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People’s Bank of China Unveils A Cryptocurrency; Facebook Libra Gets A Challenger

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The People’s Bank of China has noted that it will release its own cryptocurrency, structured to replace cash in circulation, over just generating credit: “PBOC’s intention that the digital currency would replace M0, or cash in circulation, rather than M2, which would generate credit and impact monetary policy. The digital currency would also support the yuan’s circulation and internationalization”.

The People’s Bank of China is “close” to issuing its own cryptocurrency, according to a senior official.

The bank’s researchers have been working intensively since last year to develop systems, and the cryptocurrency is “close to being out,” Mu Changchun, deputy director of the PBOC’s payments department, said at an event held by China Finance 40 Forum over the weekend in Yichun, Heilongjiang. He didn’t give specifics on the timing.

Mu repeated the PBOC’s intention that the digital currency would replace M0, or cash in circulation, rather than M2, which would generate credit and impact monetary policy. The digital currency would also support the yuan’s circulation and internationalization, he said.

In 2017, I posited that Nigeria should do this, explaining how NairaCoin would be an extension of the paper Naira under the full control and supervision of the Central Bank of Nigeria. I expect this to be the convergence for nations when it comes to cryptocurrency.

Rwanda has executed a very fascinating vision and in line with my proposal for Nigeria to have a digital currency (NairaCoin or any other name) that is tied to the Naira and under the supervision of the Central Bank of Nigeria.  In Rwanda, I&M Bank has partnered with a Norwegian fintech company, Blockbonds, to launch a blockchain-based banking application called SPENN. SPENN does digitize national currencies and makes it possible for bank customers to perform different types of cost-free transactions. It has digitized the Rwanda currency, making the Rwandan Franc the first national currency to be digitized. It also means that mobile money may fade and being replaced with blockchain digitized currency depending on how this evolves.

With this news, the U.S. Government will flash green light to Facebook Libra. Notice that China wants to take its coin international and use it as a basis for global transfer and remittance.  Facebook Libra will be laughing at U.S. Congress, understanding that U.S. Congress is hurting America by delaying its mission!

Have Accepted Invitation from Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka for a Major Speech

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I will be in Awka in October. Yes, I have accepted the invitation of the Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka,  Prof. Charles O. Esimone, to deliver a university-wide lecture in that institution named after the Zik of Africa, a Founding Father of modern Nigeria. The podium I will mount for this specific event has been graced by Prof Barth Nnaji, Senator David Mark, Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kuka, among others. To have my name is that league is simply amazing.

From Awka, I will touch base in Onitsha to challenge the OMATA members who continue to thrive, creating Africa’s largest market, despite institutional challenges across Nigeria. My message to them:  band together, join efforts, push for scale to improve unit economics, and move upstream. We must create conglomerates and dominant category-king companies out of Onitsha. To do that, we must unleash entrepreneurial capitalism with the mindset of scaling capabilities over the rituals of “cultural trading”.

I like containers and am a proud member of this tradition, but we have to upgrade.

Insyt Helps Brands Make Informed Decisions By Aggregating Public Perception Online

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Insyt is a platform which collects data in real time from social media channels to help organizations know the public perception of their brands and allows them to keep track of conversations about them and their products in English and Pidgin languages.

No matter how small or complex your data needs are, Insyt helps you convert from inefficient paper-based systems to a simple, fast and flexible mobile & web-based platform for data collection, paper form digitization, agent management and data analysis. Reduce cost, time and errors in targeting customers and gaining visibility into your operations. Go paperless with Insyt!

Insyt helps in measuring the impact of marketing campaigns so that enterprises can know if they are truly getting value for their ad spend and interact with customers in a conversational manner to gather valuable insights.

The platform helps brands to take the guesswork out of influencer marketing and easily measure the impact of influencers on their brand online as well as connecting them with the most relevant and engaging influencers in their industry of operations. It saves marketing communications teams time to engage in further productive activities on their jobs by utilizing Keyhole to aggregate metrics, monitoring, analyzing and creating reports. 

