It is now official: Google Duplex is now at work. Yes, if you live in 43 states in U.S., you can use the AI system to book restaurant reservations if you have some Android devices. As this product scales around the world, some restaurant staff will see job dislocation. Sure, they will need to find new jobs as we celebrate the capacity of technology to simplify frictions in our lives. Yes, it looks increasingly clear that the AI future will bring pains to many citizens of the earth, and it makes sense for policymakers to start examining how to mitigate severe labour dislocations.

From Phoenix to Atlanta, it’s been great to see many of you using our new Google Assistant feature built on Duplex technology to quickly book restaurant reservations over the phone. Thanks to your feedback, we’re beginning to make this feature available to more people across the United States. Now, you can use it on all Pixel phones in 43 U.S. states.

All it takes is a few seconds to tell your Assistant where you’d like to go. Just ask the Assistant on your phone, “Book a table for four people at [restaurant name] tomorrow night.” The Assistant will then call the restaurant to see if it can accommodate your request. Once your reservation is successfully made, you’ll receive a notification on your phone, an email update and a calendar invite so you don’t forget.

We look forward to bringing this service to more people across the U.S. to make planning a night out just a bit easier. Over the next few weeks, we’ll start slowly bringing this feature to more Android and iOS devices, and will continue to incorporate feedback as we continue testing. Bon appétit!

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No matter what the challenges may be, do NOT give up on tomorrow. Your future has a promise; you just have to live into it. The fact is this: Change happens and the dews come!

Those days in FUTO, we skipped meals. And we ate in the bukka because the school canteens were very expensive.

Then, after graduating on a Friday with B.Eng in electrical & electronics engineering, I began work on a Monday. They provided a car with a driver, a great salary, a house, and magically the food problem disappeared. By the time I got to Diamond Bank, I had enough money to buy food for street boys near Allen Avenue in Ikeja where I lived then. It was a ritual: every Friday the “chairman” would pay for the mama put, for the boys to eat.

That transformation, from skipping meals to buying meals for people, remains evergreen.

The message is this: any situation will change. To those looking for work, looking for business opportunities, BELIEVE in the promise of tomorrow. Do not give up; your moment will come.

About 1.4 billion tonnes of food is lost annually due to lack of cold chain solutions. According to FIIRO, a Nigeria-based food research agency, a farmer loses between 40-50 percent of farm produce. This leads to price hikes in cost of food items, price fluctuations and food scarcity. More than 85 percent of farm owners in Nigeria are without access to cold chain storage solutions. Cooling and refrigeration rely an access to a reliable and affordable source of either electricity or diesel fuel which are often lacking or virtually nonexistent in rural areas.

A cold chain or cool chain is a temperature-controlled supply chain. An unbroken cold chain is an uninterrupted series of refrigerated production, storage and distribution activities, along with associated equipment and logistics, which maintain a desired low-temperature range.

In healthcare, cold chain technology is required in the preservation and storage of healthcare products, medications and the dissemination of vaccines. Unfortunately 19.4 million infants do not receive routine immunization due to inadequate cold chain facility during transportation and storage. About 1.5 million annual deaths could have been prevented if there were adequate cold chain storage facilities.

Oghenetega Iortim, a business development expert with expertise spanning different industries which include power, information technology, oil and gas where he built solutions for Nigerian Gas generating revenue of over $1million per annum, and his Cofounder Richard Amiola, a renewable energy expert, who has embarked on projects which harness the potential of renewable energy such as regenerative braking, thermoelectric generation, piezoelectricity and solar energy, decided to come up with a solution to this problem.

The solution is Gricd Frij, a cold chain box for storage and transportation of agricultural and healthcare products, in locations without power infrastructure. This device embedded with real time storage temperature and location monitoring technology has a dedicated battery which lasts up to 48 hours.

Gricd Frij will provide reliable, affordable cold chain solution to preserve crop produce, dairy milk, meat, household food, finding purpose across various sectors, preventing post harvest losses for farmers. It will also preserve vaccines and other healthcare products during transportation to remote, rural areas.

This innovation has been adopted by the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research Lagos for the transportation of laboratory samples, a hospital and some small businesses which rely on cold chain. It gives the user the ability to sustain items at regulated temperatures of up to 20 degrees Celsius during storage and transportation. It is the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa competing with the traditional means of storage which are conventional refrigerators and ice packs in cooler boxes.

The Federal Ministry Of Health, Nigerian Medical Association (the umbrella body of all medical practitioners), and Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria need to sensitize their members to patronize this innovation which will  go a long way in preventing some of the wastages faced by medical centers and pharmacies in drug and other sensitive items during delivery. Also, the Nigerian Agribusiness Support Group, an umbrella body of all organizations involved in agribusiness, Farmers Association, and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with its Departments and Agencies, should also utilize this product to prevent produce wastages.

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