By Nnamdi Odumody

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a strategic initiative by an organization to invest a certain amount of capital gained in its host community or society to improve the lives of the citizens. Various organizations across the globe engage in CSR projects, spanning education, entrepreneurship, healthcare, entertainment, environmental sustainability, and food security. The Nigeria banks, oil companies, real estate, manufacturing companies are not left out of this element of capitalism as well.

Access Bank which is one of the top tier financial services providers in Nigeria has embarked on several strategic CSR initiatives which have made tremendous impacts in the lives of the average Nigerians and Africans as well.

In promoting a healthy and fit society which is essential for wealth creation, it partnered with the Lagos State Government in 2015 to launch the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon, a bronze level race across Lagos which has grown to become the largest and number one annual sports tourism project, featuring about 100,000 participants not only from Nigeria but several other nationalities across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Access Bank Lagos City Marathon has made people see the essence of sports as a recreational exercise which is important for health.  The four editions of this event have been filled with fun and excitement.

To promote the Nigerian Entertainment and Creative Arts Industry, it sponsored the Made In Lagos which showcased the best of Afrobeats and other creative talents which have projected the positive image of Nigeria to the global audience. Also its Accelerate TV is trying to promote upcoming filmmakers to become the next Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Hype Williams. It hopes for the talents to become legends as a result of the movies and videos they will produce

Recognizing the importance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the need for Africa to participate in it as the next gold rush, it launched The Africa Fintech Foundry (AFF), an accelerator for disruptive innovations from this part of the world. These innovations are expected to redesign the financial services industry just like Kenya’s Safaricom did with mobile money. The AFF has not only supported financial tech innovators in Nigeria but has also become a must attend converge point through its annual Disrupt program for those looking forward to the next disruption, not just in financial services, but several other industries as well.

Access Bank is serving.

Poor MTN Nigeria Plc (mind you, not on money but influence), EFCC has joined the list of investigators of its  public listing. I think they should change the mobile giant name to One Week One Trouble Nigeria Plc; better check if Anezi Okoro did not trademark that – he has a book of same name.

MTN Nigeria on Saturday said that it was being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the listing of its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

A statement posted on the exchange web site signed by MTN Nigeria Communications, Company Secretary, Uto Ukpanah, confirmed the investigation.

The statement said the company received a letter on May 23 from EFCC requesting information and documentation related to the listing of our shares on the NSE.

“MTN Nigeria has not been accused of any wrongdoing by the EFCC.

“We wish to reiterate that we received all regulatory approvals required to list our shares on the NSE, as publicly confirmed by NSE and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“As a law-abiding and responsible corporate citizen, we are cooperating fully with the authorities.

“We are committed to good governance and to abiding by the extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” said the statement.

My position on these investigations remains as noted here.

That SEC is Investigating MTN Nigeria’s Listing Is A Distraction from Needed Market Reforms

LinkedIn Comment on Feed

There’s a difference between ethical and legal behaviour. On face value, it seems MTN found and exploited that distinction. Finding a loophole in the law and using it is completely legal. However, circumventing the spirit of the agreement (which was to give Nigerians a financial stake in MTN) using a loophole is unethical. The governments approach is a losing strategy because its fighting on the wrong field. It’s deploying legal arsenal were it needs to stage a PR assault. MTN will win every legal spark but that’s not clear with a PR campaign. The government currently, is like a lion in sea fighting a sea serpent, it will not win. It needs to bring the war to land to stand a chance at victory in this battle. It still does need to update the laws to stop this happening again.

Financial Times writes on how China has become an Alibaba nation. Yes, from shopping to movies, lending to payment, and to anything including brick-and-mortar supermarkets, you cannot avoid Alibaba in China. Then, it began to evolve as a Jack Ma nation: “When a foreign leader came to China and the first person he wanted to meet was Jack Ma rather than President Xi , you knew the company was going to be in trouble”. When that happened, Jack Ma started feeling heat – and had to retire to early golfing regime!

It is indeed a sprawling enterprise. Chinese people can shop at Alibaba’s ecommerce platform, apply for a loan from its financial unit, pay for goods with Alibaba’s e-wallet, and get their purchases delivered through Alibaba’s logistics network. When they are tired of their stuff, they can sell it on Alibaba’s second-hand goods platform. It runs a brick-and-mortar supermarket called Freshippo and operates a food-delivery app. Some of the movies on its streaming site — including this year’s Best Picture Oscar-winning Green Book — are produced by Alibaba Pictures. And all of these services are powered by AliCloud.

Alibaba is huge. Fintech Collective reports on how it uses crowdfunding to provide health insurance to communities and users:”Ant Financial launched a healthcare-coverage product Xiang Hu Bao in October and already has about 65 million clients. They pay small monthly fees that are pooled to help cover treatment costs for members stricken by diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and even Ebola.”

Call it crowdfunding for health care –- an emerging industry in China that itself is becoming crowded. Ant Financial is one of at least 50 companies, including ride hailing giant Didi Chuxing and a startup backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., upending the conventional health-insurance business by creating what essentially are online collectives. It’s a unique business model that probably only can be pulled off in China. The country’s leapfrog into the smartphone age means more than 700 million people can sign up, make monthly payments and even upload medical documents and bills with just a few clicks.

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.