According to EY’s 2016 Africa attractiveness program 2016, Staying the course, despite a relative slow down, Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the fastest growing regions in the world. This is reflected in the foreign direct investment (FDI) levels in 2015, where FDI project numbers increased by seven percent. Although, the capital value of projects was down year-on-year — from US$88.5b in 2014 to US$71.3b in 2015 — this was still higher than the 2010–2014 average of US$68b. Similarly, jobs created were down year-on-year, but, again ahead of the average for 2010–2014.

In 2015, East Africa recorded its highest share of FDI across Africa, achieving 26.3% of total projects. Southern Africa remained the largest investment region on the continent, although projects were down 11.6% from 2014 levels. The West Africa region saw a rebound in FDI projects by 16.2%, and interestingly in 2015, the region became the leading recipient of capital investment on the continent, outpacing Southern Africa.

North Africa experienced 8.5% year-on-year growth in FDI projects. Furthermore, while projects are increasing in North Africa, they are increasing at a much faster rate in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The US retained its position in 2015, as the largest investor in the continent, with 96 investment projects valued at US$6.9b. During 2015, traditional investors such as the UK and France, as well as the UAE and India, also showed renewed interest in Africa.

Over the past decade, there has been a shift in sector focus in FDI from extractive to consumer-facing industries. Mining and metals, coal, oil and natural gas, which were previously the key sectors attracting major FDI flows, have given way to consumer products and retail (CPR), financial services and technology, media and telecommunications (TMT), accounting for 44.7% of FDI projects in 2015. In 2015, further evidence of sector diversification came through, with business services, automotive, cleantech and life sciences all rising in significance and becoming the likely “next wave” for investors.

Four major firms are partnering in a five-year summer development programme that aims to teach teenagers computer programming, coding and app development.

The initiators said they intend to groom manpower for an ICT-rich future in Africa.

Code Camp Africa, a technology capacity development company, will run the summer skills acquisition programme at Lekki, Lagos, teaching the youngsters coding, the computer language used to develop apps, websites and software.

The programme, which commences on July 25 and runs for four weeks, is supported by Andela, Angelos Foods, and Diamond Bank (the lead sponsor).

Participants register online on the codecampafrica.com website and can also pay online.

Andela, a leading software development company, recruits the most talented developers in Africa and shapes them into leading programmers. It then outsources them to technology firms and start-ups across the world.

Webometrics has recently released the openness ranking of World universities for the second half of 2016, within which less than 50 Nigerian universities were included; With Harvard University (USA) coming first in the world as usual.

Openness refers to the total number of pdf files of a university according to google. It relies on information (statistics) of web publications of a University for a Specific period of time; available on google scholar. It therefore based on volume of research articles published by a university.

The quantity of google scholarly articles a university has reveals how much of research is being conducted by the university; which is what openness ranking is all about – a university’s research output.

Openness rank is a part of the many indicators that make up several university rankings, others being excellence, presence and visibility; for Webometrics. Although it does not exactly specify the impact of the research papers a university has; the openness indicator however reveals the extent to which a school is engaged in research, which is what world class institutions are known for.

Although no Nigerian university was among the first 1000 in the world, University of Nigeria ranked highest of the Nigerian universities on the list, followed by University of Ibadan, University of Ilorin and Covenant University respectively. Below is the list of the top 30 Nigerian universities in the Webometrics 2016 Openness ranking for world universities. Their respective world ranks are those enclosed within brackets. The July 2016 edition of the Webometrics ranking of world universities (overall ranking of all parameters); of which openness rank constitute 10% by weight of is expected to be released next week.

1. University of Nigeria, Nsukka. UNN (1433)

2. University of Ibadan, Ibadan. UI (1613)

3. University of Ilorin, Ilorin. UNILORIN (2114)

4. Covenant University, Ota. CU (2161)

5. Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. UNIZIK (2173)

6. University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt. UNIPORT (2190)

7. University of Lagos, Lagos. UNILAG (2243)

8. University of Calabar, Calabar. UNICAL (2333)

9. University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. UNAAB (2364)

10. Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. ABU (2372)

11. Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. OAU (2473)

12. Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso. LAUTECH (2585)

13. University of Uyo, Uyo. UNIUYO (2655)

14. Federal University of Technology, Minna. FUTMINNA (2682)

15. University of Benin, Ugbowo. UNIBEN (2703)

16. Federal University of Technology, Akure. FUTA (2835)

17. Bayero University, Kano. BUK (2909)

18. Redeemer’s University, Mowe. RUN (2937)

19. Lagos State University, Ojo. LASU (2939)

20. Osun State University, OSU (3074)

21. University of Jos, Jos. UNIJOS (3173)

22. Federal University, Ndufu-Alike Ikwo. FUNAI (3242)

23. Rivers State University of Science & Technology, Port Harcourt. RSUT (3295)

24. Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti. ABUAD (3330)

25. Landmark University, Omu-aran LU (3422)

26. Federal University of Technology, Owerri. FUTO (3423)

27. Enugu State University of Technology, Enugu. ESUT (3433)

28. University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri. UNIMAID (3465)

29. Federal University of Dutsin Ma, Dutsin-Ma (3478)

30. Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. MOUA (3515).

The National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA), while relying of data from the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) revealed that Nigeria spends $1 billion yearly on software imports, many of which have local substitutes. This was said during the TechPlus conference in Lagos this week.

NITDA’s Femi Adeluyi, who revealed this at another panel session at the event, further disclosed that 80 per cent of the request made to Nigeria’s NOTAP is for foreign software.

According to him, the time has come for Nigeria to disrupt the technology world by inventing technologies that innovate and disrupt the existing way of doing things.

The first wave of cost cutting at banks was straight-forward: layoffs, bonus reductions, curbing employee travel, renegotiating vendor contracts etc.. These days it’s increasingly difficult to find fat to trim! Brian Moynihan (CEO BoA) recently told investors that the bank spends “about $1 billion a year just moving cash around the bank”. A cost that is hard to get rid of.

Stiff costs go beyond employees. Each lost, stolen or corrupted debit or credit card costs 20 cents to replace, according to A.T. Kearney. Sending out paper checking account statements for one customer costs $9 a year. ATM maintenance runs $165 a month, according to Deloitte. And each new ATM costs $15,000 to $65,000, depending on how sophisticated the technology, says Diebold Inc (DBD.N), which sells the machines to banks and other businesses. Those costs may seem insubstantial, but with millions of customers and tens of thousands of ATMs, they add up.

It is looking like those little costs banks cannot ask customers to pay directly is adding up.