News
Top Game Changers for IT Organisations, Users From 2014

Gartner its top predictions, recently, for IT organisations and IT users for 2014 and beyond combined several disruptive topics including Digital Industrial Revolution, Digital Business, Smart Machines and the Internet of Things, the analyst strongly believes these are to serve as more game changers beyond just the IT function.
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and objective content with the authority and weight of the world’s leading IT research and advisory organization, and provides access to the latest solutions from key technology providers.
“Gartner’s 2013 CEO survey suggests CEOs feel that business uncertainties are declining and yet, CIOs awake each day into a world of technology uncertainty and change,” says Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and analyst, Gartner.
“The savvy CIO will get his or her CEO to recognise the change being brought about by disruptive shifts is coming at an accelerated pace and at a global level of impact.”
Presenting their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, Gartner’s top 10 predictions are broken out into four categories as follows:
Digital Industrial Revolution
IT is no longer just about the IT function. Instead, IT has become the catalyst for the next phase of innovation in personal and competitive business ecosystems.
One place where this is evident is in the beginnings of a Digital Industrial Revolution that threatens to reshape how physical goods are created using 3D printing.
By 2018, 3D printing will result in the loss of at least $100 billion per year in intellectual property globally.
At least one major western manufacturer will claim to have had intellectual property (IP) stolen for a mainstream product by thieves using 3D printers who will likely reside in those same western markets rather than in Asia by 2015.
The plummeting costs of 3D printers, scanners and 3D modeling technology, combined with improving capabilities, makes the technology for IP theft more accessible to would-be criminals. Importantly, 3D printers do not have to produce a finished good in order to enable IP theft.
The ability to make a wax mold from a scanned object, for instance, can enable the thief to produce large quantities of items that exactly replicate the original.
By 2016, 3D printing of tissues and organs (bioprinting) will cause a global debate about regulating the technology or banning it for both human and nonhuman use.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration or comparable agency in a developed nation that is charged with evaluating all medical proposals will introduce guidelines that prohibit the bioprinting of life-saving 3D printed organs and tissues without its prior approval by end of 2015.
Bioprinting is the medical application of 3D printers to produce living tissue and organs. The day when 3D bioprinted human organs are readily available is drawing closer.
The emergence of 3D bioprinting facilities with the ability to print human organs can leave people wondering what the effect of it will be on society.
Beyond these questions, however, there is the reality of what 3D bioprinting means in helping people who need organs that are otherwise not readily available.
Digital Business
Digital business refers to business created using digital assets and/or capabilities, involving digital products, services and/or customer experiences, and/or conducted through digital channels and communities.
Gartner’s digital business predictions focus on the effect digital business will have on labor reductions, on consumer goods revenue, and on use of personal data.
While these do not cover the sum total of digital business, they do highlight critical areas of medium to long-term impact.
By 2017, more than half of consumer goods manufacturers will receive 75 percent of their consumer innovation and R&D capabilities from crowdsourced solutions.
Consumer goods companies that employ crowdsourced solutions in marketing campaigns or new product development will enjoy a 1 percent revenue boost over noncrowdsourced competitors by 2015.
Engineers, scientists, IT professionals and marketers at consumer goods companies are engaging crowds much more aggressively and with increasing frequency using digital channels to reach a larger and more anonymous pool of intellect and opinion.
Gartner sees a massive shift toward applications of crowdsourcing, enabled by technology, such as: advertising, online communities, scientific problem solving, internal new product ideas, and consumer-created products.
By 2020, the labor reduction effect of digitization will cause social unrest and a quest for new economic models in several mature economies.
A larger scale version of an “Occupy Wall Street”-type movement will begin by the end of 2014, indicating that social unrest will start to foster political debate.
Digitization is reducing labor content of services and products in an unprecedented way, thus fundamentally changing the way remuneration is allocated across labor and capital.
Long term, this makes it impossible for increasingly large groups to participate in the traditional economic system — even at lower prices — leading them to look for alternatives such as a bartering-based (sub)society, urging a return to protectionism or resurrecting initiatives like Occupy Wall Street, but on a much larger scale.
Mature economies will suffer most as they don’t have the population growth to increase autonomous demand nor powerful enough labor unions or political parties to (re-)allocate gains in what continues to be a global economy.
