E-Business
CcHUB Launches Africa’s First ‘Design Lab’ in Kigali
CcHUB has launched the ‘CcHUB Design Lab’. The design lab is an unprecedented next step in Africa’s growing tech sector, and is set to become a leading creative space where its multidisciplinary team of product designers and engineers will collaborate with scientists and stakeholders globally, to explore the application of emerging technologies that will solve Africa’s systemic problems in Public Health, Education, Governance and the Private Sector.
The new state-of-the-art lab, located in Kigali, Rwanda, sees CcHUB, the leading innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity, expand its physical presence to another African country, for the first time in its eight year history.
CcHUB is now looking to partner with both public and private industry bodies from across the continent.
Commenting on the official launch, H.E. Paula Ingabire says “CcHUB’s expansion into Kigali, marked with the launch of the Design Lab today, is an exciting landmark for Rwanda’s burgeoning tech community.
Rwanda is keen on collaborating with world-class partners to establish ourselves as a leading destination that nurtures innovation-driven enterprises. We see technology as an integral gateway and means of developing society – an ethos and mission shared by CcHUB.
As we strive to become a knowledge-based economy, we will continue to build long-lasting, strategic partnerships that celebrate excellence, forge ahead with progress and that are, essentially, a force for good that will impact thousands of people across the continent.”
To coincide with the launch, CcHUB will announce the Rwanda Biomedical Centre as its first local company to partner, joining the likes of Go-Ga Lab, Nimcure and Safe Online.
With an unrivalled track record of supporting tech-enabled companies connected with civic society, CcHUB boasts a pre-incubation portfolio of over 60 companies, including digital blood bank, Lifebank, recycling venture, WeCyclers and Budgit, a web platform that simplifies the Nigerian budget and public data.
The Design Lab, which further reinforces CcHUB’s commitment to solving Africa’s biggest development and social challenges, will be powered by a multidisciplinary design team of designers and engineers. Using design and innovation, the three key sectors of focus are:
Public Health: Focused on digital epidemiology by collaborating with a cross-sector of stakeholders including scientists, researchers, health professionals and developers to use technology in accelerating the adoption of locally-created solutions for better detection and surveillance of diseases, and improving adherence to treatment.
Education: Focused on improving students’ interests, participation and learning outcomes in STEM education, with attention paid to teaching methods and use of creative content.
Governance: Focused on the role of technology in helping the government promote participatory governance, transparency and more effective public services for social and economic prosperity.
On the launch of the Design Lab, ‘Bosun Tijani, CcHUB’s Co-founder and CEO comments, “We’ve been building tech businesses alongside African entrepreneurs for almost a decade and in that time, we’ve identified a common challenge that businesses face when it comes to sustainable growth – Design and Innovation.
“With the CcHUB Design lab, we will be collaborating with organisations that may not have the capacity to design, build and innovate as quick as leaner startups would.
“The lab will also build on CcHUB’s extensive global and pan-African network of partners, research institutes and governmental organisations to execute practical design projects that will solve some of our social and business challenges at scale”
“Whilst our work from the lab will focus on the entire continent, we chose Rwanda as the country to operate from because of the ease of doing business in the country.
“Additionally, by collaborating with the Government of Rwanda, whose vision aligns with ours, we hope to find solutions that will enable socio-economic development, productivity and development across Africa.”
Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has approved N242.8m for the procurement of a Microsoft 365 licence for its Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS) as part of efforts to digitise the service’s operations.
Mr Michael Ango, acting executive chairman of FCT-IRS, disclosed this after the FCT Executive Committee meeting chaired by Mr Nyesom Wike, the minister of FCTA, in Abuja on Wednesday.
Ango said that the FCTA was making significant investments in technology to enhance revenue generation and collection.
“So, this is also one of those investments in technology that the FCT is undertaking.
“The licence, if procured, will enhance our ability to move most of our manual processes into automated processes.
“It will enhance our ability to communicate within our offices,” he said.
The executive chairman added that the move would also reduce the use of paper and ensure better record-keeping through the storage of information and documents in the cloud.
According to him, “The licence will essentially enhance our operations and assist us in generating revenue for the development of the FCT under Wike’s leadership.”
Rack Centre, West Africa’s Tier III Carrier and Cloud neutral data centre, has welcomed Olla Cloud Service, a new private cloud service by Olla Systems Limited, a leading provider of innovative technology solutions, to its facility.
