he African Innovation Foundation (AIF) in collaboration with the Government of Ghana, represented by the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), and Ghana 60 Years On Planning Committee wish to announce that Ghana will host the most celebrated innovation event in Africa, the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) in Accra in July 2017 (dates to be confirmed soon). The decision to host IPA in Ghana has received the highest endorsement from H.E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the President of Ghana, who will deliver the keynote address during the Awards ceremony.

Ghana’s selection as host country for IPA 2017 comes as a result of its commitment towards consolidating a thriving national innovation ecosystem. In its 60 years of independence, Ghana has been an example of progressive successes that have made the country and its advancements marketable and well respected globally.

With the presence of world class accelerators and incubators, Ghana in recent years has become a noted sub regional hub for excellence in innovation. The Ghanaian technology and innovation ecosystem, led by a new generation of change-makers has received much international and local acclaim, making Ghana the ideal host country for IPA 2017.

IPA is a landmark initiative of the AIF and its goal is to strengthen African innovation ecosystems through supporting a culture of innovation and competitiveness, whilst spurring growth of innovative, market-driven African solutions to African challenges.

IPA has been successfully celebrated in African major capitals representing African regions: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2012), Cape Town, South Africa (2013), Abuja, Nigeria (2014), Skhirat, Morocco (2015) and more recently in Gaborone, Botswana (2016)

Besides a host of exciting side events and brand new initiatives for Africa by Africans, IPA 2017 will offer the following prizes and incentives to winners and nominees:
? Grand prize of US$100 000
? Second Prize of US$25 000
? Special Prize for Social Impact US$25 000
? A voucher for each of the seven IPA nominees of US$5 000
? Additional incentives include investment opportunities, training and access to our vibrant network of innovation enablers, ongoing PR support and media coverage

According to experts in Checkpoint, a cybersecurity firm, the following are the Top 3 Malware in Kenya and Nigeria:

Kenya

1. Sality – Family of file infectors spread by infecting .exe and .scr files and via removable drives and network shares. Systems infected with Sality can communicate over a peer-to-peer (P2P) network for spamming purposes, proxying of communications, and to compromise web servers, exfiltrate sensitive data and coordinate distributed computing tasks to process intensive tasks.

2. Necurs – Botnet used to distribute many malware variants, mostly banking trojans and ransomware. It usually spreads malware based on massive spam campaigns, with zip attachments containing malicious JavaScript code.

3. Hiddad – Android malware which repackages legitimate apps and then releases them to a third-party store. Its main function is displaying ads, however it is also able to gain access to key security details built into the OS, allowing an attacker to obtain sensitive user data.

Nigeria

1. Virut – Botnet and malware distributor used in DDoS attacks, spam distribution, data theft and fraud. The malware is spread through infected devices such as USB sticks as well as compromised websites and files.

2. Sality – Family of file infectors spread by infecting .exe and .scr files and via removable drives and network shares. Systems infected with Sality can communicate over a peer-to-peer (P2P) network for spamming purposes, proxying of communications, and to compromise web servers, exfiltrate sensitive data and coordinate distributed computing tasks to process intensive tasks.

3. Gamarue – Modular bot with a loader which downloads additional modules from its C&C server. The loader has both anti-VM and anti-debug features. It injects into trusted processes to hide itself and then deletes the original bot. Infected machines can be harvested for financial credentials and also become part of a large botnet. Gamarue spreads by infecting removable drives such as USB drives or portable hard disks.

The data is from Check Point which maintains a ThreatCloud Map which is powered by Check Point’s ThreatCloud intelligence, a collaborative network to fight cybercrime which delivers threat data and attack trends from a global network of threat sensors. The ThreatCloud database holds over 250 million addresses analysed for bot discovery, more than 11 million malware signatures and over 5.5 million infected websites, and identifies millions of malware types daily.

The Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has a new initiate  to strengthen tech entrepreneurship in developing countries under the BMZ’s Make-IT initiative. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, will implement the programme on behalf of BMZ.

Make-IT starts in Africa in two pilot countries, i.e. Nigeria and Kenya. “We seek to foster IT startups because they have a great potential to create jobs, generate revenue and find creative and innovative solutions to pressing issues faced by citizens and their societies,” says Dr. Jan Schwaab, Head of the GIZ Programme “Make-IT in Africa”. “We strongly believe that start-ups can contribute to sustainable and inclusive economic growth if they manage to overcome the many hurdles they face – in particular getting access to markets and key partners from industry. We are proud to partner with SAP and other major German and European IT companies to support tech start-ups and their ecosystems, with greater market access and exposure.”

SAP SE and GIZ will jointly run the first Make-IT project worldwide in Nigeria. This project will combine the skills and experience of local and international GIZ experts with SAP’s successful Startup Focus-Program. This will ensure that tailored input meets the specific needs of each startup, including but not limited to design thinking experts, access to financing partners, access to leading edge technology, deeper collaboration with local accelerators, mentors etc. to maximize the probability of commercial success for each startup.

China is a leader and it is showing why it is a global superpower right now. For all the complains that China is copying, the world is not giving the dragon a lot of credit. China leads in many technology areas and continues to advance to new ones.

China has managed to build the world’s first ever quantum computer, which clocks in at a whopping 24,000 times faster than its international counterparts.

Created by researchers at the University of Science and Technology at Hefei in the Anhui province, the quantum computer is a highly advanced machine, capable of performing multiple complex calculations simultaneously, like predicting the movement and behaviour of subatomic particles.

The basic idea behind quantum computers is that they perform calculations by keeping the system’s memory in a quantum state. So what exactly does that mean? Traditional computers store data in bits, which are represented by a 1 or 0, the foundation of binary. Quantum computer however, seek to apply the phenomenon of superposition and entanglement from quantum physics to the equation. In this case, each quantum bit (or qubit) can store a 1, 0 or any superposition of the two.

The short of it is that traditional computers process one operation at a time, whereas quantum computers can look at multiple states of data and calculate their outcomes simultaneously.

While the theory behind quantum computing has been around for decades, actually building the architecture required has proven to be a challenge. So far, researchers have only been able to replicate the technology with very small amounts of memory, less than what’s in your smartphone.

That’s why China’s development is so important; it marks the first single photon-based quantum computing machine that goes beyond the early classical computer.