My keynote at 2021  Digital Africa Conference and Exhibition this week. I spoke on the theme – “Building a New Africa with AI & Blockchain”.  I spoke on June 22, 2021.

Digital Africa Conference and Exhibition is Africa’s premier consumer technology show which holds annually. It provides the perfect platform to showcase your brand and enhance your reputation. It presents to its participants a major opportunity for unrivalled networking and privileged access to strategic partners, investors and potential buyers.

The 2021 Tekedia Mini-MBA Career Week has been scheduled for Oct 25-30, 2021. This career week is not designed for finding jobs. Rather, it is structured to TRANSFORM workers, founders & entrepreneurs into business leaders and champions of innovation in their companies. Yet, if you have no job, by the time you are done with the series, you will have a path to one! 

The sub-theme is Nurturing Innovators, and it is packaged within the Tekedia Mini-MBA theme of Innovation, Growth and Business Execution. All participants of Tekedia programs (mini-MBA, CollegeBoost, advanced diploma, etc) in 2021 qualify to attend free.

Our knowledge experts for the Week include human resources experts and leaders from MNCs and startups, across industries and global regions. 

Meanwhile, we have opened registration for the next edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA (Sept 13- Dec 6, 2021). Register now to join the edition which will begin on Sept 13, and get many early benefits including attending our Career Week and Innovation Week at no extra cost.

2021 Tekedia Innovation Week “Growth Makers” Will Hold Nov 22-27, 2021

If you have a car with manually operated windows, they can easily make them electric-operated in selected mechanic shops in Nigeria. For years, these mechanics have been converting petrol cars to go with gas. The latest one is more advanced: the vice president of the nation, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, drove an electric vehicle. Before that, in April, the federal government commissioned an EV charging station in Sokoto. That Sokoto location makes sense for many of us who have spent time in Usman Danfodio University and the energy center in the university. I also note that GIG Logistics is going all electric.

The question is this: what is going on in the nation’s automotive sector? Dr Jelani Aliyu,  DG of Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), has noted that “No doubt Electric Vehicles are the future, maybe in the next five years.”  Certainly, this sector can outperform except that we do not have electricity to massively scale adoption.

We have no EV national policy but most people are indeed open to disconnect from the mess of petrol, to the extent that we can start importing generators for the EVs. Yes, one generator for the house, and another for the car except that you need petrol to power the generator!

So, if you use a generator to charge your EV – what has changed? Simply, EV or petrol, Nigeria needs to fix the electricity paralysis in the nation. Any ascension to preach EV for the environment is muted until we wean the nation of generators.

Will people ever listen: for all the ills of governments and regulators, they remain a better alternative than handing over your future to young men in garages and unknown addresses. Yes, Bitcoin is decentralized, they preach, but they never remember that everything is unified at the exchange. In the traditional fiat money, you know your enemy – crazy central banks who “mess up” a lot. To avoid that mess, people now move into a bigger mess, disguised as liberation.

Yes, the news is that two brothers in South Africa have wiped out a cryptocurrency exchange, and are off with the coins, valued at close to $4 billion: “Two South African brothers recently vanished with $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin in what could potentially be the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history. In 2019, Ameer Cajee and his younger brother, Raees Cajee, founded crypto investment app Africrypt. Not long after, the siblings, along with 69,000 bitcoins worth roughly $4 billion at their April peak, are nowhere to be found.”

It all began in April when Ameer, who is the company’s chief operating officer, informed their clients that Africrypt was hacked, compromising their accounts, wallets, and nodes.

In an unusual step, 20-year-old Ameer told them not to report the incident to authorities as this would impede attempts to recover the funds.

A few suspicious customers, however, did report the hack. They contacted Hanekom Attorneys, according to Independent Online, who then tried to track the brothers down. When unsuccessful, Hawks, a police unit in South Africa that targets crime and corruption, was looped in.

“We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action,” Hanekom Attorneys told Bloomberg over email. “Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.”

This is my suggestion: the best thing that will happen in the world of cryptocurrency is the government coming to regulate it. While the believers will not like to hear that, the fact is this: unless we can eliminate the weakest link which remains the crazy exchanges, never count your coin blessings yet!

Bitcoin continues to crash

Meanwhile, Bitcoin continues to struggle. The leading coin is well below $35,000 per unit now and the reason is connected to sustained coin warfare by China: ” a major catalyst for the decline is the Chinese authority’s war against cryptocurrencies. “

As mentioned above, a major catalyst for the decline is the Chinese authority’s war against cryptocurrencies. In their latest attempt to stop all cryptocurrency-related transactions, miners in Ya’an, one of the major crypto mining hubs in China’s Sichuan province, received an inspection notice that required shut-downs.

Friday, Wu Blockchain reported that Alibaba Cloud, China’s largest cloud service provider, made calls to cryptocurrency and mining companies registered in China regarding potential domain name cancellations due to regulatory requirements. This caused the hashrate for Bitcoin to drop to an 8-month low which indicates that mining activities in China are at an all-time low.

That’s not all, another factor causing the decline is that the Agriculture Bank of China, the world’s third-largest bank by assets, is set to implement anti-cryptocurrency measures and rigorously vet its clients to ensure they are not engaged in any form of illegal activities including crypto transacting, trading or mining.