Telecom
Anambra State ICT Agency, Others host One-day Technology Appreciation Workshop for Media Professionals in the State
Anambra State ICT Agency on Friday, took select media professionals in the State on a technology appreciation workshop at the Agency’s conference hall, Government House, Awka.
The training was organized in conjunction with the State Ministry of Information, PA-CENT Technologies and Bonitas Technologies.
A brainchild of a media parley the practitioners had earlier last month with Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata, the MD/CEO Anambra State ICT Agency, the train aligns with the ‘Everything Technology And Everywhere Technology’ vision of Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo.
It featured explosive sessions on Use Modern Media And Productivity Tools, Use of Artificial Intelligence for Content Creation and Personal Digital Assistance.
In an opening remark, Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata, CFA, the Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer, Anambra State ICT Agency, explained that the training became important to scale up the knowledge base of the journalists to be better equipped in the area of technology and be able to deploy the knowledge to improve their work.
Agbata, who spoke through his Technical Assistant, Mr. Sunday Folayan, reminded the journalists that the difference between successful and unsuccessful practitioners is the quality of knowledge, saying the State ICT Agency is poised to avail them every required assistance they need to leverage technology to develop themselves.
“Training is passed from generation to generation but as it makes you better, it makes your competitors better too. The question is who gets better.
“I encourage journalists to maximize the use of training to increase their knowledge of ICT so as to improve their works.
“The MD/CEO, Anambra ICT Agency, who believes so much in the vision of Mr. Governor that everything in the state must have a touch of technology and technology must be seen in everything, will ensure that the ICT agency will be available to follow up the trainees and that the knowledge garnered is well internalized and deployed to make their works better,” Folayan said on behalf of CFA.
The State Commissioner for Information, Sir Paul Nwosu who was represented by the Director for Information, Mr. Emma Ikegwuani, in his remarks hailed Governor Soludo for his technological strides in the state.
In his words; “We appreciate Governor Soludo because prior to his administration, we have not seen this kind of digital revolution.
“Our job as the State Ministry of Information is to reach Ndi Anambra and let them know what the government is doing. It takes time to review news same day and forward it to sources we feed because of the number but with the new ideas exposed to us in this workshop, leveraging technology, we can better deliver on our mandate and reach Ndi Anambra timely too.”
The CEO of PA-CENT Technologies, Dr. Ikechukwu Umeh in his remarks, said the training brings to the fore, the need for participants to understand that times have changed and it has become imperative to stay updated and be ready to adapt to merging technological trends that will make their work seamless.
Mr. Somto Mezie-Okoye, of the Bonitas Technologies, in his goodwill message, stressed as an outstanding collaborator with ICT Agency, they are supporting the initiative, in engendering an upscale on the journalists’ skills.
“We are committed to helping the ICT Agency and the state government achieve its mantra of technology everywhere and everything technology across sectors in the state like we are doing today with the media
“Knowledge is not a one-off thing. It is a process so be sure to own what you learned today,” he said.
In his contribution, the Personal Assistant and Media Head for Nnewi South LGA, Dr. Orji Chukwudalu commended Governor Soludo, the Anambra ICT Agency and their partners for opening their eyes to some of the best ways to work especially when deadlines need to be met.
“I am particularly grateful for the knowledge garnered on Artificial intelligence and proof reading. I will be able to handle deliverables on prompt,” he added.
For Mr. Okechukwu Nwachinemelu, who also spoke on behalf of the participants from the Ministry of Information, they are appreciative to Mr. Governor for underscoring the need to digitize the state workforce and for the kind of work they do at the state ministry, they can now deliver faster.
The governor he said has given them computers and the knowledge will further expand their horizon on the deployment of digital tools.
In a vote of thanks on behalf of the Agency, the Tech Partnership and Digital Investment Lead, Mr. Jude Emesim praised Governor Soludo for his visionary leadership towards ensuring that the state is up-to-date with global trends, as technology is the new order.
“Many thanks to the solution Governor for not only providing the civil servants with digital tools but allowing them access more trending ways for doing their job especially leveraging AI technology.
“AI will not take people’s jobs from them; what will take their jobs from them is if they do not leverage AI to do their jobs more effectively,” he concluded.
The training which is the first batch in the series, also featured practical session where the media professionals worked with some modern media tools, as well as provided opportunity for them to ask questions and get responses on grey areas of such digital tools.
MTN Nigeria’s commitment to digital innovation took center stage at MarkHack 4.0, the annual marketing and technology conference held at Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Friday, May 23, 2025, with the theme ‘Experience Ignited: Fueling the Customer’s Journey’.
L-R: Akinbulejo Onabolu, Head, Enterprise Segment, MTN Nigeria; Eneyi Obi, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Rise; Tobi Olanisimi, Marketing Manager, AB InBev; Martha Kayode, Marketing Head, PZ Cussonz; Sulaiman Shaibu, CEO, BFT Consulting Service and Daniel Adeyemi, Managing Editor, Condia Business at the MarkHack 4.0 Conference held at the Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos on Friday, May 23, 2025.
In a celebration of innovation, technology, and storytelling, the company also took home the award for Best Use of Data in a Marketing Campaign at the Nigeria MarTech (MarkHack 4.0) Awards Night. This award recognizes brands that have successfully transformed data into compelling narratives and actionable insights to meaningfully engage their audiences.
