My secondary school alma mater, Secondary Technical School Ovim (Abia State), today informed me that it would like to rename one of the Inter-Houses to my name. It has five Houses – Red, Green, White, Yellow and Blue. Essentially, during the annual Inter-House Sports competitions, one of the Houses would be Ndubuisi Ekekwe House. Unlike the chieftaincy title, I accepted this one. The letter was written by the school principal on behalf of the staff, students and the PTA.

Secondary Technical School Ovim is a community school. It was established by Ovim Community as one of the foremost technical secondary schools in eastern Nigeria. The Motor Vehicle Lab, Wood Work Lab and other labs remain some of the best in the state. In short, the new computer lab is used by Abia State University for lab works.

This is not anyhow school – community sons like Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (rtd) [former governor of Lagos State], Major General Ike Nwachukwu (rtd) [former governor of Imo State], Lt General Ihejirika Azuibuike (rtd) [ former Chief of Army Staff] are some of the icons that invest efforts to make sure our school remains strong.

The school is largely managed by Ovim Community League – a community development entity. We are recording high double-digit percentage on transition from secondary to university education. They have accomplished impressive number on primary education to secondary education. Largely, any child in my village is guaranteed of secondary education.

I attended this school. I became a local legend, breaking and holding all-time WAEC academic result in the school history. I also became a teacher while a student teaching Maths, Physics and Further Maths. I won laurels for my school in competitions across the nation. After my WAEC, my principal and vice principal received State Awards.

The last time I visited home, primary school kids were brought by their parents for me to help them with algebra, numbers, etc. And the bigger boys and girls in secondary school came with Geography map reading, Calculus and Physics.

It makes you humble that you are inspiring young people. I would likely attend the next Inter-House Sports Competition, not to cheer those competing from Ndubuisi Ekekwe House but all kids in our school. Ovim is a very small community (about 10,000 people) but we are enviable in our quest to build a society for all. I benefited from the efforts of those ahead of me – they brought the best teachers in Nigeria to teach me. We would keep that tradition going. I am indeed honored.

Our AgTech pioneer, Zenvus, moves to the next phase of the Katerva Award which was referred by Reuters as “the Nobel Prize for Sustainability”.

Zenvus is a pioneering precision farming technology company that uses computational algorithm and electronics to transform farms. Zenvus collects soil fertility data and crop vegetative health data, concatenating them with AI to deliver precision agriculture at scale. It then uses the aggregated and anonymized data to deliver financial services to farmers. Zenvus can support any size of farms, from small to the largest farms.

The Katerva Award is the pinnacle of global sustainability recognition. Through them, the best ideas on the planet are identified, refined and accelerated toward impact at a global level.

Katerva isn’t looking for ideas that will improve the world in small increments. We are looking for game-changers and industry breakers; ideas that leap efficiency, lifestyle, consumption and action a generation ahead of current thinking. Single-digit percent change isn’t enough. We’re looking for triple-digit and beyond. We’re looking for what are truly the most promising and impactful ideas!

Katerva Award is managed by Thomson Reuters Foundation and Indiana University.

A lot of people think blockchain technology and cryptocurrency are one in the same, but that isn’t true. Cryptocurrencies are in the headlines, but the transformative power of the underlying blockchain technology is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

One simple analogy is that the blockchain is to money as the internet is to information. It removes the friction and costs of access to the masses. But don’t confuse blockchain technology with the bitcoin-ethereum-blockchain crytocurrency. It is quite easy to be distracted by the media onslaught of coverage around virtual currencies, and more recently, Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), however, this is mostly smoke and mirrors when compared to the potential held within blockchain itself. Token technology may anchor the next web revolution, spawning crowdfunding behemoths that expedite the value delivery path to their users while cutting out the advertisers and fee-based middlemen.

The current thought model posits the question, “What can’t be tokenized?” Future research notes will explore and detail the many use cases of blockchain and how they are being put to the test with early adopters in this bleeding edge space. Big banks are embarking on programs to provide syndicated loans and the grocery supply chain has signed up with IBM to launch a blockchain-based solution to track food shipments and monitor food safety.

It all sounds mysterious, intriguing and, to be frank, easy to dismiss as so few of us really understand what blockchain technology really is and how it works. Let’s take the first steps towards closing this knowledge gap.

There are five foundational principles that underlie blockchain technologies:

• Distributed Database: All access all the time! Everyone partaking in the database can see everything in the database. This architecture provides true decentralization where there is no single point of control or failure. This transparency allows independent verification of transactions to occur without a middleman verification step.
•  Peer-to-Peer Transaction: Blockchain takes the idea of “serverless computing” to a whole new level as there is no central hub for processing transaction data. All transactions are processed and stored in the nodes plugged into the network and those nodes share that data with all of the other nodes.
• Transparency with Pseudonymity: Blockchain users have the choice to remain anonymous or share their identities. However, the record itself is present and visible to all. Transactions are encrypted and assigned a unique address as the means of identification.
• Irreversibility of Records: Once a record has been transacted in the distributed ledger, it cannot be modified due to the linkage between all records (blocks) that comprise the blockchain. These records are encrypted, ordered chronologically, and visible to all.
•  Computational Logic: Due to the programmatic nature of the blockchain, logic and algorithms can be applied to automate transactions between nodes upon pre-defined conditions

For the rest of the piece, download the Basics_of_Blockchain (PDF).

Note: This is used with permission from Info-Tech Research Group .