By Nnamdi Odumody

In this Fourth Industrial Age, talent has become a highly sought after factor as it has emerged as the major determinant of where capital which is scarce is moving to. As innovation is a prerequisite for the global competitiveness of countries, it is the investment in human capital development that will position nations for leadership in this era.

The United States, which until recently, followed by Hong Kong, was the most globally competitive economy, is now third, exchanging positions with Singapore. Its Ivy League universities help it to attract global talent. The talent has been critical for America in creating innovative solutions. The talented people lead to the emergence of successful companies that boost America’s GDP. Of course, the new course on U.S. immigration could cause a dislocation as global talent moves to other nations where they can work freely.

Singapore has a Skillsfuture Programme which is to prepare Singaporean citizens with future ready skills like Agility, Adaptability, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Emotional Intelligence, Deep Learning and Machine Learning. Other skills included are Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Cloud, Robotics, Precision Engineering, Biotech skills, Additive Manufacturing, Embedded Systems and Mixed Reality. They have done this to position the nation as Asia’s Innovation and Talent Hub. It has Singapore University of Technology and Design (first of its kind) where students are taught how to apply design thinking in their programme of study, and area of specialization, to solve problems common to Asia and the rest of the world. Some of these problem include climate change, and environmental sustainability.

Singapore’s National University of Singapore is among the top-rated in Quantum Computing while the world’s most cited scientist in 3D Printing, Prof Chua Chee Kai, of the Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, Nanyang University, Singapore is a Singaporean. Also, the leading Polytechnic Nanyang Polytechnic is not left out of the talent breeding ecosystem for its Smart Nation Initiative with a Digital Convergence & Mobile Innovation Centre with Samsung, IOT Open Innovation Centre with Intel, Big Data & Analytics Innovation Centre with IBM, Games Solution Centre with MDA & Sony, Additive Manufacturing Innovation Centre, Centre For Digital and Precision Engineering, Centre of Innovation for Electronics.

Singapore also has an Institute of Manufacturing Technology which is to come up with innovative solutions, aimed at achieving efficiency and making its highly rated industrial sector globally competitive. More so, it has a Centre of Innovation for Supply Chain Management. Most of the leading biotechnology, consumer goods and enterprise technology companies have Research and Development Offices in Singapore. Singapore’s public sector is also integrated into its skills development programmes which is why they are ranked the best worldwide in performance. For a nation of 270 sqkm and population of 5.6 million, the effect of all these is a Per Capita income of $52,960.7 and GDP of $297billion.

In Nigeria, some private initiatives are ongoing to prepare a Fourth Industrial Workforce which will help the country to compete globally. Data Science Nigeria is a nonprofit founded by Dr Bayo Adekambi which wants to raise 1 million talents with skills in Artificial intelligence and Data Science, after it was discovered that of the 300,000 Machine Learning Engineers globally, Africa hardly featured.

IBM’s Digital Nation initiative currently has a partnership with the Lagos State Government to train Lagos residents with Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and other skills which will make them competitive while Google is also running a similar initiative for Nigerians. Microsoft’s recent African Development Centre in Lagos will help develop talents with skills in Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality who will develop innovative solutions leveraging its Azure Platform for the country and rest of the world, while Curators University in conjunction with Edo Jobs is training Edo youths in future ready skills like AI, Cloud and Data Science. Also, Andela is helping to develop software engineers who will compete on the global stage while getting them jobs to practice their skills. Cisco has unveiled a programme to train young Nigerians to become Networking and IOT Experts similar to Huawei’s Open Innovation Centre for IOT which it established at University of Lagos.

Judith Okonkwo of Imisi 3D is developing a community of Mixed Reality developers who will create solutions to some of the common problems in the country. 3D Africa founded by Njideka Harry and GE’s Lagos Garage is training Nigerians with skills in 3D printing and how to build businesses using it. TDP4AI founded by Dr Agu Collins Agu is helping in developing skills in embedded systems.

The Federal Government can lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty by partnering with the private sector to up skill for future-ready skills, and create a smart workforce, which will make Nigeria globally competitive.

Safaricom has won my innovation of half-year award with “Reverse Call” feature.  With reverse call feature, a caller can transfer the cost of a call to the receiver by adding ‘#’ before the number they are calling. For instance, to transfer the cost of the call to 0722000000, a customer will dial #0722000000. I think that is amazing.

