The Board of Directors of Emerging Markets Telecommunication Services Limited (EMTS), operating as 9mobile, announced the appointment of seasoned business and finance professional; Abolaji Idowu as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

He succeeds Mrs Nkem Oni-Egboma, the outgoing CFO, who is stepping down to explore new opportunities outside of 9mobile. Idowu’s appointment is part of a significant leadership change initiated by the board of the telco in its determined efforts at business transformation which has so far seen the appointment of a new CEO to drive this process.

Idowu joins 9mobile with over 20 years of experience having led finance transformation and delivering ambitious growth for global giants, such as Vodafone, Telefonica O2, MTN Nigeria, Starcomms PLC, Shell, Barclays, PepsiCo International, British Gas, Johnson & Johnson, Norgine Pharmaceutical and Vivo Energy.

He has held senior positions in various organizations across Europe and Africa raising finance, transforming organizations, championing growth, delivering significant cost saving and efficiency, optimizing asset utilization, reorganizing and streamlining companies, and preparing entities for new markets.

His work has seen him traverse several markets including the United Kingdom, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Belgium, and the UAE.

In his comments on the new CFO appointment, 9mobile CEO Obafemi Banigbe said, Idowu is a valuable addition to the high-performance team we are building at 9mobile, with his cross-sector experience and the diverse working backgrounds and experiences.

He brings valuable perspectives and skill sets that can drive strategic financial decision-making, foster innovation, and enhance risk management.

He continued, “I am looking forward to working with him to accelerate delivery on the exciting 9mobile transformation strategy. Idowu has a proven track record and experience in helping to lead high-performance organizations that improve business resilience, drive operational excellence, and deliver accelerated strategic growth.”

Speaking on his appointment, Idowu pledged to leverage his rich experience to impact the finance and operations of the company positively. “I am very excited to be a part of this new phase of business transformation. I look forward to working closely with the management team led by the CEO, staff, and other stakeholders and collaborating with the board to achieve our shared goals,” he said.

As Chief Financial Officer, Idowu will provide strategic leadership for the Finance team, and take ownership of financial decisions in line with current trends and EMTS strategic vision.

Idowu holds a bachelor’s degree in Management and Accounting from Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) and has a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the prestigious Manchester Business School.

He is a Certified Chartered Accountant (ACCA), a Certified Financial Analyst (FMVA), and a Certified Business Coach. He is a guest on many radio and television programmes and speaks on many stages in Europe & Africa.

AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, launches AVEVA’s 2023 Sustainability Progress Report and the first edition of the AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Index at London Tech Week 2024 where the company advocates for an ethical and impact-driven AI aimed at increasing creativity and efficiency for a more sustainable world.

AVEVA 2023 Sustainability Progress Report: key learnings

In 2023, AVEVA continued to make progress on its core ESG framework objectives, including enabling the sustainable transformation of industry through its software, modelling environmental stewardship and ethical best practice, and fostering an inclusive workplace culture where every employee feels engaged and empowered to learn and grow.

This fourth edition of the report is AVEVA’s first publication of ESG data and workstream advancements aligned to a calendar year reporting period. It details progress made in 2023 to AVEVA’s three key pillars: Technology handprint, Operational footprint, and Inclusive culture.

Technology handprint

“Beyond our efforts to reduce our own carbon footprint, we recognize that our biggest opportunity to make a positive impact and accelerate our journey towards NetZero is through our core products, digital solutions that can help industries improve efficiency, circularity, traceability and resilience” declared Lisa Wee, Global Head of Sustainability, AVEVA.

With this regard, the company has developed a green new logo program that has supported in the first six months the deployment of clean tech activities for 25 customers.

In addition, with 13 new case studies quantifying the reduction of emissions AVEVA software enables for customers, the company demonstrates how it walks the talk through tangible achievements contributing to sustainability. Last but not least, hackathons run in 2023 generated 80 sustainability-led technology ideas for future innovations.

2023 also saw the launch of AVEVA’s Sustainability Accelerator program the purpose of which is to advance sustainability use cases and capabilities across the company’s portfolio and partner ecosystem, including via AVEVA’s industrial intelligence platform, CONNECT.

“AVEVA’s Sustainability Accelerator program aims to enable faster uptake of existing sustainability solutions across the industrial landscape, while we continue to invest in product capabilities and partnerships that will push out the frontiers of sustainability innovation for industry” said Joana Mainguy, Director of Sustainability in charge of the program.

Finally, AVEVA has pioneered a new standard for green software: since the end of 2023, 31% of its portfolio has built-in power consumption measurement technology.

Operational footprint

In 2023, AVEVA met 4 out of the 15 2025 ESG targets including 93% reduction in scope 1 and scope 2 emissions through a combination of measures: the company procured 100% of renewable electricity in all global markets as per RE100 criteria, reduced its overall fleet of 21% over the year, and counted hybrid or electric vehicles for 25% of the remaining fleet.

Notable achievements related to upstream emissions include a 36% decrease in purchased goods and services and a 49% decrease in business travel emissions.

The latter goes beyond our 2025 ESG goal of a 20% reduction.

Regarding the scope 3, AVEVA has integrated e-waste data in the inventory under the waste category to report another significant achievement: “Our initial target of diverting 5 tons of e-waste from landfill in 2025 was surpassed by 22.75 tons in 2023. 100% of e-waste sent to our disposal partner is now diverted from landfill,” explained Lisa Wee.

