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Ideas, Startups That Could Benefit From #ProudlyMadeInAba Campaign

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Except you live in the Mass – you’d have noticed the renewed push for ‘Made In Aba’ support. TBWA with Support from The Ford Foundation is currently running a ‘Proudly Made in Aba Campaign.’

Aba is a cosmopolitan industrial city in the South-Eastern State of Abia in Nigeria. While Nigerians were more comfortable with imported products, not so many of them knew that perhaps some of the ‘foreign products’ were indeed ‘Made in Aba.’

In the ’80s, Aba was one of the industrial powerhouses of Nigeria. Years of neglect and lack of vision from leaders led to the decay of infrastructure and public utilities. This, in turn, led to many of the factories shutting down.

The factories could shut down but not the families who had no place to go. On the heels of the departing factory owners and devastation, ruin and oblique future, rose a generation of innovators and industrialists who fought neglect and lack of support to produce world-class goods/products fitting enough for the foreign market but not for Nigeria!

The story continued until Nigerians – beaten by the hard times occasioned by the loss of value from the recession and inflation arising from global oil price slump – suddenly realized that dependence on oil was a big mistake and started the #BuyNaijaToSaveTheNaira Campaign on Social Media. https://www.youtube.com/embed/bQJPLw-tRFg

The timing of the #BuyNaija Campaign coincided with the ascendance of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu who quickly seized the moment to launch the Made in Aba campaign.

However, it is TBWA in partnership with The Ford Foundation that have taken the campaign to heights hitherto unimagined.

Everywhere you turn from social media to International Television, the #ProudlyMadeInAba campaign sticks out. That the campaign is successful isn’t debatable, but, are the people on ground aware and positioning for the benefits of this campaign? There’s a consensus for a massive knowledge/technology intervention in the city to help modernise and position the hard working business people in Aba to reap benefits of this campaign.

This presents huge opportunities for startup in different areas and this article will shine light on some of those.

Quality Control / Assurance Agency
The #ProudlyMadeinAba campaign is reconstructing the narrative and perspective of how business is done in the region while also showcasing the volume of quality products being produced in the space. This no doubt will raise awareness and  increase demand for goods and services.

Any company that can figure out how to convince the manufacturers to pay for QA, while earning the trust of the rest of the world will no doubt be in business. And this can be replicated across the other manufacturing hubs/clusters across Nigeria.

Standardisation
Startups also can set up training facilities and modular courses to teach quality/standard concepts and procedures to meet with global best practices.

Easy to use training courses that could utilise innovative mobile technology to help manufacturers in Aba seem like a big enough market that can be replicated in other hubs.

Logistics
Innovative Logistic solutions will definitely be worth the time and energy. Existing companies might want to look into expanding there. The solution(s) must be centred around shortening the delivery time and security of products while considering cost.

Marketplace Solutions
Technology driven Marketplace Solution will also benefit. The website and app development market around Aba is about to peak. Companies offering these services might want to set up shops now.

Business Process Automations
Technology driven Automation processes will soon be in high demand. As business struggle soon to meet-up with increase in demands, they’d be looking for ways to improve efficiency and maximise profit.

Tax & Statutory Compliance Consulting
Startups also have a huge market opportunity in building a business around creating solutions for the public sector. Areas to consider majorly should include modernizing taxation processes in the various markets and manufacturing clusters in Aba. Taxes and other related compliance matters are easily sorted out both for businesses and for the agencies (both private and public).

Conclusion
These don’t scratch the many opportunities that are present and open for startups to benefit from as the #ProudlyMadeInAba campaign continues and its impact grow more and more.

 Joshua Triumphant contributed to this article.

 


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Nigeria CommunicationsWeek believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. So since 2007, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and how they affect lives.

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E-Business

Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

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China’s Huawei Technologies unveiled an AI computing system on Saturday that an industry expert said rivals Nvidia’s most advanced product, as the company aims to expand its footprint in the country’s booming AI sector.

Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

The CloudMatrix 384 system made its public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai, attracting a large crowd to Huawei’s booth with its showcase of cutting-edge AI innovations.

The system has attracted significant interest from the global AI community since Huawei (HWT.UL) first introduced it in April. Industry analysts see it as a direct challenger to Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72, the most advanced system-level offering currently available from the U.S. chipmaker.

In an April article, Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis, stated that Huawei now possesses AI system capabilities that could surpass those of Nvidia.

Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system.

A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions.

Huawei has become widely regarded as China’s most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions.

Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been “moving quite fast” and named the CloudMatrix as an example.

The CloudMatrix 384 system features 384 of Huawei’s latest 910C chips and, according to SemiAnalysis, surpasses Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 in certain performance metrics, despite the latter using 72 B200 chips.

SemiAnalysis attributes this performance advantage to Huawei’s strong system design, which offsets the lower power of individual chips by leveraging a greater number of them and incorporating system-level innovations.

Huawei describes the system as utilizing a “supernode” architecture that enables ultra-high-speed interconnectivity between chips.

In June, Zhang Pingan, CEO, Huawei Cloud confirmed that the CloudMatrix 384 was already operational on Huawei’s cloud platform.


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Transcorp Hotels Delivers Stellar H1 Results, Declares Over ₦1Bn Dividend

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Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.

The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.

In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.

Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.


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Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

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Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.

Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

 

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”.

 

 

 


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