Telecom
Digital Encode Rewards Cyberchain Hackathon Winners, Commits to Raise Cyber Defenders for Nigeria
Digital Encode Limited, a frontline Cybersecurity and Consultancy firm in Africa, has again endeared itself to the young community in the cybersecurity space in Nigeria.
The 18+ year old company rewarded winners of the Cyberchain Hackathon program as part of activities for the 2021 conference and exhibition, held in Lagos over the weekend.
Digital Encode doled out N500,000.00 to reward Team NOHATS which took the first prize; Team LYTES (first runner-up) received N300,000.00 and Team KURUPT68 (second runner-up) took home N200,000. The third and fourth runner-ups – C7ROW and SECACE received consolation prizes too.
Speaking shortly after the prize presentation ceremony, Dr. Peter Obadare, Co-Founder/CVO, Digital Encode Limited, said that the teams’ performances during the hackathon were beyond Digital Encode expectations.
“The teams performed very well; even beyond our expectations. We never envisaged the level of response we got. We are very delighted in what we have seen with these teams. They need to be mentored so they can go far in the industry. There are people here who came all the way from Rivers and Niger States. It shows that young Nigerians are hungry for success.
They are ready to put in their best to affect the economy. I am sure that within the next five years Nigeria will have enough cyber warriors to defend the country and businesses”.
Dr. Obadare said that results from the hackathon gives the company confidence that cybercrime will soon become a thing of the past in Nigeria, “because we have people that will be protecting the cyber space. So, you are launching your product; be it Fintech, edutech, healthtech, agritech or e-Government platforms, you will do that with the mindset that you will be protected.
These are young people that would become cyber traitors themselves, but they are putting their skills to good use; working to protect the financial ecosystem and Nigeria’s critical digital infrastructure. We are confident that we are going to do very well in the future.
Dr. Oluseyi Akindeinde, Co-Founder/CTO, Digital Encode Limited, also expressed delight with the results, adding that the hackathon was part of the company’s means of giving back to the society.
“We believe in the saying that ‘to whom much is given, much is expected’. It is our own way of giving back to the industry and to encourage the younger generation. We know what it means to start, and grow a business in an environment like in Nigeria.
“We would have loved for this kind of thing to happen 18 years ago when we started Digital Encode. So, we told ourselves that whatever will enable other young people to be focused in this field, we have to support them. That decision gave us the push to do this.
“The essence of the hackathon was to encourage the youths and expose them to the opportunities inherent in Information and Communications Technology.
“The truth is, if there were lots of money to be made legitimately leveraging technology, there shouldn’t be Internet scams among the youths. However, they need to be exposed and guided on how technology can be used to make money,” he said.
Jude Ozinegbe, the Convener of Cyberchain Conference & Exhibition said that the world is rapidly transiting from a consumer economy to a prosumer economy and technology is the fastest way to achieving this.
He said that whilst undergoing this process of economic transformation from the analogue and paper model to the digital approach, businesses need to also pay attention to the security concerns.
In his words, “Cybersecurity plays a major role in the digital economy, and everyone ought to have at least some basic knowledge on how to protect their digital assets from compromise”.
Ozinegbe also emphasized why Nigeria should not play catchup to the Blockchain technology as it did with the dotcom era, stressing that the Blockchain Technology comes with numerous untapped opportunities for the country, as it offers open, secure and decentralized cross-border business engagements for individuals and organisations irrespective of location, ethnicity or time difference.
He thanked Digital Encode for sponsoring the hackathon, adding that aside from the cash prize the participants are taking home the exposure and experience in programming and coding.
He said that this will in no small measure discourage unethical hacking which has become a bane of the society and rampant among the youths.
Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) is planning to encourage geo-political regions that grants zero charges for ‘Right of Way’ approvals as well not implementing arbitrary charges on telecommunications base stations in their regions with zero tariff.
Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, ALTON disclosed this to Nigeria CommunincationsWeek against the backdrop of incessant closure of base stations in some states.
He said that operators believe that the way out of this arbitrary charges and high cost of RoW approvals is regional tariffs.
“Operators are advocating for a regional tariff which means that geographical regions of Nigeria where cost of doing business for telecommunications operators is extremely high will attract high tariff compared to regions where there is low operating cost.
“Our advocacy of regional tariff is not based on a particular state but on regions. As at today there are regions where we have zero cost of “Right of Way” and low cost of doing business. Tariffs should reflect on operating environment. This means that national rate plan should consider high and low cost of doing business.
