Today, I spent the day in a category-king software and cloud solution company. Wragby Solutions is building software solutions of the future with A.I. (artificial intelligence), accelerating innovation across different nexus of Nigeria’s industrial sectors. Meeting the young people at the heart of this redesign elevates my unbounded optimism on the promise of the future of Nigeria. From business solutions to elemental components of cloud platform and application infrastructure, they have built and building the pieces to drive productivity and reduce technology frictions for markets. And the most fascinating part: IoT solutions to power the digitizing Nigerian economy. People, innovation has a happy home in Nigeria!

Now Wragby Business Solutions and Technologies Limited is a proven industry leader with expertise in Cloud Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Data, Modern Workplace, and Business Solutions in West Africa. Our company was the Microsoft Partner of the year finalist in 2017 and 2018 respectively for our work in Cloud Technology and Enterprise Mobility. These affirm our dedication to transforming businesses via innovation and making the world a better place through technology.

By Nnamdi Odumody

Moven is a digital banking platform for the future which utilizes Near Field Communication technology provided through contact stickers placed on smartphones, allowing users to pay for goods and services in the U.S through MasterCard. Its customers can monitor their financial health through its solutions which include CRED Score, Money Pulse, Money Path and a financial personality test.

Moven offers an innovative technology platform which includes a suite of easy-to-use APIs and a Software Development Kit (SDK), which global banks use to attract, retain and grow their customer base. This technology is proven to significantly reduce attrition, deepening customer relationships and help drive new revenue streams for financial institutions.

Moven provides users with contextual personalized advice as part of the e-wallet mobile app experience. Analyzing the expenses daily, the service allows users to track their spending in real time while reducing spending and increasing savings—all to drive financial wellness and good financial habits. An automated tool for tracking spending and encouraging savings provides a way for banks to place themselves on the side of their customers.

It enables email and text payments even if the receiver is not an account holder. It has a network of over 42,000 ATMs where one can withdraw cash without any fees.

Its enterprise stack helps banks reduce attrition rates, drive new revenue streams and lower the cost of customer acquisition. Utilizing AI, banks are provided with an advice driven personalized financial wellness experience to better engage, retain and grow their customer relationships. Banks and third party data is translated into real time advisory for customers.

Customers unique spending and savings habits are mastered as they interact with their banks smart app powered by Moven. These are used to determine future financial wellness and engagement prompts such as spending list.

Moven offers a range of Open APIs for any bank to quickly and easily integrate its technology, enabling them to gain faster speed to market to support smart intelligent banking into an existing app.

Nigerian banks should through its country representative Inlaks Computers integrate Moven where necessary to deepen the banking customer experience for the future.

Donald Trump, U.S. President, signed an Executive Order to deepen the United States’ cybersecurity workforce. Fortune newsletter summarizes it thus:

The order laid a number of sorely needed federal initiatives. Among them: standardizing job listings to help cybersecurity workers more easily move around government, creating a rotational employment program between the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, establishing awards for elementary and secondary school educators who foster cybersecurity talent, and incentivizing people to learn and master hacking skills through new “awards and decorations.”

Perhaps the most interesting part of the document called for a “president’s cup cybersecurity competition.” The goal, the directive states, “shall be to identify, challenge, and reward the United States Government’s best cybersecurity practitioners and teams across offensive and defensive cybersecurity disciplines.” The order mandates that such a contest, intended for both military and civilians, will take place before the end of the year. Winners are set to earn a minimum cash prize of $25,000.

Specifically, the section on using competition to stimulate young people is brilliant as captured in the Executive Order: “develop a plan for an annual cybersecurity competition (President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition) for Federal civilian and military employees”. Nigeria needs to pick some insights from this policy and create something in that line.

(e)  The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Director of OMB, and the heads of other appropriate agencies, shall develop a plan for an annual cybersecurity competition (President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition) for Federal civilian and military employees.  The goal of the competition shall be to identify, challenge, and reward the United States Government’s best cybersecurity practitioners and teams across offensive and defensive cybersecurity disciplines.  The plan shall be submitted to the President within 90 days of the date of this order.  The first competition shall be held no later than December 31, 2019, and annually thereafter.

I have articulated some policies Nigeria can take to build a strong cybersecurity capability.

In this piece, I had written a whitepaper for Nigeria’s “National Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare Command, NGCYBERCOM”. Yes, you imagine a future and you just write even when no one is paying attention. Provided it is written you have your peace back. Here is the video but the whitepaper is a tome of academic scholarship.

Facebook is planning to make something awesome on cryptocurrency. The company is talking to dozens of financial and e-commerce companies, including Visa and MasterCard, about the cryptocurrency-based payment system it is developing. The scheme carries the codename Project Libra and involves a dollar-pegged virtual currency that could be used for payments between WhatsApp users. Facebook is apparently considering giving users small amounts of the cryptocurrency for looking at ads, Fortune Newsletter summarizes.

I spent the day with Soulmate Industries Limited. Soulmate is the largest wholly indigenous hair beauty brand in sub-Saharan Africa. The Founder and CEO, Chief Sir Ndukwe Osogho-Ajala, is our big fellow FUTOite who took his university project in FUTO to build a multi-billion naira empire. To all of us from FUTO, he remains a legend, offering support. When I set up a shop in Nigeria while a student in the Engineering Lab of the Johns Hopkins University, Soulmate was the first client that prepaid for our services.  Today, Soulmate remains a client – and we are very thankful.  I must confess that I have never seen a better industrial microbiology lab in Nigeria to what I saw today – very brilliant young people building this nation. #BelieveInNigeria

Soulmate Industries Limited (RC 204468), commenced production of hair care products on January 8, 1992.  The company, since its inception a little over two decades ago, has diligently pursued technical excellence and produced high quality products that competes favourably with any brand across the globe.  Over the years, Soulmate has invested heavily in research and this investment has assisted us in gaining public recognition as producer of high quality products.