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The African Web Summit Comes To Lagos – Sept 14/15

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Tekedia Editors
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A 2-day event packed full of seminars, workshops and networking sessions all given by industry relevant business leaders and world renowned speakers from multi-national companies including representatives from Google, Facebook, Twitter and IBM.

 

The African Web Summit is a Social Media, Technology and Digital Conference that aims to be a driving force in the digital revolution on the Continent of Africa. The conference’s focus is to increase the digital and technological confidence of African business leaders, in line with other ‘Developed Countries’. The AWS will have keynote speakers, networking and workshops. Some of the topics explored will particular relevant for Startups/Entrepreneurs, Social Media/iMarketing professionals and Gaming and Software Developers. There has been substantial interest from the Banking industry, Mobile Technology and Venture Capitalist as well.

 

The conference will be held in Lagos on Sept 14-15, 2011

 

We like this statement credited to an Ericsson executive

 

“Africa is on the cusp of a major revolution powered by mobile broadband. Since the late 90s, mobile telephony has substantially changed market dynamics on the continent and rekindled an almost forgotten spirit of free market enterprise in our economies. With the advent of social media, we are beginning to see Africa take the lead in utilizing the web in previously unknown ways – you only have to look to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Ivory Coast to see the potential being unlocked. At the inaugural edition of the African Web Summit we have a major opportunity to explore some of these triggers and forecast what will be the barriers and drivers to a web driven 21st Century Africa. You have to be there.”

 

Simply, the objectives of this conference are as follows:

  • To educate, showing companies and individuals the value of Social Media as an advertising and branding tool.
  • To aid in the Digital Revolution of African as an emerging market.
  • To inform as a means of sharing news worthy information and a device news agencies and individuals can use to circumvent the perceived failures of rolling 24hr news.
  • To run various workshops for startups, software and game developers and iMarketing
  • To continue the digital awareness of a continent trying to keep up with the rest of the developed nations. (The Egyptian revolution comes to mind.)
  • To promote investments in the African technology sector.

Airtel Nigeria Launches “BConnected” – RIM Continues Its War Against Fake BB Devices

By
Tekedia Editors
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Airtel Nigeria has launched a new BlackBerry subscriber  bundle in Nigeria. It is called ‘BConnected’  and offers  ‘BlackBerry Messenger’ which is a real time messaging and chat service  with interface to social media networks like, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. It also offers access to monthly, weekly or daily plans on the expiration of a 30 day free trial period. In future, this product could have gaming from the new acquisition, Scoreloop.

 

The cost of the bundle is N1,580 monthly without e-mail services which most other BlackBerry services include. Yet, that cost is lower than the cost of the standard product which goes for N3,000.

 

Blackberry continues to lose market share due to fake devices that are sold in Nigeria. While the rich and corporate buy the original device, most buy the fake ones that are imported from Asia. This fake device does not have warranty and most times do not last as long as the main one.

 

Adverts that reads in part below is common as RIM continues to educate customers to buy the genuine BB:

 

”Always look for the seal of authenticity whenyou buy a new BlackBerry device. ”This guarantees that you are buying from an authorised dealer and that your new BlackBerry device comes with the peace of mind of a 12 month warranty”.

 

Blackberry continues to lose market share globally not just due to pirated versions of their products, but due to competition from Android and iPhone. BlackBerry commands a 14.8% share of worldwide smartphone sales, making it the fifth most popular device manufacturer after Nokia, Samsung, LG, and Apple. The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies

 

But recently, Blackberry is working hard to jumpstart its business with acquisition of Scoreloop, a gaming company. Scoreloop was founded in March 2008 and has raised more than $2.8m. The initial plan was to provide  multiplayer challenge games with a focus on iPhone. But it deviated and then moved into the domain where community of developers could work to add socialgraph and interactions on their games. This include the scoring sheet, messaging, virtual currency, etc. As they made progress, Android evolved as the centerpiece of their strategy as more works seemed to make it the primary operating system. But with time, it supports all the leading mobile OS. Scoreloop supports Windows Phone, iOS, Android, and Bada (Samsung) operating systems. We are not sure if the HP Palm WebOS is supported by Scoreloop. Also,  Symbian has no information.

 

RIM will bring the Scoreloop technology to the blackberry. This has a potential to make the Blackberry Social Platform better. Scoreloop technology has made it a strong contender for the consolidation wave as more companies are looking for social games in their mobile ecosystems. When DeNA bought Ngmoco in a $400m deal, it made it clear that the industry was not timid on games. Also the Electronic Arts bought Chillingo for $29m while GREE went for OpenFeint in excess of $100m.

Mobitel Launches “Upgrade to Mobitel 4G- Go with the Cloud” –

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

Mobitel Limited has started a new campaign to promote its cloud business. The tag is named: Upgrade to Mobitel 4G- Go with the Cloud. The 4G is certainly a new dimension of connectivity and customers must relish in the possibilities. The company parades 4G WIMAX products and is certainly an innovation engine.

 

This a new dawn in the connectivity business in Nigeria. Proving a  of 4G broadband wireless services in Nigeria will offer an unsurpassed power in the country. This means you can zap video in minutes, play games at natural speed and watch online TV.

 

Some of their data plans are as follows:

Mobitel Data Service Plans

Speed/Device                  Dongle                            Aura                              Indoor Unit
1Mbps                               N10,000                          N/A                                N10,000
2Mbps                               N15,000                          N15,000                       N15,000
3Mbps                               N/A                                   N30,000                       N30,000

 

This company continues to innovate with the   Mobitel Access Lite Dongle and the  sleek Mobitel Aura which is a portable mobile device that connects up to 5 Wi-Fi enabled devices for individuals who want high speed broadband internet on the go.