“If this is implemented, in a long run we could witness some regions having zero tariff because operational cost in such regions are friendly to operators,” he said.
It would be recalled that Kogi State recently shut down some operators’ base stations on account of local levies which raises the call for discriminatory tariff among geographical locations.
AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software driving digital transformation and sustainability in industries, today announces the appointment of Sébastien Ory, 48, as EMEA VP in charge of the partner and distributor network. VP of AVEVA Southern Europe since 2022 and President of AVEVA France since 2023, Sébastien now replaces Karine Calvet while remaining President of AVEVA France.
Sébastien Ory as EMEA VP Partners & Channels, AVEVA
In this new role, he will oversee the relationships with the various stakeholders involved in the distribution of AVEVA software and will have direct responsibility for more than forty employees spread across the EMEA region. Sébastien Ory will report directly to Jesus Hernandez, the new SVP of the EMEA region, who replaces Evgeny Fedotov, now CCO of RIB.
More than 18-year career in the industry
A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris and the Institut National de l’Aéronautique (ISAE-SupAero) in Toulouse, Sebastien Ory is an active advocate for driving sustainable progress in the industrial sector.
He began his career at France Telecom as a sales manager where he stayed for 4 years before giving a more industrial dimension to his career.
With fifteen years of experience in the industrial automation industry, Sebastien Ory has developed a strategic understanding of this field. After 10 years in Schneider Electric’s industrial automation business, he led the global industrial software business development team for Schneider Electric Software from 2015 to 2018, with a particular focus on the water, power generation, mining and food industries. During these 3 years, the introduction of new software solutions will allow Schneider Electric Software to initiate and develop significant growth areas.
7 years at AVEVA
In 2018, Sébastien joined AVEVA as Vice President of the Southeast Asia region, leading a team of 200 talents in charge of delivering cloud-based industrial analytics and AI software. In addition to the growing developing the teams he leads from the Singapore headquarters, part of his energy is devoted to establishing direct engagement with leaders of major groups in the region such as Petronas, Pertamina, PTT, Wilmar and Olam, to stimulate their digital transformation initiatives.
In 2022, he took over the leadership of AVEVA’s activities in Southern Europe, a major industrial market for the company, whose customers, world leaders in the fields of Energy, Chemicals, Agri-food, Pharmaceuticals and Water, are looking for AVEVA’s expertise to accelerate and drive their digital transformation and sustainability strategies, as well as their energy transition projects. The changes he brings to the organization of the sales team are bearing fruit and allow AVEVA to acquire new customers while consolidating key accounts. As Sebastien transitions to the role of VP EMEA Partners & Channels, Dominique Bazin becomes the new Vice President of AVEVA Southern Europe.
EMEA VP Partners & Channels: a highly strategic position within AVEVA
Sébastien now holds the position of Vice President in charge of the Partners and Channels for AVEVA in Europe, Middle East and Africa, a major market for the company. His main mission is to design and implement a strategy for the growth of indirect sales, through a network of partners and strong alliances with Digital Services Companies (DSCs), AI platform providers and independent software vendors (ISVs) whose solutions are compatible with the CONNECT platform.
Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has hit back at Meta Platforms Inc, warning the tech giant that its threat to exit Nigeria will not erase its legal responsibilities or liabilities under the Nigerian law.
Meta said earlier today, May 3, that it “may be forced to effectively shut down the Facebook and Instagram services in Nigeria in order to mitigate the risk of enforcement measures.”
Meta’s warning came after it lost a legal bid last week to overturn a ₦220 million fine imposed by the FCCPC for violations of data protection and consumer rights laws.
Reacting to Meta’s threat, FCCPC, in a statement on Saturday, May 3, described Meta’s statement as “a calculated” move aimed at “inducing negative public reaction and potentially pressuring the FCCPC to reconsider its decision.”
FCCPC said that Meta threatening to leave Nigeria does not absolve the company of liabilities for the outcome of a judicial process.
“These infringements included denying Nigerians the right to control their personal data, transferring and sharing Nigerian user data without authorisation, discriminating against Nigerian users compared to users in other jurisdictions and abusing their dominant market position by forcing unfair privacy policies,” FCCPC wrote on X.
“Interestingly, Meta had been fined for similar breaches in Texas ($1.5b) and only recently was asked to pay $1.3 Billion for violating E.U. Data Privacy Rules.
Elsewhere in India, South Korea, France and Australia, Meta had faced varying penalties for similar breaches. But Meta never resorted to the blackmail of threatening to exit those countries. They obeyed.”
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