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Maa-Bara: Catalyzing Change – Winner of Mohammad Yunus Challenge to Alleviate Poverty Is Open For Investment. Project Lead by a Nigerian MIT Grad

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

We just received a note that Maa-Bara: Catalyzing Change – Winner of Mohammad Yunus Challenge to Alleviate Poverty through Improved Agricultural Processes is open for investment. The project is a closed-loop system that produces healthy fish and vegetables in areas with limited arable land. This ends up increasing food security as well as providing jobs in the Niger Delta and environs.

 

This will be a local project that will improve the lives of the people and it is the real deal. This is the pitch

In the agrarian society of the Niger Delta, spillage from oil extraction causes pollution of soil and water stifles both fishing and farming activities, crippling the local economy where there is 85% adult unemployment. Our solution is “Maa-Bara,” a scalable, locally sourced, locally crafted structure for the propagation of fish and vegetables atop this oil-polluted landscape. Translated “Water-Farm” in Ogoni language, Maa-Bara is a zero-waste sustainable agricultural model. Each Maa-Bara structure is designed to utilize kitchen scraps to feed tilapia fish. The tilapia produce waste, which becomes nutrient solution for hydroponics (growing vegetables without soil). In the summer of 2010, the team traveled to the Niger Delta and secured partnerships with Enterprise for Development International (formerly TechnoServe, Nigeria) and River State University of Science and Technology. In October of 2010, one of our team members constructed a 50-gallon proof-of-concept pilot. Shell Oil is on board to fund the roll out and scaling up of the project following a successful pilot in the Niger Delta.

Innovations: Vertical design uses gravity for aeration of water in lieu of aerator. Vertical design creates shade for workers, fish, and plants. Peer-to-peer agricultural training program in the fishing villages of the Niger Delta, partnering with University.

The problem: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/niger-delta-bears-brunt-after-50-years-of-oil-spills-421634.html

 

If you want to be involved in this project, lead by our very own Nigerian MIT graduate, you can contact tekedia@fasmicro.com. We will put you in touch with the team.The project was a product of Master in Architecture thesis at MIT and has the support of RSUST (University in Nigeria), Enterprise for Development International (largest NGO in Nigeria) and the Bodo community.

 

Main One Goes Through Major Resellers and Telcos – Promises Lower BW Cost

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

Main One cable company, the broadband access provider in Nigeria, will not offer direct business deal with Internet users in Nigeria. They rather will use resellers like telecos and major ISPs. It seems that Main One is not going retail anytime soon. The impact? The resellers could yank up cost for the end users, though Tekedia thinks Main One will surely control that to scale quicker and faster.

The company has also developed a Partner Advantage Programme with its partners to provide benefits necessary for expanding existing businesses, creating new business opportunities and growth. MainOne’s cable initiative has a total of 5terabytes capacity, with 1.92 capacity built already, of which about 10 percent has already been let out in the last ten months.

MainOne’s Head, Marketing and Strategy, Mr Adebayo Oyewole confirmed that his company expects the price of  bandwidth to come down with the landing of the undersea submarine cable. Anything short will undermine the whole vision of the project. He expects the global icons like Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, among others to play key roles in their  plan.

Flyer, HTC’s First Tablet Debuts in Taiwan – The iPad Killer?

By
Ejiofor Agada
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0

HTC Corp., the Taiwan-based world’s leading smart phone makers, will officially debut its first tablet PC model HTC Flyer on the island. The HTC Flyer is expected to inject new revenue growth momentum into the firm.

 

The model was first unveiled on Feb. 15 this year at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011 held in Barcelona, Spain. The HTC Flyer blends HTC’s trademark design language with an all-new HTC Sense user experience that has been re-imagined for the tablets. Using an intuitive and innovative approach to tablets, HTC Flyer combines natural touch and pen interaction, according to company sources.

