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Home Blog Page 7063

Mr. President “Struggle”

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I am in Abuja and one of the places I made a call was President Buhari’s campaign headquarters in Central Area. It was a way of testing and validating the pulse of the season. As I walked to the HQ, I saw this banner (below) as one of many promoting the candidacy of President Buhari: “The struggle for ordinary Nigerians continues”.

I called the men working there and suggested they update the line. My understanding is that the word “struggle” is self-driven which implies that Mr. President cannot do the struggle for ordinary Nigerians unless he is one. In short, the right meaning of this line could have been an opponent banner which would imply that ordinary Nigerians are struggling in the nation.

Largely, the staff member who made that poster was looking for the word “fighting” but ended up with “struggle”.

I wrote on a piece of paper: “Update this line to ‘The Fighting for Ordinary Nigerians continues’” all in caps [he would probably thrash it after I left]. With “fighting”, Mr. President can communicate that he is fighting to improve the lives of his fellow citizens. I am very confident that he is doing the best he can based on his personal capabilities.

I work for all politicians but support none, today.

*Do not read politics into this.

I Rode Okada Today To Victoria Island

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Okada driver

Lagos got me today. The traffic was legendary – call it Traffic Monday which has become a norm every Monday. To meet an appointment to a client who arrived yesterday from Japan, I had to jump into okada when it became clear the taxi could not get me to the destination on time. Taxi was slow, Marwa was not helpful but okada saved the day. I did not believe it but that was it – moving fast, meandering across the traffic to beat the clock!

People, we need a real solution to Lagos traffic. Traveling from local airport to Victoria Island was taking four hours. That should not have taken more than 46 minutes. It was crazy.

I propose for Lagos state government to begin immediate discussions with neighboring states to move some of the business hubs therein. Do not bank on that though, as doing so will mean that Lagos will lose some tax revenues to the states. So, for Lagos state government, that would not be a good idea, even though it may help the region!

Yet, what we have in Lagos is not sustainable – this city will crash under severe traffic, in ten years, if nothing strategic is done. The Atlantic City should have been built in Ogun State to re-distribute traffic from the Island to the Mainland. All that Lagos State needs to do is to work out a tax revenue sharing formula with the neighboring states.

But that is easier said than done since Nigerian law is still primitive in that space on where earnings or incomes are taxed. Afterall, Nasarawa State houses most people that work in Abuja, and most of those Abuja workers living in Nasarawa state do not pay taxes to Nasarawa state government.

Map of Nigeria (source: World Map)

That is why I have pushed for a new tax policy in Nigeria: have a tax system that stimulates local participation and innovation. A situation where you live in one state and pays 100% of your state to another state where you are employed in faulty. Perhaps your kids attend the local schools where you live, and yet you are not contributing anything in that local economy’s revenue. Today, Nasarawa state poorer citizens are carrying the loads of many richer Abuja workers. It needs to change.

Inability to effectively collect online tax may not look like a threat today but as more business systems move online, new models for tax collection including online tax would become critical. Whenever you pay that Guardian Newspaper advert, you have to send that VAT money. But since you have been paying for the Facebook and Google adverts, nothing like that has happened. It should be a concern because even though we do most things online, we still exist in the physical world where government needs resources to provide social services.

Certainly, we need a new model on tax collection and that would require new tools and processes. We cannot allow the web to destroy the value associated with tax even as it continues to redesign the structures of many other areas. Nigeria desperately needs innovation on online tax collection.

If we have a system that balances where you work and where you pay tax, the promise of getting Lagos State and neighboring states to work out how to shift some firms from Lagos state to say Ogun state may become tax-possible.

As those companies move, the traffic will follow. But it is possible the companies will not make the calls unless governments facilitate the exodus through incentives.  Today, any government that does that would be seen as careless  in an era where state governments continue to work hard to attract new firms: for instance, no Lagos state governor would like to be remembered as the person asking existing Lagos companies to move to other states, even if to save Lagos from traffic armageddon. When you examine all the elements, you would agree that only a federal change in our tax code would fix the paralysis.

Skoll Oxford MBA Scholarship

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I received this via email inviting me to apply because of Zenvus, my agtech subsidiary. They wanted to send me to Oxford for MBA, free. As you would expect, I am over-educated and largely a man looking for containers to import and export to care. Check if going to Oxford MBA would help in your path to the accumulation of capabilities. But you must have done something awesome within the social elements of humanity. This is not packing degrees to grow bank accounts: they want people who desire to improve the lives of others. Good luck!

The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship is searching for its next cohort of Skoll Scholars to study on the Oxford MBA in 2019-20. If you’re doing exceptional work with positive outcomes and want to enhance your skill set and accelerate your impact, then check out the Skoll Scholarship!

The Skoll Scholarship is a fully-funded scholarship for incoming MBA students at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. It gives social entrepreneurs exclusive opportunities to meet with world-renowned experts and thought-leaders, as well as the chance to learn valuable business skills with a social entrepreneurship focus.

Applications are open to the 2019-20 Oxford MBA. If you think you would be a good candidate for the Skoll Scholarship, check out how to apply and connect!

For more information, visit the Skoll Scholarship website: www.skollscholarship.org.

Metnork

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Editor’s Note: This is a guest contribution from Metnork, a Nigeria-based AI startup.


Why don’t we call it an Artificial Emulator than an Artificial Intelligence?