 

Mobitel is a foremost telecommunications firm in Nigeria focused on the delivery of next generation 4G, WiMax broadband technologies through the use of the 2.3GHz spectrum license for enhanced user experience, faster speed, better broadband quality, and competitive pricing. Mobitel are the pioneer provider of real wireless broadband service in Nigeria with speeds starting at 1Mbps and capacity to deliver up to 100Mbps. Mobitel differentiates on customer

 

  • Mobitel was acquired by a new investor consortium in June 2008 led by Omni-Ventures Limited.
  • Mobitel was awarded a national license on the 2.3 GHz frequency in September 2010, and recommenced operations in October rolling out 4G Broadband and Voice services.
  • With its 4G launch in late October 2010, Mobitel became the pioneer provider of real broadband service in Nigeria with speed starting at 1MB and with capacity to hit 100Mbps for Homes and Offices. Mobitel differentiates on consistency and reliability of speed compared to the current segment leaders.

Facebook And Google Join Forces To Block Do-Not-Track Bill in California

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

They rarely work together. Facebook and Google are business arch-rivals.  They do not see face to face. But when it is something that affects their ecosystem, they know when to collaborate.

 

The two companies are working together to oppose a Californian bill that will restrict and limit online advertising.  The bill is planned to stop firms from collecting personal data including names, phone numbers, browsing history, and selling of consumer data.

 

The deal is that without consumer data, there is no online advertising. The technology of Observed Behavior Advertising that targets consumers based on their web habits and location will not be possible. Without this and if the Bill passes, the ad revenue in California alone will drop by $579m according to Bloomberg by 2014.

 

This is an emerging trend as privacy advocates push hard to curtail what has enabled Internet to evolve over the years. Other states will follow if California succeeds and that is why the duo of Facebook and Google want to make sure it does not happen.

Report of Mobile Monday Lagos of June 20 From Fasmicro

By
Tekedia Editors
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1

Fasmicro participated in the Mobile Monday that took place in Lagos on June 20, 2011. The venue was at Roberts Café on the Lagos Island. There were three major three speakers and they are:

 

Nokia:
Discussed their products and their market penetration in Africa, then went on to explain the Ovi platform and what developers stand to gain developing for this platform.

 

Fasmicro and MicroScale Embedded:
The MD of Fasmicro discussed a lot what Fasmicro offers in terms of products and services, including apps designs, training and consulting. He also went further to introduce our android store which was received with appreciation in the room.  Microscale explained how android can be utilized for automation with embedded devices.

 

There were a lot of questions on what a developer stand to gain developing on the android platform. Though we had a lot of developers in the conference they still had a lot of questions on android. I took the questions and went further to explain the Google AppInventor, and then a career path developers can enjoy with the knowledge of the android platform.

 

Legal Practitioners:
They tried to discuss how the law affects the ICT industry and the idea of having either a patent or a copyright for your software products. They also explained the need for developers to start thinking as entrepreneurs, because in the long run there is always a commercial side to the software products. It was later agreed that developers need basic business/law knowledge to protect themselves and also lawyers need ICT knowledge to be able to properly interpret and understand developers.

 

We got a lot of congratulations on our efforts so far and they are all expecting more from us in the near future.

 

There was an issue about Ovim – the Nigeria’s tablet name.  An issue was brought up that the name Ovim is too close to the trademark Ovi which is Nokia’s and that in light of that the Ovim is sounding more like a Nokia. However, the MD of Fasmicro  was able to explain the origin of the name Ovim, and he assured it has absolutely nothing to do with the Ovi platform.

 

Editor’s Note: The tablet is named after a village in Abia named Ovim. The former governor of Lagos, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu; former governor of Imo State, Major General Ike Nwachukwu; the present Chief of Army Staff, Major General Ihejirika; Fasmicro founder, Dr Ndubuisi Ekekwe, among others are from Ovim.  We thank our partner, Microscale, for allowing us to use the name. Future products will honor an identify from Microscale side as we push to celebrate Nigeria and our histories. MiE product which we hope to co-launch is simply MIcroscale Embedded.

 

 

About the Fasmicro app store, there was a suggestion for us to integrate it with the four major network operators in Nigeria so as to solve the issue of payment when we start selling apps on the store. It was observed that a lot of Nigerians find it difficult to buy apps not because they do not have the cash but they do not have a credit card.

 

By show of hands about only 25% of those in the room has actually paid for any kind of app. Since this is an indigenous store then it should solve the problem so when you download the app you pay from the credit on your phone.

 

The need for more free apps was encouraged in the room, paid apps are not supposed to be entirely free, one is supposed to run ads on free apps so you still get to make cash from people using the apps.

 

After the event by Unscientific Show of hands
What Platforms are you going to develop for?
Nokia 35%, android 50%, RIM 20%, Iphone 2% (Note some developers opted for multiple Platforms)
What mobile phones do you use?
Rim 40%, Nokia 50%, android 8%, Iphone 2%

 

From the above stat I believe we did very well in the conference and we now have the duty of taking this training to these willing developers in Lagos, we had to answer a rather familiar question “Why is your training not in Lagos”? “I cannot make it to owerri because I am working”.

 

Editor’s Note: We now can train in Lagos. Please email info@fasmicro.com

 

A report prepared by Fasmicro Emeka Nwankwo for his colleague in Fasmicro. We thank them for making it public and allowing Tekedia to adapt it for our readers. This is a very detailed which we have redacted many sections. Thanks Emeka.

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