The name sounds really awesome for Nigerians from Southeastern part of the country. Ada is the name of a woman, usually the first female born in a family. But here, Ada is an app.

Meet the Ada Personal Health Companion, an AI-powered app that listens to your symptoms and then tries to diagnose your possible health problem. And no, it’s not replacing doctors anytime soon, but the app is a step in the right direction; letting people ease that nagging worry without feeling embarrassed about going to the doctor for what may be “nothing at all”.

We tried it out, and the app is certainly simple, if a little bare-bones. All you have to do is download it for Android or iOS and then sign up with your email. The app only requires you put in your name and birthday, and claims to be “100 percent private”. If you’re still worried about your privacy, you can give in a fake name like we did, and there’s no problem.

While the app asks you for your birth date on setup, you’ll need to manually input your height and weight from the settings menu. However, we’re still not sure if this plays a part in the diagnosis, as we didn’t see any change in the report received.

When you start a diagnosis, Ada asks you for a symptom you are(or someone else is) experiencing, and then quizzes you on it. The app has a library of very specific symptoms for you to draw on, complete with an auto suggest feature to help you out. Specify how long you’ve had the symptoms, any other problems, and answer questions like whether activity makes it better or worse, and you’re done.

Ada generates a report with possible diagnoses based on your description, and accordingly recommends you to see a doctor, as well as providing possible home remedies for milder cases. It also offers you the option to track your symptoms over time, if you choose.

The Ada Personal Health Companion is available to download for free from both the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

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.