DD
MM
YYYY

CATEGORIES

PAGES

DD
MM
YYYY

spot_img

CATEGORIES

PAGES

Home Blog Page 7685

Bringing Innovative Management Into Nigerian University System

By
Guest Author
-
0

By Adebola Daramola

Within the week, I had an opportunity to have a tete-a-tete with one of my mentors, a distinguished academic. In the course of the discussion, I appreciated the enormity of Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) directive that PhD be qualifying criteria for teaching and research in our Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). I wonder after leaving him a way around this dearth of qualified teachers with PhD. Yet, there is a heightened demand for lecturers. In spite of the shortage in teachers, there is still a surplus supply of students whose needs of access to HEIs are unmet.

 

The Federal Ministry of Education and Nigerian Universities Commission have challenged all 117 universities in the country to establish an Entrepreneurial Study Centre (ESC) as well as start undergraduate programme in entrepreneurial studies. From available records about 1,036,090 students are in universities excluding Nigerian Defence Academy, with less than 40,000 lecturers to teach them. In comparison our Teacher Student ratio (TSR) is at a dismal proportion in relation to economies like Malaysia and Singapore at the crucible of their development. So for us as a nation with an ambitious goal of vision 20:2020, our leadership need be creative to tackle the challenge of teachers in our HEIs.

 

 

My reflection brought an inspiration, which I discovered something like it is already in place, though I call for a significant change in its modus operandi. NUC has initiated a running programme “Linkages with Experts and Academics in the Diaspora Scheme (LEADS).It is a call to industry leaders and accomplished academics to undertake teaching and research in our HEIs for a period between 3-12 months. The initiatives have attracted a number of academics, though I could not ascertain the number of industry leaders so far engaged.

 

 

This is where my thought finds relevance and could help resolve the dearth of university lecturers for some disciplines where tradition has endowed us with a repertoire of luminaries. Disciplines like Accounting, Law, Medicine, Nursing and Education easily comes to mind. In recent times, the interest of people in some subjects like Computer Science, Human Resources, Journalism and Agric-Food Sciences makes us have a good supply of experts to draw from.

 

As an ardent fan of Prof Clayton Christensen’s work on disruptive innovation, the initiative I propose is a disruption to the established norm. A disruption occurs when a new entrant’s/ approach have lower price and lower primary performance, but a great promise of ancillary performance in the future compared to the incumbent’s approach. The initiative will be useful with the ESCs as well help with faculty shortages in Nigeria’s HEIs.

 

 

For the ESCs, what we need institute is an Entrepreneurs-In-Residence (E-I-R) programme. The initiative, though an innovation in this environment has been used in countries like USA and Canada. It require Universities identifying and engaging successful (though failed business entrepreneur will be instructive) entrepreneurs to serve as faculty in their entrepreneurship programme. The list of entrepreneurs, business leaders and executive management staff from different areas, industry or sectors could be crowd-sourced from members of the university community.

 

As a regulatory agency; NUC through the education departments of various universities could organize a short period Train –the-Trainer’s course for such identified entrepreneurs with deficiency in imparting the knowledge. These entrepreneurs will serves as coach as well as possible investors to students as they take the self-employment route. For the universities, it comes at little cost compared to engaging a full time faculty staff, with immense benefits such as creating case study, learning materials and easing the academic staff to do more research than teaching as we have.

 

 

Similar to that, for the faculty shortages in those areas where we have accomplished people to draw from the Experts-In –Residence (E-I-R) will serve as an elixir. It brings accomplished professionals to the HEIs to share specialized knowledge and offer advice to students, while offering a chance for collaboration and stimulation of new ideas with faculty staff.

 

 

The challenge before us as a nation is pressing and demanding. We need to be dynamic with a constant thirst for new ideas and examples of excellence to take us away from our quagmire.

 

 

I will be right to say I know who a university teacher should be, beyond the PhD after his name. A teacher is a specialist in a particular subject; a scholar would qualify, just as a lifelong learner. Those are the attributes that NUC or any university taking up this initiative should be seeking for from the prospective Entrepreneurs- In-Residence or Experts-In-Residence. We need professionals who enjoy teaching and learning in Nigerian Universities.

Motorola Gleam Review – Sleek But Never Like The Iconic RAZR

By
Tekedia Editors
-
0

 

 

Since the 2007 release of the iPhone by Apple the majority of mobile phone manufacturers have been quick to jump on the touchscreen bandwagon. With more and more touchscreen phones being released year on year it is starting to feel to many that older, and still highly popular, phone designs have been pushed to the side in the minds of the big phone makers. One of these designs is the clamshell or flip phone, which just a few years back was one of the most popular styles of phone to possess.