Inclusive culture

AVEVA’s commitment to developing a workplace environment where all employees feel included and are treated with dignity and respect is also highlighted in the report.

“Globally, with 39.9% of new hires, 29% of managers and 26,5% of leaders being women, AVEVA has significantly increased gender representation in 2023 and will continue in this direction to raise these numbers to 50% of new hires, 40% of managers and 30% of leaders by 2030. Besides, we have reached our goal of less than 1% pay equity, and it currently stands at 0.5%”,commented Lisa Wee with enthusiasm. In addition, AVEVA demonstrated its commitment to society donating £ 310,000 to causes supported by AVEVA employees’ communities around the world.

AVEVA also achieved key milestones in regions: In the US, the company has developed a partnership with two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for an ‘AVEVA Scholars Program. Spanning three years, the program includes scholarships and immersive onsite experiences, ultimately paving the way for talented Black scholars in Engineering and Computer Science to join the AVEVA team upon graduation. The pilot will kick-off mid-June 2024 and count 12 students.

AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Index Report: A 2-in-1 publication to report on industrial needs and to give guidance on existing solutions through inspiring examples of successful and sustainable digital transformation:

At London Tech Week 2024, AVEVA launched its first annual AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Index:

“AVEVA has been supporting the industrial world for more than half a century. Listening to our customers’ needs and understanding their challenges is how we innovate and develop tailored solutions that will help them cope with current and future challenges. With more than 25 000 customers across all industries, we have built a unique expertise. Today I’m delighted to introduce our first AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Index Report. Our ambition is to issue this report every year to help C-suite executives, business unit leaders, and strategic decision-makers leverage industrial intelligence and succeed in the digital age, with inspiring insights about how industries transform towards a more sustainable future” declared Caspar Herzberg, AVEVA CEO.

Drawing on research conducted with 500 global industry executives across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, this first edition gives valuable and actionable insights into the power, manufacturing, infrastructure, and chemicals industries. Including comments from AVEVA’s experts and leaders, the report unveils macro trends and describes the forces that drive change and innovation. It also presents case studies showcasing successful digitalization initiatives, and strategies for driving innovation and efficiency to chart a course towards a more sustainable and profitable future.

Google has announced a major expansion of Google Translate, adding 110 new languages to the platform. This update, part of Google’s 1,000 Languages Initiative, which uses AI models to support the 1,000 most spoken languages around the world, represents a significant step towards breaking down language barriers and fostering communication across diverse cultures.

The new inclusions include eight languages from across Africa, which now join Nigerian languages Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Fulani, Kanuri, and Tiv, which were already supported by Google Translate.

Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, Communications and Public Affairs Manager for West Africa at Google, highlighted the importance of this initiative: “Our mission is to enable everyone, everywhere, to understand the world and express themselves across languages. With the addition of these 110 new languages, including many from Africa, we’re opening up new opportunities for over half a billion people to connect and communicate.”

Africa, with its rich linguistic diversity, is a key focus of this expansion. The addition of numerous African languages underscores Google’s commitment to supporting underrepresented languages and amplifying voices from across the continent.

Kola-Ogunlade further explained the complexities involved in language selection: “A lot of consideration goes into new language additions for Google Translate, ranging from which languages to include to the use of specific spellings.

“Many languages do not have a single, standard form, so learning the specific dialect that is spoken the most in an area is more feasible. Our approach has been to prioritise the most commonly used varieties of each language.”

The latest expansion utilises the PaLM 2 large language model, following the addition of 24 languages in 2022 using Zero-Shot Machine Translation. This technology enables Translate to more efficiently learn languages that are closely related to one another or have various distinct dialects. Google collaborated extensively with native speakers to ensure accuracy and prioritise the most commonly used varieties of each language.

The 110 new languages represent over 614 million speakers worldwide, covering around 8% of the world’s population. This includes major world languages with over 100 million speakers, languages spoken by small Indigenous communities, and languages undergoing revitalization efforts.

Key African Languages Now Supported by Google Translate:

• Middle Africa: Kikongo

• Eastern Africa: Luo, Swati, Venda

• Western Africa: Fon, Wolof

• Southern Africa: Swati, Ndebele

Notably, this update marks Google’s largest expansion of African languages to date, including:

• Afar is a tonal language spoken in Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Of all the languages in this launch, Afar had the most volunteer community contributions.

• Cantonese is one of the most requested languages for Google Translate. Because Cantonese often overlaps with Mandarin in writing, it’s tricky to find data and train models.

• Manx is the Celtic language of the Isle of Man. It almost went extinct with the death of its last native speaker in 1974. But thanks to an island-wide revival movement, there are now thousands of speakers.

• NKo is a standardised form of the West African Manding languages that unifies many dialects into a common language. Its unique alphabet was invented in 1949, and it has an active research community that develops resources and technology for it today.

• Punjabi (Shahmukhi) is the variety of Punjabi written in Perso-Arabic script (Shahmukhi), and is the most spoken language in Pakistan.

• Tamazight (Amazigh) is a Berber language spoken across North Africa. Although there are many dialects, the written form is generally mutually understandable. It’s written in Latin script and Tifinagh script, both of which Google Translate supports.

• Tok Pisin is an English-based creole and the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea. If you speak English, try translating into Tok Pisin — you might be able to make out the meaning!