By Nnamdi Odumody

Cognitev is a startup founded by two Egyptians, Moustafa Mahmoud and Ahmed Hassan, which is leveraging artificial intelligence to transform the marketing experience.

It has created various products which include Instascaler, the world’s first automated advertising platform which helps to automate the ads creation, optimization and AB testing of its users campaigns, enabling the ads to run seamless  on multiple traffic sources with the push of a button. Instascaler monitors campaigns and ad performance automatically and adjusts them to lower customer cost and increase the effectiveness, shutting down any ad which isn’t producing positive results on investment, and also adjusts the bid by increasing it or decreasing depending on the results.

Cognition is what drives human progress. Understanding the meaning of the data our minds process every second is one of our brain’s most powerful functions. At Cognitev we try to bring this to machines using the power of Artificial Intelligence. The application of this science is limitless and can transform industries such such as advertising, ecommerce, and more.

Another product from its stable is Metadsp.ai, the ultimate traffic acquisition platform which is connected to multiple premium traffic sources. It uses a unique process to ensure that each website gets the highest quality and most relevant traffic with capability of automating ad creations as well as create campaigns for any of the traffic sources it is connected to.

Its technology optimizes campaigns in real time, by monitoring them together with ad performance automatically, adjusting them to lower customer cost and increase their effectiveness while shutting down campaigns not producing results on budget spent, and adjusting the bid depending on the results.

Another product, Metadsp, is the world’s first traffic as a service platform which enables you to drive high quality traffic and conversations to your own website or customers. It currently has over 2,571 customers which include Citibank, Mindshare, Samsung, Panasonic and Gillette.

Nigerian brands should hop on the train and ride to enjoy the Cognitev experience especially when a local startup creates something in that space. The future of marketing experiences will be anchored on AI.

By Nnamdi Odumody

Chinese telecommunication equipment giant Huawei Technologies was recently banned from operating in the United States by President Donald Trump-led Government on allegations that its products was being used to spy on the United States by the Chinese Government. Largely, this suspicion had emanated owing to the ties Huawei founder, Ren Zhengfei, a former Red Army (Military) personnel, may have in his country.

This ban resulted to technology giants like Google, Qualcomm, Intel and ARM suspending partnerships with Huawei. Huawei relies on Google’s Android Operating systems for its smartphones, and on Qualcomm, Intel, Broadcom, Infineon and ARM for its semiconductors. It depends on Microsoft’s Windows Operating System for its tablets and notebooks. Google’s Android will continue to run on Huawei’s existing devices but the presidential ban means upgrades to Android’s latest versions and Huawei’s subsequent products will be affected.

Huawei seems not to be bothered about this latest development as it has been working on an Operating System which will power it’s devices according to Richard Yu, Chief Executive of its consumer division.

Huawei has been at the centre of the ongoing US-China trade war which has seen it surpassed an American consumer electronics champion (Apple) to become the world’s second biggest smartphone seller, behind Samsung. It’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested last year on charges of financial crimes considering the fact that Iran, an enemy of the US which was hit by economic sanctions was a key market in its global sales.

According to IDC, Huawei recorded an upward sales trajectory from 39.3 million smartphones shipped in the first quarter of 2018 to 59.1 million units in the first quarter of 2019 while Apple’s iPhone shipments shrunk from 52.2 million in the same quarter last year to between 36 and 43 million in first quarter 2019.

In technological patents, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization, Huawei’s filing of 5405 patents in 2018 put it in first position, and taking the lead in the development of cutting edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence and 5G, ahead of its U.S rivals, must have made the Department of State to cut them down to size.

The casualties of this ban will be the 197 Fortune 500 companies including U.S companies which rely on their equipment. Other members of the Five Eye Intelligence Network: Canada, U.K, Australia and New Zealand are expected to follow Washington DC in preventing the Chinese ICT giant from conducting business operations in their territories.

In the long run, the Chinese might prove winners of this battle. Speed, precision and scale is why China controls the global hardware supply chain with Qualcomm and Apple heavily reliant in the Shenzhen hardware ecosystem and a retaliatory move by President Xi Jinping banning Apple, Qualcomm and other U.S, British and Canadian Technology Companies from having their products contract manufactured in China will force them to shift their production home where labour costs are expensive, affecting their competitiveness and reducing their global market share.

The Chinese consumer market is the most sympathetic to any domestic brand, no matter the advantages the foreign rivals possess. Xiaomi, Lenovo, Oppo, One Plus and Transsion Holdings which along with Huawei are the top Chinese consumer electronic brands globally might gradually migrate from the Android Operating System to a Chinese made O.S and domestic semiconductor manufacturers. The effect of this will be too difficult for Google, Microsoft, Apple, Qualcomm and other Western brands which rely on Chinese production to be competitive in their industries to bear.

The U.S China trade war is the new Cold War. It is a battle over the New Arms Race i.e. ’’Leadership in Exponential Technologies’’. Only time will tell who will emerge victorious.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May resigns. I do not know why it took so long. The fact is this: the world that United Kingdom wants will not happen in the very near future. So, they better be changing leaders because no one can take them to their designed equilibrium point. In the past, it used to be The Rise of Me Only; today, it is now The Rise of All.

That means – if you expect the world as it was 100 years ago, you are living in an illusion. UK benefited from the world, ravaging empires from Asia to Africa; now, it wants to sleep under its pillows happily, out of the world. That will not happen. Gone David Cameron, gone Theresa May, bring the next person. It will not change UK until it realizes that the new world is The Rise of All and citizens must make adjustments for that reality.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced her resignation in an emotional speech on Friday, finally bowing to intense political pressure over the failure to deliver her signature policy — Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Standing at a lectern outside Downing Street on Friday morning, May said she would quit as leader of the Conservative Party on June 7, but would stay on as Prime Minister until a successor is chosen.

May said she had done everything she could to convince Members of Parliament (MPs) to back her thrice-rejected Brexit deal, but acknowledged that she had failed.

On a very fascinating thread, MTN explains what we have been saying: I can go to a market (Nigerian Stock Exchange) and display my farm produce (MTN Shares) for all to see but without any obligation to sell to any new person. But if some people that had bought the produce while I was on the road to the market decide to re-sell their portions, they are free to do. I have done nothing wrong in the community because people know where these resellers are: ”According to Nairametrics, just yesterday, MTN Nigeria Plc was the most actively traded stock, with 93.7 million shares valued at N13.5 billion exchanged in 464 deals.” This is the source of the episode. [MTN linked to it via the ad below, so I give it to it].

There has been misconception and confusion in some quarters about MTN’s listing of shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) a week ago.

A thread! pic.twitter.com/ZVGxp3DIL9

— Neusroom (@Neusroom) May 22, 2019

There has been confusion in some quarters since MTN announced a week ago, that it was listing its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) by way of introduction. Nigeria info in a podcast and CNBC in a report have both tried to break this down but this thread by Neusroom will help put things in clearer perspective. The issue primarily borders on the perceived scarcity of the company’s stock but the numbers indicate a different story. According to Nairametrics, just yesterday, MTN Nigeria Plc was the most actively traded stock, with 93.7 million shares valued at N13.5 billion exchanged in 464 deals. (TC Daily)