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Home Blog Page 7546

How to Merge Videos Together in a Specific Sequence

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Do you have two or more videos that you’d like to join to create a single video file? Merging videos in this fashion is really fairly common and it is used to record scenes separately and then join them to one another later on. In some cases it is also used to remove certain parts of a recording and replace it with video footage that has been re-recorded.

Regardless of whether you plan to merge videos as part of a more extensive series of edits that you’re performing, or if you just want to combine several videos – using Movavi Video Editor will help to make it simple. It has an extremely straightforward process that will help you to use the software as a video joiner with absolutely no hassle:

  1. Click ‘Add Media Files’ and select all the videos that you want to join together.
  2. The videos that you added will all appear in the ‘Timeline’ and you can drag and drop them into place so that they appear in the sequence that you want.
  3. When you’re satisfied, save your video by clicking ‘Export’.

Assuming you’d like to remove certain parts of your video you will be able to cut the video into segments and delete the parts you don’t need. Also, you may want to consider adding stylish animated transitions between certain scenes to liven up your video – if you feel it would be appropriate.

That is really still just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the comprehensive features that are contained in Movavi Video Editor. With a bit of experimentation you’ll see that you’re able to enhance the quality of your videos, add text and customize its appearance, apply various types of artistic special effects and filters, and add audio tracks as background music or voiceovers.

In a nutshell, you could very well choose to create your very own movie by cutting together parts of various recordings that you take and then combining them and polishing the final product using the features provided. On the other hand if your ambitions are more modest then you could simply join several videos together so that they’re saved in a single file.

At the end of the day it’s up to you what you choose to do with Movavi Video Editor – but having the options there can never hurt.

A Diary of Solutions to Common Coding Interview Questions and Programming Puzzles

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Over the past few months, I have tried to form a long-term habit of reading about and writing solutions to programming puzzles and common coding interview questions. In the process, I have implemented quite a number of solutions to many programming puzzles and compiled them into some sort of constantly updated “diary”. This “diary” is maintained and updated as a git repository on Github.

As at the time of this blog post, the repository contains 60 Python solutions to about 55 programming puzzles and common coding interview questions. Find the repository here:https://github.com/davidadamojr/diary_of_programming_puzzles

 

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Ten Business Problems Besides Ecommerce for Nigerian Entrepreneurs To Solve

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Editor’s Note: This was originally published as “Why Nigerian entrepreneurs should solve other problems apart from ecommerce” by Dotun Olowoporoku.

Nigeria is almost a victim of it’s size. It’s almost too easy to have big ambition. The population size makes the country one of the most viable markets to monetise consumer products. It’s quite common to see startup founders creating various versions of ecommerce platforms than anything else.

I get it, size matters. After all, size is a significant factor that drove most of China’s stratospheric growth. It’s easier to build and monetise an online consumer product that provides a slight improvement to what people already do offline, rather than build a deep-tech product that intends to create new habits.

However, I think a lot of Nigerian startup entrepreneurs are getting blindsided by the population size. The reality is, research data on the number of people with access to internet and consumer behaviour in Nigeria is still patchy. Internet is still expensive. It’s not everyone that has a mobile phone, that uses the internet. It’s not everyone that uses the internet that trusts it enough shop online. It’s not everyone that shops online that does so regularly. So the total addressable market for ecommerce in Nigeria could be smaller than what you see on numerous pitch decks and telco-sponsored research reports.

Also, consumer internet business models are relatively easy to validate but expensive to scale. Customer acquisition cost tends to go up as the market matures and more competition enters the fray. The Mexican standoff between Jumia and Konga highlights how tough this could be. Both businesses are burning loads of cash for land grab and market share that is still mainly confined within Lagos. And there is going to be another big boy in the hood – Mara.

The bottom line is, except you have deep-pocket investors with the willingness to fight a long drawn battle for network effects, building an e-commerce  business at scale could be a hard one. So, why do so many Nigerian founders still default to ecommerce solutions? Well, I reckon it has a lot to do with size and solubility. The size of the market is alluring with an obvious demand. And most of the problems with e-commerce have been solved and can be adapted even in relatively immature markets.

So, it’s easier for Nigerian founders to demonstrate traction selling stuff online than trying to build a product that will make car registration in Nigeria more efficient. For the former, rallying your immediate friends and family network around your MVP can generate the first $100 in revenue, but the latter will take months of product development and government buy-in to demonstrate any meaningful traction.

However, technology and innovative business models can be used to solve other problems in Nigeria beyond buying and selling goods online. There are pockets of underserved and untapped markets in other spaces. Significant value and wealth can be created through B2B enterprise solutions that will create efficiencies in specific industries.

Nigerian founders should focus on problems-to-be-solved with technology rather money-to-be-made. Revenue is a reward for solving problems. Here are few that comes to mind.