By 2017, 80 percent of consumers will collect, track and barter their personal data for cost savings, convenience and customization.
The number of Kickstarter-based auctions of personal data will increase by triple-digit percentages by the end of 2014.
The escalation of consumer awareness of data collection practices has set the stage for offering consumers more control over the disposition of personal data — collected both online and offline. As increasing demand and scarcity drives up the value of such data, incentives grow to entice consumers to share it voluntarily.
Meanwhile, consumer interest in self-tracking also suggests that consumers are investing more time and energy in collecting data about themselves.
They increasingly view such data as a key asset for life improvement, which is potentially consistent with the idea of trading it for value under the right circumstances.
By 2020, enterprises and governments will fail to protect 75 percent of sensitive data, and declassify and grant broad/public access to it.
By 2015, at least one more Snowden or WikiLeaks moment will occur, indicating an upward trend in corporations and governments’ acceptance that they cannot protect all sensitive information.
The amount of data stored and used by enterprises and governments is growing exponentially, such that any attempt to protect it all is unrealistic. Instead of facing an unfathomable task of protecting all data, enterprises and governments will focus on protecting only a small part of it, but protecting it well. Wider society will also gain from this approach, enabling it to establish better control over government and business, preventing abuses of power and engendering greater trust.
Smart Machines
The emergence of smart machines adds opportunity and fear as “cognizant and cognitive systems” and can enhance processes and decision making, but could also remove the need for humans in the process and decision effort.
CIOs will see this as a means of delivering greater efficiency, but will have to balance between the active human workforce and the cold efficiency of machines that can learn.
By 2024, at least 10 percent of activities potentially injurious to human life will require mandatory use of a nonoverideable “smart system.”
Economically priced cars with “automated assist” technology added as standard equipment will increase by through 2014 as an indicator of adoption.
The increasing deployment of “smart systems” capable of automatically responding to external events is increasing all the time, but there remains a deep-seated resistance to eliminating the option for human intervention.
The capability, reliability and availability of appropriate technology are not the issue. The willingness of the general population to accept initial widespread deployment and increasing removal of manual override options is the issue.
By 2020, a majority of knowledge worker career paths will be disrupted by smart machines in both positive and negative ways.
Virtual personal assistant usage in business grows more quickly in 2017 and 2018 than iPad usage did in 2010 and 2011/
Gartner forecasts that smart machines will upend a majority of knowledge workers’ career paths by 2020.
Smart machines exploit machine learning and deep-learning algorithms. They behave autonomously, adapting to their environment.
They learn from results, create their own rules and seek or request additional data to test hypotheses.
They are able to detect novel situations, often far more quickly and accurately than people. IT professionals need to recognize that smart machines can create substantial competitive advantages, as well as entirely new businesses.
By 2017, 10 percent of computers will be learning rather than processing.
In 2014, the number of speech recognition applications running on deep neural network algorithms will double.
Deep learning methods, based on deep neural networks, are currently being applied in speech recognition systems as well as some object recognition applications.
Quality of life improves when society is able to derive useful information from the copious amounts of unstructured data collecting in the Internet.
The most important implication of a learning computer is that it expands much less energy to recognize more complex patterns.
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things cements the connection between machines, people and business interactions in the modern era.
With the advent of massively connected devices, businesses, governments and people now have access to more information about themselves and their surroundings than they can actually act on.
Gartner’s prediction focuses on the opportunity to build applications and services that can use that information to create new engagement models for customers, employees and partners, and to foster a new set of business and marketing models that make the word “engagement” a truly valuable asset.
By 2020, consumer data collected from wearable devices will drive 5 percent of sales from the Global 1000.
The number of smartphone apps requesting to share consumer data will increase twofold by 2015, indicating a rise in the number of marketers or proprietors who seek access to customer profile data.
Wearable computing, or wearables, is quickly moving into mainstream society, led by the growing, multibillion dollar health and fitness markets.
Within five years, consumer wearables will become more sophisticated, capturing what the user sees, hears or even feels through biorhythmic responses.
The technical hurdles that have stalled the adoption of wearables (battery life, augmented reality, chip evolution and bandwidth) are quickly eroding; opening doors to creative minds determined to exploit this technology for commercial gain as evidenced by sizable investments in wearable technology from Samsung, Google, Apple and Microsoft.