 

Encased in a sleek aluminum unibody, the HTC Flyer tablet exudes the iconic style and build quality HTC is known for. It is also ultralight, weighing as little as a paperback book, and is compact enough to fit in a jacket pocket. With a seven-inch display, lightning fast 1.5Ghz processor and high-speed HSPA+ wireless capabilities, the HTC Flyer tablet is perfect for those who have been waiting for a tablet that is both compact and powerful, the sources said.

 

The HTC Flyer tablet also offers uncompromised Web browsing with Flash 10 and HTML 5. With the new HTC Scribe Technology on the HTC Flyer tablet, people can rediscover the natural act of writing. HTC Scribe Technology introduces a wave of integrated digital ink innovations that make it easy and natural to take notes, sign contracts, draw pictures, or even write on a web page or photo.

 

The phone has features such as 4-inch WVGA Super LCD display and 8 megapixel camera equipped with dual LED-flash and offering image stabilization. It operates on 768 MB of RAM and 1.1 GB of ROM and also has a front facing 1.3 megapixel camera that can be used for making video calls.

 

There’s little doubt that HTC, which grew out of an unknown contract manufacturer into a bigger company than Nokia, is good at designing and making phones. Now, with its first tablet PC, the HTC Flyer, hitting stores HTC will have to prove that it can make more than just phones.

 

The Taiwanese company may be in for a bigger challenge this time. Unlike the mobile market, where HTC dominates because few other brands recognized the industry’s shift towards smartphones, HTC is releasing the Flyer at a time when nearly every other competitors – plus a few more from the PC industry – has already jumped on the tablet bandwagon. There is also no special treatment from Google or Microsoft this time around. While HTC had enjoyed a special relationship with Google and Microsoft with its smartphones a few years ago, because it was one of the few specialised smartphone makers, now Google has chosen Motorola to debut the first Android-based tablet.

 

Yet there are factors working in HTC’s favour too. It is now a much bigger and more well-known company than it was when it first started, and tablets are in some sense a return to HTC’s roots as a contract manufacturer, when it had built personal digital assistants for Compaq and Palm.

 

Jack Tong, vice-president for HTC Asia, said the Flyer seeks to “redefine the use and meaning of the pen for tablets.” HTC also appears to be going beyond just hardware design and manufacturing with its tablets by emphasising the company’s own online services and content.

 

HTC has also channelled Google’s aborted Wave project with some new features on the tablet. HTC Timemark, for example, associates content such as notes, photos, voice recording and videos with an entry in the user’s calender, which can then be shared with others. HTC Evernote provides cloud-based storage for this information.

 

At just 7-inches, the Flyer is also smaller than the standard 10-inch slates such as the iPad. This could be a good thing – a lighter, smaller device is more mobile, but equally it could be criticised for looking too much like a massive smartphone.

 

But this would not be such a bad thing for HTC. If its tablets fare as well as its smartphones has, there is every chance that the Taiwanese company could emerge as one of the winners in the tablet wars.

[Breaking News] Nigeria’s New Satellite to Be Re-Launched in November 2011. NigComSat Tests a Breakthrough Technology on Electioneering

By
Tekedia Editors
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One of the most innovative technology research centers in Nigeria is arguably the NigComsat. Though it lost the NigComSat-1 in orbit many months ago, it has never wavered in its commitment to provide service to teeming Nigerian businesses and people. Losing a satellite these days is not a function of lack of ability, rather, bad things happen. The South African one is gone. So is the one commissioned to track the green house emission! It is just that those gizmos prefer not to stay where they are expected to stay,

 

In an exclusive access, Tekedia is confirming that the replacement satellite will be ready this November. And before the end of the first two quarters of 2012, NigComSat 2 will be ready. We also gathered that the well insured satellite will carry more capacities than the previous failed one.

 

If Mr Ahmed Rufai – the amiable smooth talking boss of NigComSat – could deliver this satellite even as MainOne converge on their submarine cables, we can be in that Eldorado of bandwidth. We expect the price of data plan to crash by as much as 50% of today’s price.

