Chris Ngige, Nigeria’s minister of labour, who caused tension when he used the word “surplus” on Nigeria’s medical capacity, has clarified. Largely, every human being that watched the Channels TV interview misquoted him. We will take that provided no one says we have excess doctors in this nation.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has clarified his position on the issue of migration by Nigerian medical doctors to foreign nations, a development which has reportedly led to brain drain in the nation’s medical profession.

Mr Ngige made this known in a statement signed by Nwachukwu Obidiwe, his Special Assistant on Media, in Abuja on Thursday.

He was reacting to a media report on Channels Television, where he reportedly said the issue of doctors leaving the country in a large number did not call for much concern.

He described the attendant controversies that had trailed the comment in the media as unnecessary, calling for a deeper understanding of the issue in question.

“I speak from the vantage position of being a medical doctor and member, Nigerian Medical Association since June, 1979 and enriched by my vast knowledge on health administration.

Give it to Silicon Valley – they always know how to find values in Africa. Zipline has a $12.5 million contract to help the government of Ghana to deliver drugs using drones. The company will cover 2,000 health facilities which currently serve 12 million Ghanaians. (Ghana has a population of about 29 million people.) The plan is 600 deliveries per day for four years. If you do the math, it comes down to $14 per delivery on average.

Zipline claims it would be able to cover 2,000 health facilities that serve 12 million Ghanaians (of a population of just under 30 million)—from small community clinics and vaccination centers to larger general hospitals like Tafo – when all its four local centers become operational.

The company has been contracted by the government of Ghana to make 600 deliveries a day (150 deliveries from each center) for four years and they will be paid per successful delivery. It would cost Ghana $12.5 million during the period.

Critics have argued the government should have rather spent the money on more important and simpler things the health sector really needs such as the critical shortage of hospital beds, gloves, consistent supply of water and the improvement of hospital buildings

It would have been good to know how much the government has invested in the Ghana’s postal service in the last few years. Possibly, its model would have been $1 per delivery and the very reason it might not have done the work effectively. There is never fund to make the postal service operate optimally.

This is serious: one American celebrity chef was complaining many years ago that U.S. kids were not getting good nutrition from their school lunches. He prepared mock lunches and was on CNN making all kinds of noise, throwing away food supplies that did not meet his level, as he visited schools. Then school districts invited him to their districts. They gave him a budget as they received from the city-leaders to make the same quality of meals he was showing on TV.

Jamie Oliver ran away! Simply, you can make a Buckingham palace –quality food on CNN but when you operate on the city-level budget, it will not happen. Largely, it is possible Ghana’s postal service may be delivering each below that $14, and would still be expected to achieve the same result. That would not happen!

More so, now that we have the numbers from Ghana, it would be good to know how much Lagos State is paying per delivery as Zipline is launching in the Centre of Excellence soon.

LinkedIn Comment on Feed

By default or via selfishness, we expect people close to us to work for us free or at infinitesimal amount, else we take the deal elsewhere and pay handsomely; even being thankful to the person/entity for accepting to do the job… Equal pay, equal demand for performance; else you do not have a case.

Maybe we do not like working with those around us, or we simply do not trust them. Whatever is the case, let there be value for money, before it becomes financial malfeasance.

 By Nnamdi Odumody

Alibaba’s B2B e-commerce platform, Tmall, recently launched a new dedicated gateway for consumers to discover new products on its sister Taobao’s app. This is as a result of Tmall’s redesign to position it as a branding powerhouse. and go to platform. for brands launching product debuts in China.

With this collaboration, Taobao users can click on a Tmall icon to access the channel ‘’TMall New Products’’ which features any array of creative content and personalized recommendations to help consumers discover exciting products that just made their debuts in the market. Taobao’s app has nearly 700 million monthly users, and is one of the most visited platforms in China at 7.8 times a day.

From today, customers clicking on the “Tmall” icon in their Taobao mobile app will be directed to the “Tmall New Products” channel, which includes a full array of new features – including Tmall’s “Most Sought-after New Items,” “The Next New Things,” “Limited Editions” and “New Flagships.”

Working with brands and key opinion leaders, the channel will provide customers with in-depth information and recommendations on new products.

