to better enable us to rapidly suspend the accounts of bad actors.

Overall, we blocked or removed 206.5 million advertisements for violating our misrepresentation policy, which includes many scam tactics and 273.4 million advertisements for violating our financial services policy. We also blocked or removed over 1 billion advertisements for violating our policy against abusing the ad network, which includes promoting malware.

The fight against scam ads is an ongoing effort, as we see bad actors operating with more sophistication, at a greater scale, using new tactics such as deepfakes to deceive people. We’ll continue to dedicate extensive resources, making significant investments in detection technology and partnering with organizations like the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and Stop Scams UK to facilitate information sharing and protect consumers worldwide.

Investing in Election Integrity

Political ads are an important part of democratic elections. Candidates and parties use ads to raise awareness, share information and engage potential voters. In a year with several major elections around the world, we want to make sure voters continue to trust the election ads they may see on our platforms. That’s why we have long-standing identity verification and transparency requirements for election advertisers, as well as restrictions on how these advertisers can target their election ads. All election ads must also include a “paid for by” disclosure and are compiled in our publicly available transparency report. In 2023, we verified more than 5,000 new election advertisers and removed more than 7.3M election ads that came from advertisers who did not complete verification.

Last year, we were the first tech company to launch a new disclosure requirement for election ads containing synthetic content. As more advertisers leverage the power and opportunity of AI, we want to make sure we continue to provide people with the greater transparency and the information they need to make informed decisions.

Additionally, we’ve continued to enforce our policies against ads that promote demonstrably false election claims that could undermine trust or participation in democratic processes.

Overall 2023 Numbers

Our goal is to catch bad ads and suspend fraudulent accounts before they make it onto our platforms or remove them immediately once detected. AI is improving our enforcement on all these fronts. In 2023, we blocked or removed over 5.5 billion ads, slightly up from the prior year, and 12.7 million advertiser accounts, nearly double from the previous year. Similarly, we work to protect advertisers and people by removing our ads from publisher pages and sites that violate our policies, such as sexually explicit content or dangerous products. In 2023, we blocked or restricted ads from serving on more than 2.1 billion publisher pages, up slightly from 2022. We are also getting better at tackling pervasive or egregious violations. We took broader site-level enforcement action on more than 395,000 publisher sites, up markedly from 2022.

To put the impact of AI on this work into perspective: last year more than 90% of our publisher page level enforcement started with the use of machine learning models, including our latest LLMs. Of course, any advertiser or publisher can still appeal an enforcement action if they think we got it wrong. Our teams will review it and, in the cases where we find errors, use it to improve our systems.

Staying Nimble and Looking Ahead

When it comes to ads safety, a lot can change over the course of a year: the introduction of new technology such as generative AI to novel abuse trends and global conflicts. And the digital advertising space has to be nimble and ready to react. That’s why we are continuously developing new policies, strengthening our enforcement systems, deepening cross-industry collaboration and offering more control to people, publishers and advertisers.

In 2023, for example, we launched the Ads Transparency Center, a searchable hub of all ads from verified advertisers, which helps people quickly and easily learn more about the ads they see on Search, YouTube and Display. We also updated our suitability controls to make it simpler and quicker for advertisers to exclude topics that they wish to avoid across YouTube and Display inventory. Overall, we made 31 updates to our Ads and Publisher policies.

Though we don’t yet know what the rest of 2024 has in store for us, we are confident that our investments in policy, detection and enforcement will prepare us for any challenges ahead.


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