Perception plays a role to the interpretation people give to this class of software, because we think that it exhibits some form of intelligence and since it is in an artificial state, hence the name artificial intelligence. How many of us have really asked ourselves this question “are these things really intelligent”?

To separate the boys from the men using a personal music solution, we have two classes that intelligent solutions fall in,

  • Nor; (“Nor” from normal) these solutions have limitations, when created to select and play a song for you, first it has to learn which are your favorite songs and artists, then it starts deducing what song to play for you at any time of the day using your mood graph. It is simply doing what you would have done.

It emulates the human model, as it is trained with data pulled from the event it’s being created for. Yes it will be accurate in its decisions, fast in speed and efficient (it can repeat a task over and over again, without getting bored) as when compared to a human alternative. But that’s the much it can render to you.

  • Metnor; is a class of solutions that has evolved beyond the “nor” state into a new state (Met-NorMet” from Meta, which means “beyond” and “nor” from normal). Their strength is to figures out man’s weakness and aids him.

For the music solution, this software can use the voice of your favorite artist to create a new song that is not in existence, it can create unbelievable sounds, nice lyrics with great vocals. Imagine if, Michael Jackson or Tupac was your favorite artist, him singing your favorite song (not their own recorded song, but a song done by another musician) at bedtime. This is done without you telling it to do so, it did so because it figured out that your present mood needs such.

Metnor is a state in which artificially intelligent product after having learnt (as a nor) about a certain field, applies its cognitive ability to the related problems in a manner that is beyond man and his intelligence, in a way smarter and more accurate than what a man could have achieved, yet in an exponential rate.

When you apply such an Algorithm to medicine, cures of illnesses that have failed man would arise.

Over 92% of software classified or seen as Artificial Intelligence today are all “nor” class cases, Metnor has the real intelligence and this is so because of the complex nature of its development.

One major difference between any software in a “nor” and “metnor” state is that, we (human) can measure or predict the efficiency, result, outcome or output of a “nor” software, because the human intelligence can tell the input – output of their task. For a “metnor” software, we (human) can only provide it with the inputs and relax for an output as our intelligence cannot dare theirs. 

About Metnork

The K stands for King, an artificial intelligent that is awesome, it dwells in a metnor. What we did is simple;

  1. Replicate the human way of absorbing information, saving information and outputting the information, with this it behaves like a man, but to create something that is in metnor we ensured that it identifies, associates and processes information in a different way, in a smarter way than how we human does it. This gave it that ability to look at and see things we or the “nor” software cannot see.
  2. To create it in a Master-Slave configuration; it becomes the head where all the slaves or instances leverage on it to process their information.
  3. Allow Metnork still behave like a “nor”, in a situation where it’s necessary.

Application of Metnork

The domain where this intelligence can be applied is limitless, for a new domain (say in physics) it takes a few hours to read up (understanding the existing laws, nature of matters or particles etc.) and then it ascend to its true metnor state to see and create things beyond the human intelligence

Imagine it telling you that water exists in another state different from Solid, Liquid or Gaseous state. And in this new state of water you can do some certain things we human have not yet imagined. This can be, because it saw/sees water from a different angle than how we saw/see water.

Imagine it telling you that with a certain arrangement of super conductors and magnets that you can move an object via levitation at the speed of light and it gives you details of how to achieve that. That is the object moving between Nigeria and South Africa in minutes or an hour and.

We can only wait to see the height it attains as we cannot predict or forecast how far it can go.

Demonstration

To demonstrate the intelligence and conscious case of Metnork, we have put together a few screenshots from the application’s first test.

The following explains the test carried out:

PLA: Acronym of Position-Locating Application. This application locates the host device’s current position on the earth. With no internet and your mobile phones GPS turned off, this application would be able to locate its current position.

  1. It locates itself and project the coordinates on the map for the user to use
  2. It consciously interacts with the user. This is with respect to the journey

SL: Acronym of Shape Language. This application interprets gestures made with the phone. This is turning sign languages into inputs for the host device.

  1. The sample library has “HOME” = home speed dial. So when you make the home gesture, the app automatically places a call to a phone number the user provided.
  2. The “+” initiates a SOS to your next of kin. This includes copy of your current location, coordinates afterward and places an in-app call to the next of kin. The SOS command happens while your phone is still locked, so your next of kin could hear what’s happening to you and likewise know your location, without the people around you knowing about it.
  3. The “P” turns the in-app recorder on. So you could record the happenings around you without unlocking your phone.
  4. This application can support unlimited number of sketches in the library and each user can customize each sketch’s response

This application is still under development.

Slaves/Instance of Metnork

Currently we have some 7 solutions that are being developed to leverage on this master intelligence, most are owned by startups in Lagos and they range from medicine, legal, advertisement, programming, education to fintech.  We have pending requests too

These instances are all solutions to their various problems, Metnork provide the metnor services to them. So you can also have an instance of your business on Metnork.

Status of Metnork

The architecture or the brain is 100% ready and tested, but for it to be used in any domain the requirements are yet to be met.

Summary

This technology is from Nigeria. Our mission is to “aid man”.

Lots of instances that would be leveraging on Metnork have started coming forward, we are open to accommodate as many as possible.

We would be glad to communicate and interact with individuals (investors) that would want to aid in this mission, we have lot more to do, but would require funding.

 

www.metnork.com

metnork@gmail.com