“Building on our strong track record, we will continue to invest heavily this year to help Tmall brands and merchants attract traffic and infuse innovation into their supply chain management, product development and cross-disciplinary collaboration,” said president of Taobao and Tmall Jiang Fan.

“Our goal is for Tmall to become the top launchpad for global brands’ debuts. We will provide the necessary support to brands to make their product launches more effective, on target and successful.”

According to Jiang Fan, President of Taobao and Tmall, its goal is to become the top Launchpad for global brands that want to make their products debut in China, and its 2019 strategic focus is to help Tmall brands and merchants attract traffic and infuse innovation into their supply chain management, product development, and cross disciplinary collaboration.

Brands which use Tmalls suite of product debut marketing solutions such as Heybox or TMall Innovation Center which leverages consumer insights to help brands speed up new product development can extend their reach with the Taobao App.

Heybox uses machine learning to bring personalized selection of products to Chinese consumers.

On the first day of pre-sales, Tmall shoppers ordered more than 2,000 jars while over 10,000 orders were recorded by the end of the week. Its global release is slated for April 29^th 2019.

Konga, Jumia and other leading African e-commerce brands, should learn from Taobao, and adopt a strategy tailored to fit local realities for foreign brands wishing to launch new products in the continent.

By Nnamdi Odumody

Fliggy, Alibaba’s online travel platform, is bridging the online and offline customer experience of the hospitality industry. It is leveraging cutting edge technology by collaborating with its sister members of the Alibaba ecosystem – Alibaba A.I Labs and Alibaba Cloud – to transform the hospitality industry with Flyzoo, a 290-room smart hotel in Hangzhou, China.

According to Andy Wang, CEO of Alibaba Future Hotel, the Flyzoo Hotel represents Alibaba’s ambition to merge hospitality with technology and empower the tourism industry to embrace innovation.

Enter the FlyZoo Hotel. Located in Hangzhou, China, the 290-room FlyZoo Hotel was built by Alibaba’s online travel platform, Fliggy, along with other Alibaba Group business units, such as Alibaba A.I. Labs and Alibaba Cloud. Its purpose? To leverage cutting-edge tech to help transform the hospitality industry, one that keeps the sector current with the digital era we’re living in.

Its mobile app enables guests to make reservations, choose the hotel floor of their choice and even the direction their rooms face. Foreign guests require a few steps at a smart kiosk through the assistance of a hotel staff while Chinese customers check in through a seamless process through the app and move straight to their rooms.

Flyzoo utilizes artificial intelligence to engineer seamless experience for its guests. With facial recognition, guests can access the hotels rooms and other facilities rather than keys and key card which remain the norm. It uses the photo generated at check in to verify guests currently lodging at the hotel.

Each of its rooms is equipped with a TMall Genie Smart Assistant which helps guests adjust the temperature, lights, curtains and the TV. The tech also plays music and even answers simple questions – all with a voice command. If they need any room service, TMall Genie will handle it, delivered by an Alibaba robot.

Checkout time for guests is seamless and convenient with provision for notification to the hotel in advance, in case they decide to leave before the standard checkout time, and the rooms will automatically be released after check out.

Flyzoo’s technology makes the hotel smart, convenient, easy to use, freeing hotel staff from routine tasks to focus on delivering a better personalized customer experience for guests.

TETFund Executive Secretary, Suleiman Bogoro, does not like what he sees from most of Nigeria’s 8000 professors. After reading some research proposals coming to TEFFund, he was  moved to crank: “make one to wonder if some of these professors in question are actually the principal investigators in the proposal.” Prof Bogoro has a big point – Nigeria university system needs to advance our knowledge base, but for that to happen, we have to deepen the capabilities of those that teach our students.

The reinstated Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Suleiman Bogoro, has said most Nigerian professors are not capable of getting global grants for research because of poor research proposals.

Despite the growing number of Nigerian professors, said to be about 8000, the TETfund boss is worried that many professors have low capacity to write quality research proposals.

[…]

According to Mr Bogoro, some of the proposals coming to TETFund “make one to wonder if some of these professors in question are actually the principal investigators in the proposal.”

He said about 80 per cent (proposals) are ‘condemned’ because they are poor.

“I have been in some platforms overseas where some Nigerian professors have been invited and they were reluctant to climb the podium because they wanted to get PhD at that stage. It is the title that bothers them not the knowledge,” he said.