 

Meanwhile, the R&D department of NigComSat has also developed a new technology that can make Nigeria save 100% of the funds it ships to foreign companies in election technology. We are just getting that information. Our editors will bring more as they become available.

 

The key news is that we have a date now – Nov 2011 for Nigeria to be in the orbit, via our satellite.

[News Flash] QluQlu, Africa’s Group Discount Giant, Relaunched Today – Business Model Revamped

By
Tekedia Editors
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Two african young women sitting in a car while have road travel

It seems that good things are just happening all over Africa. As Google has electrified the region in the last few weeks, we cannot wait for more. Our startups are becoming razor-focused on strategy and showing the capacity to go into business battle.

Tekedia reports that QluQlu, Africa’s player in the group discount business, has relaunched its site and revamped its business model. We think the simple aim is to serve the customers, better.  In an email correspondence, the team sent us a press release which we are making available to our readers in entirety.

Tekedia maintains our prediction that QluQlu could become an acquisition target by Groupon or LivingSocial (of course the team may not like that one. They want to build and stay forever!).

Notice that QluQlu has a paypal interface now. Life cannot get better. To access the impacts of these group discount players, we want those that have used these awesome services to send us feedback. We want to know how much you are saving and how easy the merchants are cooperating.

QluQlu.com.ng re-launched with a new User Interface & Business Model

LAGOS, Nigeria.– QluQlu Nigeria, a group discount website that offers a daily deal on the best local goods, services and events in Lagos re-launched today with a new and improved User Interface as well as a tweak on its Business Model.

Using the principles of group buying/bargaining, QluQlu negotiates amazing 30% – 70% discounts with quality local businesses. QluQlu subscribers get free daily emails alerting them to the deals. The deals are activated only when a minimum number of people agree to buy, encouraging subscribers to share the promotion with family and friends. By guaranteeing a large minimum number of new customers, QluQlu creates a powerful new marketing and customer acquisition vehicle for local merchants.

In effect, QluQlu Nigeria brings buyers and sellers together in a fun and collaborative way, offering consumers great deals they can’t get anywhere else and while offering the local business new and desirable customers. This innovative approach to e-commerce has brought millions of dollars in new revenue to local businesses worldwide while saving more than N600,000 for subscribers in Lagos over the course of 6weeks since its original launch.

In the new iteration of the business model, QluQlu customers will pay the full price upfront for the coupon and then have a period of between 3 and 6months to go redeem the coupon at the premises of the local business. This is in contrast to the earlier model where users got the coupon for free and paid only on redemption. Explaining the shift in model, Kofi Afaedor, CEO of QluQlu noted that the earlier model was to build confidence within the consuming public. Now with some 300 coupons distributed, it’s time to step up the model to enable the company provide customers with greater discounts on quality products and local businesses with the cash up front to justify the huge discounts.

The new brightly colored and sleek user interface also integrates seamlessly with social media enabling users to share content and deals via Facebook & Twitter. Users can also follow the site on Twittter @QluQluNg or become a friend on facebook to learn about new deals and other developments. He noted that the team will continue to evolve the application and business model to enable it provide world class internet-based services customized to the needs of local Nigerian businesses.

QluQlu customers can pay either by direct bank deposit or transfer into QluQlu accounts with GTB, Zenith Bank, UBA, First Bank or Union Bank. Also they can pay online via Cash Envoy or PayPal.

To receive emails about the deals of the day, customers must visit the site and subscribe.

About QluQlu

QluQlu Nigeria launched its website in March 2011 in Lagos, featuring deals on the best things to do, eat, see and buy. QluQlu uses the power of collective buying to offer unbeatable prices and provide a win-win for businesses and consumers. For more information, visit www.QluQlu.com.ng for QluQlu Nigeria & www.QluQlu.com for other QluQlu properties across Sub-Saharan Africa.

To get QluQlu’s daily free email for the best in your African city, subscribe at QluQlu.

To learn more on how to become a featured business on QluQlu, visit http://www.QluQlu.com.ng/getfeatured

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