Using artificial intelligence, it helps brands to predict how their campaigns will go in order for them to take action based on the insights.

Reputation management is very essential for organizations in this age of social media and Insyt helps them to understand the feelings of their target audience concerning their brand as well their competition online.

As enterprises organize events to promote their products or services, Insyt helps them to capture every moment and gain access to data from their guests which they can leverage in amplifying their reach during the duration of the event. Through social media monitoring, it helps them gain insights on key conversations on any subject online in order for them to understand trends and audiences in providing solutions targeted at their customers.

Increasing Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Reserves with AI and AR

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Oil workers

According to OPEC data, Nigeria currently  has the second biggest oil reserves on the African continent with 36.97 billion barrels of crude oil which is about 2.2 percent of the global total. That number is low due to a fall in rig count from 46 to 29,  and the failure of passage of Petroleum Industry Governance Bill which will help unlock more investment aimed at increasing reserves. Nigeria’s gas reserves are spread over 5,300 km3 at 188 trillion cubic feet which is three times more than  her crude oil reserves.

There are several basins within the country which have oil and gas reserves. They include Niger Delta Basin, Anambra Basin, Dahomey Basin, Sokoto Basin, Chad Basin, Bida Basin, Gongola Basin and the Benue Trough.

The Niger Delta basin has a subaerial area of 75,000 square kilometres, a total area of 300,000 square kilometres and a sediment fill of 500,000km3 with a dept of between 9-12km. It produces about 2million barrels per day, the majority of Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves at 34.5 billion barrels of oil and 94 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The Anambra Basin is a hydrocarbon rich inland sedimentary basin which covers about 3,000 square kilometres and has a sedimentary thickness of about 9km with estimated gas reserves of 10 trillion cubic feet and 1 billion or more barrels of crude oil. At Ugwuoba and Igboariam  gas fields successful exploration of gas was conducted with positive results.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has spent billions of naira in search of  fresh reserves of crude oil in the inland basins such as Chad Basin but no commercial success.  Its recent Kolmani River II Well in the Gongola Basin whose spud in was flagged of by President Muhammadu Buhari is  yet to meet its dept target of 14,200 ft sixty days after. These costs could have been less if state of the art technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality are deployed.

By deploying sensors and smart robots to optimize reservoir yields, Artificial Intelligence will help in identifying changes in geological formations in the basins with deep learning and computer vision, as well as predict the possibilities of them having reserves of crude oil or gas in order for operators to make fresh discoveries. It will enable reservoir modelling, well design optimization, downhole monitoring, artificial lift optimization and predictive maintenance  while Augmented Reality will showcase real time field operations in a digitized 3D format from the Remote Operations Centres to the confines of their smart mobile devices so that they understand the scenarios and take action based on the insights they have.

These two technologies and the deployment of the Blockchain by the NNPC and its joint venture partners will help in operations optimization, to achieve efficiency in meeting the 40 billion barrels reserves, as well as increasing daily crude oil production to 3 million barrels per day target by 2025. Also, it will ensure transparency since all the activities from field production to point of sale or product exports will be tracked and the data stored on a secured distributed ledger which will be accessible by only the players in the upstream value chain.

Did An Interview With Johns Hopkins University Magazine Team

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I did an interview with my alma mater – The Johns Hopkins University – last week. Yes, the world’s finest university where PhD students create their courses because there is no credit requirements to earn a PhD in that university. You decide what interests you – and go ahead and map your future. But through a well-crafted system, the first university in the U.S. to offer a graduate program will ensure you are prepared. 

Here, I have shared my experiences for those that may want to apply therein. The #1 rule is that they will not admit you for PhD unless they have funding for you. Simply, they want their junior scholars to focus on finding cure to diseases over getting distracted by what to eat or how to pay rent. 

I will share the interview when it runs.

My Experience in the World’s Finest University as it Transformed Me From a Dreamer into a Maker