“While some of these disruptive topics might seem as if they do not have a direct impact on the IT function, we must embrace the notion that IT is now a part of everything,” said Mr. Plummer. “As the structure of businesses and industries change, the IT systems that support them will change and so will the skills, processes and controls needed to keep them functioning. The day when 3D-printed computer architecture exists is upon us, and the days when the digital business, smart machines or the Internet of Things change what computers are may not be far off.”
Culled from: www.gartner.com
News
CSCS Inaugurates Custodian Portal to Enhance Digital Access, Operational Efficiency

Central Securities Clearing System Plc (CSCS), Nigeria’s capital market infrastructure provider, has launched its Custodian Portal, a user-centric digital solution designed to optimise custodian operations through intuitive, secure and efficient features.
Haruna Jalo-Waziri, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), CSCS, announced this in a statement on Monday.
The CSCS is a Public Limited Company with a diversified shareholder base, which serves as the Central Securities Depository for the Nigerian Capital Market.
It serves as the Central Depository for Equities, Commercial Papers, Corporate Bonds, Sub-National Bonds, certain Sovereign Bonds like the FGN Sukuk and the FGN Savings Bond, Equity-traded Funds, Real Estate Investment Trusts, Mutual funds and Commodities.
Jalo-Waziri said that the custodian portal offered a streamlined experience for market participants with powerful tools that facilitate comprehensive portfolio and trade management, document tracking, share transfer operations, client symbol search, and real-time access to vital data.
He explained that the portal, designed to operate through a flexible subscription-based model, empowered users to manage their records effortlessly and securely through convenient payment channels such as GTPay and Paystack.
According to him, “Digital transformation remains at the core of our strategy to enhance the efficiency, transparency and accessibility of Nigeria’s capital market services.
“The custodian portal is a significant leap in that direction, offering custodians a centralised platform to manage critical processes in real-time.
“We are excited about the value this innovation brings to our stakeholders, and we will continue to evolve the platform in line with users’ needs and industry trends.”
The CEO also explained that the portal was designed with user experience in mind with feature tools like portfolio viewing and downloads in PDF or Excel format.
He further said that it also featured tracking of stock movements across date ranges, inbox messaging and request tracking, as well as robust user management capabilities including role assignment and status tracking.
Similarly, the Divisional Head, Business Technology and Digital Innovation, CSCS Plc, Tobe Nnadozie, said that the portal aligned with CSCS’s drive to automate the market.
“In addition to the normal features, the platform is a part of an omnichannel platform for custodians, and includes API services.
“It also connects to the market-wide workflow, which CSCS has built to ensure secured communication and approvals across all major stakeholders in the market.
“The platform is well secured with best-of-breed cybersecurity solutions and our SOC,” he said.
The Custodian Portal reinforces CSCS’s commitment to leveraging technology to streamline back-office functions and support a more agile, data-driven capital market ecosystem.
All custodians in the Nigerian capital market have now been successfully on-boarded on the Custodian Portal, marking a significant milestone in CSCS’s ongoing drive to enhance collaboration, standardise operational processes, and promote digital adoption across the market.
News
UN Appoints Sa’id, Nigerian to Nuclear Panel

In a historic announcement, António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general has named Professor Rabia Sa’id, a Nigerian physicist, to a newly established global independent scientific panel tasked with assessing the devastating consequences of nuclear war.

Professor Rabia Sa’id,
This appointment positions Nigeria at the forefront of a critical international initiative focused on the future of global peace, health, and security.
The independent panel, comprising 21 world-renowned experts, was constituted following the adoption of General Assembly Resolution 79/238, titled “Nuclear War Effects and Scientific Research.”
The body will deliver the most comprehensive scientific analysis in decades on the potential physical and societal impacts of nuclear war at local, regional, and global levels, including climatic disruptions, environmental contamination, radiological effects, and socioeconomic fallout.
Professor Sa’id, a distinguished researcher in atmospheric and space-weather physics at Bayero University Kano and co-founder of Nigeria’s Association of Women Physicists, will bring unique African and Nigerian perspectives to the critical study.
Her expertise in atmospheric sciences is expected to play a pivotal role in the panel’s examination of post-nuclear climatic and environmental changes.
This marks a significant milestone for Nigeria, highlighting the country’s growing influence in global scientific diplomacy and peacebuilding initiatives.