Hosting at Rack Centre, Olla Cloud Service runs on a state-of-the-art, cloud-enabled infrastructure for enterprise applications across diverse platforms, including mission critical application, web applications as well as containerised applications using Kubernetes.
Lars Johannisson, CEO, Rack Centre, welcoming Olla Systems, noted that the partnership with Olla Systems Limited would reflect the company’s commitment to providing African businesses with high- quality cloud computing services.
He noted that Olla Systems would enjoy Rack Centre’s 13.5MW data centre campus facility, designed to meet the highest international standards and offering scalable solutions to Hyperscalers, Enterprises, and Cloud service providers.
As part of its commitment to sustainability, the facility is equipped with energy-efficient systems, advanced cooling technologies to mitigate environmental impact and an optimally-designed feature to handle high-density workloads with precision.
According to Johannisson, “With Olla Cloud Service hosting at Rack Centre, clients will experience fast performance and low latency, enabling businesses in Africa to access world-class cloud computing services within a secure and compliant local infrastructure.”
Also speaking, Olusola Adenuga, chief executive officer, Olla Systems Limited, expressed enthusiasm about hosting at Rack Centre, noting that Olla Cloud remains a groundbreaking private cloud solution for businesses.
While highlighting the benefits of the partnership between Rack Centre and Olla Systems, Adenuga disclosed that “subscribing to Olla Cloud Service is cost-effective to customers because of its local currency payment advantage.”
She also noted that the partnership between the duo, provides businesses the opportunity to meet regulatory requirements of data residency, while enjoying world-class infrastructure as a service (IaaS) locally.
“Other benefits of hosting with Olla Cloud include: 24/7 support, unparalleled performance, scalability and agility.” she added.
A user’s messaging app account might be of interest not only to jealous spouses and nosy coworkers, but also to cybercriminals.
Stolen WhatsApp accounts are used for various types of criminal activity, ranging from spam distribution to sophisticated scam schemes.
Cybercriminals constantly look for WhatsApp accounts and use various methods to gain access to them.
There are two ways cybercriminals can gain control of a WhatsApp account: they can add another device to an existing account using the “Linked devices” feature, or they can re-register the account on their own device as if the user had bought a new phone.
“In the first case, the user continues to use WhatsApp as usual, but the criminals also have access to all recent conversations. In the second case, the user loses access to their personal account.
“When trying to log in, WhatsApp notifies him that the account is already in use on another device, and the attackers can then control the account but not the past conversations.
“Messengers are a private space, as they often contain personal information about our lives and relationships with family and friends. They can also contain information about work and, in some cases, confidential information.
“If you notice any unusual activity, such as receiving replies to messages that you didn’t send, or if your friends complain about strange messages coming from your account, it’s important to take steps to protect your privacy immediately,” comments Seifallah Jedidi, Head of Consumer Channel, META, at Kaspersky.
While you can check instruction on what to do in case a WhatsApp account was already compromised, here are the key steps on how to avoid a WhatsApp account to be hacked:
- Enable two-step verification in WhatsApp and memorise your PIN — it’s not a one-time code. To do this, go to Settings → Account → Two-step verification.
- Never, ever share your PIN or one-time registration codes with anyone. Only scammers ask for these details.
- WhatsApp recently introduced support for passkeys. If you enable this option (Settings → Account → Passkeys), logging in to your account will require biometric authentication, and instead of PIN codes, your smartphone will store a long cryptographic key. This is a very secure option, but it may not be convenient if you frequently change devices and switch between Android and iOS.
- Set up a backup email address for account recovery: Settings → Account → Email address.
- If you’ve already added an email address, log in to your email account and change your password to a strong, unique one. To store it securely, use a password manager, such as Kaspersky Password Manager.
- Enable two-factor authentication for your email account.
- Make sure you haven’t fallen victim to a SIM swap scam. Contact your mobile carrier — preferably in person — and verify that no duplicate SIM cards have recently been issued for your number. Also, make sure there’s no unauthorised call-forwarding set up on your number. Cancel any suspicious changes and ask the staff about additional security measures for your SIM card. These may include prohibiting SIM-related actions without your being present, an extra password required for authentication, or other protections. Available security measures vary significantly by country and mobile carrier.
Any security measures in WhatsApp will be of little use if your smartphone or computer is infected with malware. Therefore, be sure to install comprehensive protection like Kaspersky Premium on all your devices.
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