India’s Jain Plans To Invest in Africa – Drip Irrigation Will be Improved

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April 28, 2011

Jain Irrigation Systems of India plans to set up its first factory in Africa by the end of next year as part of an effort to push up annual sales fivefold by 2015. Anil Jain, chief executive, said he was evaluating potential sites in Africa for factories to make specialised systems based on drip irrigation – a type of irrigation equipment of which Jain is the world’s second- biggest supplier.

The idea of the plant would be to produce systems that could be sold around the continent as part of Jain’s plans for a big increase in its sales of $1bn last year. “Africa needs a lot of investment [in drip irrigation] and we are in a good position to supply a lot of the equipment which could help in this,” Mr Jain said.

Jain has the following services

Small Farmer, Urban Household, Urban Housing, Community Development, Mining Industry, Plant Tissue Culture, Chemical industry, Sugar factories, Oil & Gas exploration, Optic Fiber Ducting, Advertisement & Signage’s, Landscaping, Green Houses, Watershed development, Waste Land Development, Farm Production & Management, Fruit and Vegetable Processing and many more.

The Crash of Broadband Price in Africa – WACS Cable Lands South Africa

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Tekedia Editors

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April 28, 2011

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Vanguard reports that the West Africa Cable System (WACS) cable is nearing home. This simply means that very soon the price of broadband access will crash. If that happens, Africa will be in the next phase of web connectivity. Let it happen and let it happen quickly. This project is perhaps one of the vital instruments that will spur economic growth and prosperity in the region. We cannot wait.

Millions of MTN subscribers across the continent are inching closer to receiving a broadband windfall following the successful landing of the West Africa Cable System (WACS) cable off the west coast of South Africa this week.

The cable landed at Yzerfontein along the west coast of the Western Cape. …..

WACS is a 14, 000 kilometre -ong fibre optic submarine cable with a capacity of 5.12 terabits per second (tbps), spanning the west coast of Africa and terminating in the United Kingdom. It is expected to enable seamless connectivity among countries in Southern and West Africa with the rest of Europe and America.

FirstBank Launches Nigeria’s First Biometric ATM. Simply, The Bad Guys Will Be Getting Out of Luck

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Tekedia Editors

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April 28, 2011

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First Bank of Nigeria Plc has launched a biometric ATM in the nation.

Nigeria’s foremost financial institution, First Bank of Nigeria Plc (FirstBank) has, again blazed the trail in technology-driven banking by introducing bio-metric Automated Teller Machine (ATM), the first in Nigeria’s banking sector. With the introduction of this technology, globally acclaimed as one of the most secure forms of customer identification, the Bank has again demonstrated its preparedness to protect the data resources of its customers. The solution is leveraging on the Customer Identification System (CIS) platform being developed by information technology team of the Bank.

According to Chuma Ezirin, Group Head, eBusiness of FirstBank, the new technology would be available to existing cardholders, who may wish to add biometric authentication as part of their transaction approval process on the Bank’s ATMs in addition to PIN selection while new cardholders, especially those who cannot read nor write and the elderly, would be issued cards with only biometric authentication functionality. “This is a great feat for the Bank especially at this period where fraud prevention and building customer confidence on the use of electronic channels are key customer acquisition and retention strategies. This would also drive financial inclusion, a Central Bank initiative to address the banking needs of the unbanked population’, he said.

The deployment of the new biometric solution, according to him, is a giant stride for the Bank as it not only provides convenience and security to our diverse customer segments, but also aligns with financial inclusion strategy of the Central Bank of Nigeria to address the unbanked population.

The machine has undergone series of tests and it is presently located at Marina, Lagos branch of the Bank while plans are in place to roll them out to strategic branches of the Bank.

PagaTech Security Question – “What Is Your Father’s Favorite Drink?”

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Tekedia Editors

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April 28, 2011

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Quick question: have you signed up for the mobile payment? If you did and used Pagatech’s Paga m-payment product, you must have seen this as one of the questions for security: “What Is Your Father’s Favorite Drink?”

They also ask you this loving one: “what was your dream job as a child?” Many of us would have answered firefighters. Why? In Day By Day Book 6, that was the coolest photo those days and everyone in the class wanted to dress like them. Teacher asked us our dream jobs, all the boys said firefighters. Thank Heavens that it did not go that way.

Back to the drink; our question to you is this: do you know it? We mean for real, not just typing your own favorite drink.