  1. Nollywood Movie Subtitle Service: Use combination of human and machine learning algorithms to improve (cringe-worthy) subtitles on Nollywood movies.
  2. HR Management – Cloud-based SaaS for managing human resources including hiring, scheduling, payroll, staff evaluation, insurance and incentives.
  3. Expert Consultants On-Demand: Online marketplace for MBA and PhD consultants from world-class universities and companies to provide on-demand consulting services for African SMEs and organisations
  4. Office Building Check-in App: It’s annoying to sign into a tatty notebook at the security post before one is allowed to enter most office buildings in Nigeria. Someone needs to create a ‘foursquare-ish’ app that enables visitors to check-in to an office building via their mobile phone.
  5. Multi-channel Marketing Attribution: I assume millions of dollars is spent by brands to advertise in Lagos. There is an opportunity here for algorithm-based software that helps quantify the impact of marketing across online and offline channels and estimate ROI for these brands.
  6. Back-Office Automation– Lots of companies in Nigeria, including large banks and other financial service companies, still rely on manual/Excel-based processes to manage inventory, qualify leads, generate quotes and sell their products. Building vertical SaaS products to solve these problems will create significant value and increase efficiency
  7. Real Estate Investment Syndicate – Real estate will continue to be a decent investment opportunity in Nigeria. A platform that enables people to purchase equity in private real estate investments for as little as possible through crowdfunded syndicated deals will create value for buyers and sellers.
  8. Software Development Project Management –  match project owners with organised team of software developers, designers, project managers, testers and business analyst.
  9. Customer Review – Make it easier for businesses/brand to collect  and publish customer reviews and NPS survey results from various sources.
  10. Medical Diagnostics Lab –  enable users to discover and book private medical labs based on facilities, availability, expertise and user ratings. Provide subscription-based insurance programme that will guarantee routine medical checkup.

I believe there are many others that a lot of smart entrepreneurs in Nigeria may be working on. I look forward to seeing more ideas that can be added to this.

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Dotun currently works on Starta, a content and data platform that makes it easier to build, discover and track high growth business opportunities in Africa.

The Minibus Designed by Nigerian UNIZIK Students (photos)

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The thought that this mini bus was designed and constructed in Nigeria, by Nigerian Engineers and not foreign Engineers, working here as expatriates; is indeed a hard one to believe, as it is looking more foreign than home made.

The thought that it was produced inside the University workshop of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, by 7 Graduate Engineers of Mechanical Engineering Department, of the Faculty of Engineering, is certainly a hard bone to swallow.

These lads have given in their best, to put up this gigantic project within a very short frame of time, and thus, it has become the talk of the town.

One will wonder how undergraduates, who know they have got very limited time to stay in the University and so, should enjoy their last days within the 4-walls of the University, still gave in to stressful and strenuous nights at the workshop, just to write their names on the sands of time.

These guys are worth all the laurels and awards in this country at this particular point in time and thus, be given immediate employment, so that their brains and zeal towards invention are kept in line.

They are:
EZEIGWE CALLISTUS CHITOO
OBINANI VICTOR CHIMDIKE
NWOBODO NNAMDI MIRACLE
OGBU THADDEUS IKENNA
OMINIGBO FIDELIS IGHO
EZEANOLUE IFEANYI EMMA
OKORO CHINAZA

Obliviously, these students are geniuses, as it is only people in that category that can put up something like this, using crude equipment and 100% local content. They improvised for barely everything that can be found in that mini bus, from the chassis to its roofing.

The bus was even test driven in front of the Minister of state for Education, Prof Anthony Onwuka and other top dignitaries present during the National Universities Commission (NUC), held in UNIZIK. This goes a long way to tell the world out there that, this is Naija’s giant invention, its has been tested, and its indeed it can be trusted.

A warm kudoz! to these guys, for it is certain that a bright future awaits them. A big congratulations to their supervisor and the Head of Department at that time, Dr. C.H Achebe, for giving his boys every necessary vigor they needed to carry out this work, and above all, for being leading by example.

We wish them the best in their field of specialization, as we look forward to bringing our country on the top list of Innovators in the world.

The Nigerian telecom industry is experiencing unprecedented revenue erosion, excess of 31%

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The telecom players are indeed in trouble. Things do not look great for them anymore.

The monthly revenue that accrued to Nigeria’s telecoms operators from the provision of voice services to their over 151 million subscribers has witnessed a dramatic crash by an estimated 31 per cent in one month.

From N241.6 billion in December last year, aggregate voice revenue by the operators including the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and fixed networks fell to N166.4 billion in January.

The decline, representing N75.2 billion revenue losses, is equivalent to 31.1 per cent fall in their income accrual. The figures, which represent the amount of money spent by telecoms subscribers in making calls on their respective networks, also represent the revenue generated by the telcos. This can be linked to the reduction in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)

According to analysts, reduction in ARPU has been partly traced to the emergence of the Over the Top (OTT) players, which operators said were eating into their profitability potential.

OTT services are services carried over the networks, delivering value to customers, but without any carrier service provider being involved in planning, selling, provisioning, or servicing them; thereby implying that traditional telcos cannot directly earn revenue from such services.

Already, industry analysts say that OTT is a service-based on the Voice over IP communication protocol (VoIP), a disruptive technology that is rapidly gaining ground against traditional telephone network technologies.

According to a report by the NCC on the activity of OTT in Nigeria, with the increase in uptake of mobile VoIP services provided by apps such as Google, Facebook, Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, among others, telecoms operators “face the risk of eroding revenues and profitability.”

The report noted: “Many traditional telecom service providers are of the opinion that traditional telephony and SMS revenues are under threat from newer, IP based alternatives like WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, among others.”

That is the reality that these telcos can turn out to be dumb pipes in near future. Their best strategy will be to begin monthly data subscription as is done in most advanced economies. That way subscription will guarantee their revenue base.