Simply, you may not even need to load credits for some people knowing that they can reach you anytime they want provided you have credits. To avoid abuse, they even have a feature that ensures you know you are paying for the call as the receiver: “A customer receiving a reverse call request will see the caller’s details appear on the screen as normal, but once they pick the call, they will receive a voice prompt asking them to key in “1” to accept the reverse call. The cost of the call will be equivalent to the receiver’s normal call cost.”

 “At Safaricom, we maintain our commitment to always provide our customers with relevant products in line with their needs. This innovation is in line with this commitment and has been tailored to mirror the relationships between our customers with a goal of empowering them to always remain connected with their loved ones,” said Sylvia Mulinge, Chief Customer Officer, Safaricom….

The service is only available for on-net calls and will not be applicable for off-net, roaming and international calls.

The Reverse Call feature complements Safaricom’s existing “Please Call Me” service which enables a customer to send five free messages to other customers requesting for a call back. (press release)

Safaricom continues to innovate – I expect many African telcos to copy this. The manual version is Flash call (calling with no expectation to allow the receiver to pick it); the Flash call is now institutionalized with the reverse call feature.

Africa’s fintech sector is growing at a fast pace, with the number of startups operating in the space growing by more than 60 per cent in the last two years, while funding has hit new records.

Following a successful first edition in 2017, Disrupt Africa has released Finnovating for Africa 2019: Reimagining the African financial services landscape, which finds the number of active fintech ventures across the continent has grown to 491 from 301 in 2017.

South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya remain the main three markets, with 141, 101 and 78 active ventures respectively, accounting for 65.2 percent of Africa’s fintech startups. Yet the share of the overall total claimed by these three countries is in decline as the sector spreads across the continent, with fintech startups tracked in 28 African nations.

Though the big three markets are growing, the biggest developments are occurring in other markets, with countries like Uganda, Ghana and Egypt in particular seeing their local fintech spaces explode.

A similar trend can be seen in terms of the type of platforms being rolled out by fintech entrepreneurs. Though startups in the payments and lending spaces remain the most prevalent, the fastest growth is occurring elsewhere, with the number of startups active in areas such as investtech and insurtech, for example, more than doubling in the last few years.

Meanwhile, there is a marked increase in the amount of companies focusing on two or more distinct types of financial services, as African fintechs begin to “rebundle” and we see moves towards fully-fledged, all-service digital banks on the continent. This is a process that is quickening as the amount of funding coming into the sector grows. African fintech companies have raised just shy of US$320 million in funding since January 2015, and last year’s total of US$132.8 million was the best year yet.

Most of these firms need to come together – a lesson on what is happening in China could be necessary. Many of the fintech firms especially those on peer to peer are closing shops.

Approximately 5,700 platforms had already been suspended as of May, with 914 still in operation, according to industry data provider Wangdaizijia. Total P2P loans also shrank 30% on the year to around Rmb700 billion ($102 billion).

Some major platforms were closed including Dongguan-based Tuandai.com, which was accused of designing and selling fake financial products. Its bankruptcy in March prompted thousands of protesters to take to the streets and demand their life savings back. Tencent-backed social e-commerce platform Mogujie (often dubbed China’s Pinterest) also shut down its P2P platform Zhongdoubao in March due to the need to “ensure the security of funds”.

Press Release

Truecaller, a mobile app that lets you see who’s calling and block unwanted calls, adds voice call. It is working hard to become a superapp and a possible WhatsApp competitor. It has recently integrated payment: “Truecaller currently offers a one-stop integrated communication platform that hosts a range of key features including Caller ID, Intelligent dialer, Smart SMS inbox, Mobile Payments and Flash messaging.” With Libra unveiling by Facebook, Truecaller will have to evolve more if it wants to win Africa.

In line with its vision to be a complete communication app, Truecaller, has announced the launch of its voice call feature, ‘Truecaller Voice’ globally.

The in-app voice over internet protocol (VoIP) based feature will allow users to make free high quality (HD), low latency and quick to connect audio calls through WiFi or mobile data connectivity. The launch is the newest addition to the recent stream of updates, that is aimed to provide a full-fledged communication experience to Truecaller’s over 140 million daily active users globally. The feature has been already been rolled out in a phased manner to all Android users from 10^th June 2019 onwards.

On a daily basis, Truecaller users are making more than 180 million phone calls through its dialer, whereas half of the calls are to users-to-users. The Truecaller Voice shortcut has been strategically integrated at relevant touchpoints in the app such as call logs, SMS Inbox, contact profile and after call screen. This enables users to seamlessly access the VOIP based call anywhere within the Truecaller app without switching to other applications. (press release)