 

This was largely down to their convenient design that made them slim and easy to carry about, and this was more true for Motorola´s range of RAZR phones than any other. The RAZR handsets were renowned for their exceptional slimness which allowed them to be carried about inconspicuously. The Motorola Gleam is a return back to this phone design that many have missed and that Motorola above all other manufacturers were expects at designing.

 

The Gleam may seem light on features compared to touchscreen phones, but still provides some excellent entertainment value of its own. Music and video are both well supported through the phones media player, and the Gleam also comes with an FM radio for additional musical entertainment. Internal storage is set at 5MB but can be expanded with microSD cards to 16GB, providing plenty of room for music and video. The Gleam also comes with some nice games to enjoy.

 

The Gleam features a great HTML browser although web access is perhaps not the Gleam´s greatest feature as it does not come with 3G, Wi-Fi or even EDGE and is instead limited to GPRS connections. Even so, the Gleam does come with support for email, alongside the SMS and MMS messages supported. The Gleam also comes with a 2 megapixel camera that you can use for capturing great photographs and this also comes with some video support.

 

The Gleam comes with a very sleek and stylish design that will provide a nostalgic appeal to anyone who used to own a similar device. While opting for an older physical design the Gleam introduces some newer features, although it could have benefitted by some better connectivity options. For an affordable handset though, and for people not too bothered by web activity on their phone, the Gleam is a great little phone for standard messaging and calls.

 

You can buy this phone from our partner, UK Best Mobile Contracts.

Four Areas Of The Special Column – Entrepreneurship, Startups, Strategy And Finance

By
Tekedia Editors
-
0

We want to provide more information on the special column that is coming soon. This is largely the structure of the column and what you will expect. The areas and the goals are presented.

  • Entrepreneurship: To explore the environment for entrepreneurs across the African continent; sociocultural dynamics, political climate, economic reality. We will examine the factors that are necessary for building a more entrepreneurial society throughout the continent.
  • Startups:  To explore the start?up scene across the African continent. Also, to examine start?up activity that is driven by people of African descent living abroad. We will discuss the challenges faced by start?ups in general, with a special focus on problems peculiar to start?ups that are based in Africa. Topics will include;

1. Business Models

2. Business Plans
3. Product Development
4. Innovation
5. Case Studies
6. Others

  • Strategy: To discuss major conceptual developments in the areas of corporate and business strategy, and to apply those concepts to early and late?stage start?ups. Examples will be taken from around the world in order to highlight certain lessons on which I want to focus readers’ attention. Topics will include;

1. Corporate Strategy
2. Business Strategy
3. Game Theory
4. Co?opetition
5. Market entry
6. Marketing

  • Finance: To discuss topics in accounting and finance that the author believes are important for  entrepreneurial and start?up success.

This post was adapted from a document developed by Brian L. Aoaeh who will lead the special column.

There Is A Limit To National Wealth Creation Without Technology

By
Tekedia Editors
-
0

Over the last few decades, new technology applications have become very central to the process of socioeconomic development of nations.  Successful ones like information and communication technologies have accelerated productivity by integrating people, processes and tools cheaply and efficiently. They continue to revolutionize all aspects of human existence, both in the public and private sectors, by connecting individuals, organizations and countries electronically in mutually dependent global relationships.

 

Increasingly, the world is experiencing new dimensions in knowledge acquisition, creation, dissemination and usage. Microelectronics, the engine of modern commerce and industry, directly or indirectly, is enabling these revolutionary changes. When this technology advances, a dawn emerges in global economy in speed, efficiency and capacity. Yet, despite its pervasive impacts on daily lives and businesses, it remains to be diffused in Africa. A vision of knowledge workers cannot be achieved in this continent without a creative microelectronics program.
Though software technology has been advancing in the developing countries, the hardware is largely non-existent. Inability of these nations to develop competence in hardware has stalled their institutional capacities to compete in the world.

 

Around the world, technical education has become a vital instrument for wealth and national prosperity. In any developed nation, this education occupies a key strategic position. It is understood that new (successful) technologies are important to a healthy economy. Consequently, technical education is well funded to drive innovation in the economy.

 

Arguably, it is hard to see any successful economy without a sound educational system. No wonder, some of the most innovative and revolutionary technologies are created in the university dorms: the Google, the Yahoo, the Facebook, the Microsoft, the Dell, and so on and on. University is the epi-center of raw dreams where minds are liberated and prepared to shape the world. It remains an organic system that sustains national policy and vision and no succession plan can survive without those students and professors.

 

Today, there is a limit to national wealth creation without science and technology. Experiences have shown that natural resources in form of crude oil, diamond, tin and others may not create the needed national growth for stability and prosperity in many African nations.