Akinbulejo Onabolu, Senior Manager, Segment Management, Enterprise Business at MTN, joined a panel to discuss the power of immersive technologies on consumer behaviour. Drawing from MTN’s launch of its 5G Digital Experience Centre in Abuja last year, Onabolu highlighted the rapid evolution of immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) stating “Our 5G centre is a sandbox for our customers to come and see how technology can shape things. At the launch event, we unveiled a smart city to customers, clients and dignitaries in attendance, with gaming and other tech experiences.”
On the intersection of data, AR and VR, he added: “Co-creating with MTN takes our minds to a platform where different partners, companies and creators can bring their buildings, products and businesses for people to see via augmented reality and connectivity, just swiping through and following through that journey.
“As a part of impacting our customer’s lives, a few years ago, we also played around with the Metaverse and we ended up creating some of our back-office processes with some of our customer journeys on augmented reality and virtual reality such that a customer somewhere can engage with a virtual agent to solve real life problems and integrating that back into our operating systems. As an organization, at a lot of our events, you will find a lot of AR and VR experiences.”
Speaking on how MTN is embedding immersive technology into its day-to-day operations, he explained that the company is prioritizing both internal capability development and external engagement. “85% of our organization has undergone extensive training on AI and that already is a great addition to our daily lives. We’re using it to do things differently, developing user journeys and brainstorming different things. In terms of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, we are working with organizations to develop training programs which we use internally.”
He described the bases for this tech as stable connectivity, high bandwidth, high speed and low latency. “Over the past year, we’ve doubled our 5G capacity across the entire country. Wherever you are, you’ll probably start to pick up 5G. With our FibreX service, we’re going way beyond connectivity to create the systems and platforms to support the ecosystem, AR and VR. In addition to this, we’re also engaging regulatory systems to start to tease this out and build the proper governance.”
The session, moderated by Daniel Adeyemi, Managing Editor at Condia Business, also featured insights from leaders in FMCG, consulting, and global marketing, all underscoring the transformative potential of immersive technologies for Africa’s future.
MTN Nigeria has announced a massive capital expenditure (CAPEX) drive for 2025, nearly doubling its investment to almost 900 billion Naira, as it seeks to significantly enhance network service quality in major cities like Lagos and Abuja and extend improvements to other areas.
Karl Toriola
This financial commitment, up from a combined total of approximately 440 billion Naira spent in 2023 and 2024, was detailed by MTN Nigeria CEO, Dr. Karl Toriola, during a recent interview on Arise TV.
Toriola highlighted that a key focus of the increased CAPEX will be on “putting additional capacity in a city like Lagos, particularly in Abuja, where you have a lot of buildings coming up, you need additional sites because there are coverage issues.”
Beyond these critical urban centres, the investment aims to bolster network resilience and ensure power stability for its infrastructure nationwide. This includes proactively addressing site outages by ensuring timely payment for operational necessities such as diesel for generators, a persistent challenge in the Nigerian operating environment
The CEO outlined the comprehensive nature of the upgrade process, which involves “placing orders formally, opening letters of credit, and then the equipment gets shipped in and installed.” He added that where necessary, MTN will be “acquiring new sites” and “laying fiber to the base station to create better stability.”
While the immediate CAPEX is geared towards improving existing service quality and capacity, this investment aligns with MTN’s broader goals, which include enhancing financial inclusion in underserved rural areas, suggesting a long-term vision for network expansion and service improvement that extends beyond metropolitan areas.
Customers are expected to begin experiencing the positive impact of these investments with a “significant improvement in quality of service” anticipated by the end of the second quarter or early in the third quarter of 2025, according to Toriola.
Airtel Nigeria, telecom service provider, has announced that its AI-powered Spam Alert Service issued over 9.6 million spam alerts between March 13 and May 20, 2025.
As part of its ongoing commitment to protecting customers from unwanted and potentially fraudulent communications, Airtel designed the AI Spam Alert service to analyze traffic patterns and detect anomalies.
In the period since launch the AI pinpointed a total of 9,667,008 SMS as potential spam messages in the two months after its launch.
Of these, the system identified 528,080 on-net (Airtel-to-Airtel) and 9,138,928 off-net (from other networks) numbers as suspected spam messages, demonstrating the scale of the threat and Airtel’s advanced processing capability.
Airtel Nigeria is a subsidiary of Airtel Africa.
Commenting on this development, Dinesh Balsingh, CEO, Airtel Nigeria, restated Airtel`s commitment to protecting its customers.
“This milestone demonstrates the strength of our AI-driven infrastructure in combating the growing menace of spam and scam calls. At Airtel Nigeria, we are focused on connecting Nigerians and ensuring their safety and confidence while using our network.
“We understand that trust is the cornerstone of digital communication. That’s why we’ve invested heavily in intelligent systems that not only detect potential threats but also learn and evolve with data. As threats become more sophisticated, so will our solutions. As a company, we remain focused on leading the industry in innovation and customer satisfaction, ensuring that every Nigerian can enjoy a safer and smarter digital experience,” Mr. Balsingh said.
The Spam Alert Service is part of Airtel Nigeria’s broader strategy to integrate artificial intelligence into its core offerings to deliver smarter and safer experiences for its customers across the country.
Recall that the Spam Alert Service was launched on March 13, 2025. A groundbreaking and free solution from Airtel, it notifies users in real-time of suspected spam SMS messages by analyzing over 250 parameters.
The Airtel AI Spam Alert Service is available to all Airtel subscribers on smartphones and feature phones.
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