It is kind of cool that they are asking many off the shelf questions. Yet, the questions are too many and you could get lost in the whole system. But when your phone is your wallet, you better spend time and answer them. Why? If you are not careful, a casual mistake with that phone can turn out to be bankruptcy. Your phone is no more phone, but something more – personal ‘ATM’.

Tech Events In Nigeria This May – Mark Your Calendar

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Tekedia Editors

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April 28, 2011

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This is a summary of these programs which we have earlier reported

G-Nigeria 2011

Based on the G-Africa Initiative, Google has announced the 2011 Google-Nigeria Day as follows:

Growing Local, Going Global

We at Google are excited to meet with Nigeria’s software developers, tech businesses and digital marketeers. With a successful G-Nigeria 2010, we look forward to demonstrating the Google web and mobile tools that are driving technological and business innovation here in Africa and across the globe.

Venue of the conference would be:

The Civic Center

Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue, Opposite 1004

Victoria Island, Lekki Peninsula, Lagos

3rd May 2011: For Developers

4th May 2011: For Businesses and Entrepreneurs. (registration is full)

Time: 9am both days.

Registration is free and can be found here

TechDay With Sarah Lacy

Nigerian web entrepreneurs will host a Tech Open Day through which they they will introduce their products to Sarah Lacy – an editor at TechCrunch . It will also be an opportunity to network with other active members of the Nigerian starttup community.

Date: Thursday, May 05, 2011 at 4:00 PM

Some selected startups that will demo on the day include:

Bloovue: Bloovue helps advertisers connect with their audiences by providing simple and affordable online advertising on the largest online publishers in Nigeria.
Pagatech: Paga is an innovative, open, secure, and interoperable mobile payments platform that allows any person who has a mobile phone to transact electronically – thus turning the mobile phone into an electronic wallet.

Precurio: Precurio is a complete intranet solution designed for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). It is an open source intranet platform that combines a comprehensive package of collaborative and social networking tools with robust reporting, workflow and enterprise content management.

This is free program and registration is here

Garage 48

It is happening. Garage48 has arrived in Africa. Lagos will host the first one.

For the first time in its existence, the Garage48 event series is coming to Lagos. Together with two world companies, Google and Nokia, it will take place from the 6th to the 8th of May 2011 at the Lagos Resource Centre, Victoria Island. Originally developed in Europe, Estonia and expanded to other countries, the purpose of the event is to build new web and mobile services in one single weekend – 48 hours.

Garage48 Lagos will take place at Lagos Resource Centre – a place of quiet and comfort. The venue has established resources for training and learning in an atmosphere of peace and serenity. The focus of the Lagos Resource Centre is to be relevant to the training and formation needs of the professional communities in the region.

Address
9 Anifowose Street – Off Adeola Odeku,
Victoria Island
Lagos, Nigeria

The following are the skills set needed for participants.

Graphic Designers – mavericks creating visual identity and user interfaces
Web Developers – HTML/CSS/JS/AJAX wizards making the design work smoothly in all web browsers
Programmers – planning technical architecture, writing functional code and testing the outcome
Mobile Developers – building apps for mobile platforms
Visionary entrepreneurs and project managers – people with ability to start new business ideas, run teams and deliver
Marketing and Business Development – evangelists and sales wizards making the products fly and reach the audience

This program is FREE

India’s Jain Plans To Invest in Africa – Drip Irrigation Will be Improved

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The Crash of Broadband Price in Africa – WACS Cable Lands South Africa

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FirstBank Launches Nigeria’s First Biometric ATM. Simply, The Bad Guys Will Be Getting Out of Luck

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PagaTech Security Question – “What Is Your Father’s Favorite Drink?”

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Tech Events In Nigeria This May – Mark Your Calendar

G-Nigeria 2011

TechDay With Sarah Lacy

Garage 48

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India’s Jain Plans To Invest in Africa – Drip Irrigation Will be Improved

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The Crash of Broadband Price in Africa – WACS Cable Lands South Africa

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FirstBank Launches Nigeria’s First Biometric ATM. Simply, The Bad Guys Will Be Getting Out of Luck

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PagaTech Security Question – “What Is Your Father’s Favorite Drink?”

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Tech Events In Nigeria This May – Mark Your Calendar

G-Nigeria 2011

TechDay With Sarah Lacy

Garage 48

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