 

An alternative would be to support technological innovation if the continent must survive the intense competition of the 21st century fueled by globalization. Technology diffuses only when it is developed or acquired. For many years, Africa has been slow to the development of the most pervasive industry of our time- semiconductor. The major challenge has been the human capital to drive the industry.
At AFRIT, we are engineers who major in semiconductor related areas. We understand the concepts which are used to build computer processors and other cutting edge technologies. We are poised to facilitate the diffusion of new technologies in Africa through quality training and consulting. Providing this service bridges the knowledge gap. This is not IT, which in many African nations is synonymous with technology. With all its glory, IT is an offspring of semiconductors.

 

It cannot exist independently of semiconductors. Above all, the IT in Africa is not the creative IT, but the consumptive IT. We need the wealth that comes from  IT creation and that is what AFRIT stands. We stand that Africa should have technology policy that would have broad perspectives involving medical, geophysical, agricultural technology, semiconductors and other technologies and not just information technology which has been promoted by the media and governments disproportionally.

 

Our operational logistics is very simple. Invite us to develop a curriculum in your institution; organize a workshop/seminar, educate your students/staff on the use of VLSI CAD tools and software, program robots, design in FPGA, VHDL and many more. With our skills, we would train these students/staff with current and comprehensive programs which would enhance performance and capabilities. We understand the spirit of this century. It is a century where “Technology will rule Nations and Algorithms will be the Constitutions”.

 

Imagine firms outsourcing jobs to Africa in 2020 because we have talented labour force with the advantage of competitive wage structure when compared with India and China. It cannot be wished; someone has to make it happen. Join us; and let’s get our young men and women back to the labs

Call for Tekedia Articles: Global Redesign And Innovation Virtual Conference (GRIVC 2011)

By
Tekedia Editors
-
0

Introduction

In the last few years, the world has morphed into an electronically connected interdependent atomic economic unit where a disruption in one marketplace affects the others. Consequently, it has become naïve to appraise the competitive challenges and opportunities for nations or indeed a continent without looking at the big global picture. Recent financial crises have shown in no small measure that the world is interlinked and the global commerce and industry has been transformed by the extraordinary powers of information and communication technologies.

 

Increasingly, individuals are having much power either in the capital markets, governments or entertainments and the era of centralized political power is progressively giving way to citizen’s power. Indeed, our world is being redesigned and new waves of innovation are evolving to disrupt our modern economic structures. And this trend is expected to continue as the powers of microprocessors continue to improve and information gets cheaper.

 

While the redesigning process is global, the innovation race is not. Many developing nations are not adapting fast enough because of deficiency in knowledge and infrastructural capability. And the developed world will not wait for them because the competition is intense and the global economic health fragile. New technologies will continue to disrupt markets while some like nanotechnology has the capacity to destroy African commodity markets.

 

This poses security threats if plans are not developed to retrain those that will be displaced from the industries. The debts and financial crises in the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) are showing that a single currency is not a panacea to all economic problems. As it offers a larger market, single currency also could damage a weak continental economic structure.

 

Focus and Thematic

In the midst of the challenges above, there are also opportunities during this redesigning process. Consequently, the objective of this Call is to establish a prestigious compilation of research advances, discussions and reviews on the challenges and opportunities as they affect Africa.

 

We are looking for papers on the following areas: Technology, Finance, Health, Government, Trade, Immigration, Environment & Sustainability, Education, Currency, Energy, Risk and Security, Welfare, Poverty, Employment,  Corruption, Terrorism,  Economic Growth, etc. Your ideas will be packaged for the African Union where they would be used to shape the future of the African continent.

 

We invite papers from the academic, non-governmental, professional and business communities to submit a maximum of two-page paper on what you think is the most important challenge facing the world and how that will affect Africa. You can also look at it from the other side; what is the most important challenge to Africa and how will the world affect it.

Simply, we seek:

–          Describe one major challenge or opportunity in the world

–          Explain how that challenge or opportunity will affect Africa

–          Propose a solution on how Africa can overcome the challenge or take advantage of the opportunity

Conference Structure: This conference is free and everything will be done on the Internet. No travel and no registration. We are optimistic that we can gather insights on the pulses that will shape Africa and indeed the world in coming years.

Submission Deadline: Nov 23, 2011

Correspondence/Submission: Send the paper (in Microsoft Word) and any inquiry to tekedia@fasmicro.com

Publication:  Accepted papers will be published on tekedia.com

1...7,6847,6857,686...8,049Page 7,685 of 8,049

© Tekedia. All rights reserved.

Term & Privacy

© Tekedia. All rights reserved.

Term & Privacy