Professor Sa’id joins a select group of experts from 21 countries spanning fields such as nuclear science, radiation studies, climate and environmental sciences, public health, agriculture, and economics.
The panel has been mandated to produce a comprehensive scientific report by 2027, to be presented at the United Nations General Assembly’s 82nd session.
Their findings will provide crucial guidance to the international community on the long-term risks posed by nuclear conflict, revisiting the issue almost four decades after the UN’s last major scientific report on the subject in 1988.
In keeping with the resolution, the panel was carefully constituted to ensure global geographical representation and gender balance. Professor Sa’id’s inclusion is a testament to Nigeria’s scientific excellence and commitment to global peace.
The Secretary-General underscored that the panel will consult widely with international organisations, civil society groups, and communities worldwide, ensuring local and regional concerns are adequately represented in the final report.
Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has welcomed the appointment, noting it as “an important recognition of Nigeria’s voice in shaping a safer, more secure world.”
Professor Sa’id herself expressed pride in representing her country, stating, “Africa must have a seat at the table when global security and human survival are discussed.”
Other prominent panel members include scientists from Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Austria, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Turkey, China, and others, reflecting a broad spectrum of expertise and perspectives.
As global tensions and nuclear risks resurface on the international agenda, Nigeria’s participation in this critical scientific endeavour underscores its continued advocacy for disarmament and a nuclear-free future.
News
GEFAS Launches Tech-Driven Hub to Mobilize Youth for Soludo’s Re-election

Geeks and Founders Alliance for Soludo (GEFAS) on Thursday 17th July, 2025 unveiled its new office space in a significant event that further strengthens the group’s mission to drive Governor Soludo’s “everything technology, technology everywhere” vision across Anambra State.
The unveiling was performed by the Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Solo Chukwulobelu, who could not contain his excitement and amazement at the level of sophistication of the facility and the vibrancy of the young professionals and tech enthusiasts behind the initiative.
Prof. Chukwulobelu commended the GEFAS team for building such a dynamic platform, uniting diverse sectors under a common goal to support Anambra’s digital transformation and Governor Soludo’s re-election bid at the November 8 Governorship Poll, without requesting a dime from the government.
He noted that their efforts reflect growing youth support for his administration.
“Our goal is to secure victory in the upcoming election and continue delivering good governance to the people of Anambra. Anambra is APGA, and APGA is Anambra
There is no vacancy in Government House come November 2025,” he added.
He urged GEFAS members to remain steadfast and resilient in the face of opposition, adding that the government would collaborate with and complement GEFAS to ensure its vision is further integrated into governance for greater impact.
Also present to lend credence to the movement was the Special Adviser to the Governor on Political Matters, Dr. Alex Obiogbolu, who described GEFAS as a strategic and dynamic angle to the campaigns.
He lauded the initiative, stating that it exemplifies the power of digital tools in modern political campaigning and governance, and expressed optimism that a second term for Governor Soludo would unlock even more innovative solutions for Ndi Anambra.
In her remarks, Ms. Odili Jombo, a coordinator with GEFAS, shared the impressive results of the Alliance’s outreach so far.
She revealed that the GEFAS Call Centre, with its team of 21 dedicated agents, has already reached over 20,000 Ndi Anambra, gathering valuable insights on citizens’ sentiments about Mr. Governor’s performance and their disposition towards the upcoming elections, an experience she described, has recorded more positives than negatives.
She further announced that GEFAS will soon unveil a mobile WiFi bus, among other top-tier initiatives designed to change the campaign landscape and further position Anambra as a leading tech state.
The event was well attended by top government officials, members of the media, tech stakeholders, and other well-meaning Ndi Anambra, many of whom expressed amazement at what GEFAS has created and pledged unwavering support for them and Governor Soludo’s continuity at the November polls.
Explaining the passion behind GEFAS, the Convener and MD/CEO of the Anambra State ICT Agency, Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata, CFA, described the Alliance as a continuity-driven force working to align with Governor Soludo’s vision of moving Anambra from a departure lounge to a destination lounge.
“We believe that together, leveraging technology, we can drive the real change Anambra truly deserves,” he said.
With this milestone, GEFAS remains committed to driving technology-driven engagement that delivers practical impact and amplifies the Solution Government’s transformational strides.
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