WHAT MUST NIGERIA DO TO SUCCEED IN THE 21st CENTURY?

First, it is our candid professional opinion that Nigeria cannot attain any meaningful qualitative development within the global context without ensuring:

1 That there is constant and un-interruptible electricity supply at all points and at all times. We used to hear that knowledge is power. But for Nigeria, 'constant Power' (electricity) will become the real knowledge tool for engaging 21st century global competitiveness!

The urgent Need for Nigerians to get Educated

In the face of our mounting and colossal nationally challenges; in the midst of our appallingly collapsing educational institutions, which in fact, is at the root of most of our national calamities that currently threatens our national cohesion and development, I write this piece with a clear intent in mind - to provoke a new line of thinking among all Nigerians at home and abroad. I write this piece to sound the trumpet, to gust the atmosphere with an urgent message for social, economic and political redress of our collective irresponsibility that has thus far made an open mockery of us among nations. I write this piece to beckon on all Nigeria's intellectuals, politicians, religious leaders and all citizens to pause and think about our history, and make succinct assessment of the legacies that we have built for our generation and the ones to come. For too long, we have blamed one another; we have accused one another; we have fought political, social, and economic battles together. Now is the time to collectively fight one more fight - the fight to offer every Nigerian citizen, the unequivocal right to quality education.

United Nations report: Internet access is a human right

Technology

The business and culture of our digital lives,
from the L.A. Times

United Nations report: Internet access is a human right

 

Internet access is a human right, according to a United Nations report released on Friday.
"Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states," said the report from Frank La Rue, a special rapporteur to the United Nations, who wrote the document "on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression."

Data usage: New profit haven for Telcos

The revenue of many telecom firms, which was on the high side is beginning to dwindle following the saturation in the voice market. Where lies the solution? Experts chart the way out in this piece by ADLINE ATILI

This is a turning point for telecom operators. Even as they need to build a new generation of high-speed fixed and mobile networks, their traditional sources of revenue are being commoditised, making it harder to raise the required funds.



At the same time, demand for broadband Internet, convergence of technologies, and increased competition are transforming how all the players in the telecom space are creating value.
IBM, in a report to determine how the industry will evolve of the post –saturation era notes: In 1999, only 15 per cent of the world’s population had access to a telephone; but by 2009, nearly 70 per cent had mobile phone subscriptions.
With the markets saturating, communications revenue growth as a whole is beginning to stall. In response, operators are moving away from the traditional structures into far-reaching horizontal business models that cut across operators’ boundaries and adapting to the hypercompetitive markets.
The rapidly changing telecom competitive environment is causing operators to explore and adapt new business models and relationships well beyond delivery of the conventional voice and data services.
One of these is content development for consumers. According to the President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr Titi Omo-Ettu, "When we speak of a mobile sector, we do not speak only of telecoms but also of other elements of its application in life, business, entertainment, and even governance."
He said many Telcos will soon realise that providing a number is only the beginning, and that value-added services will decide who is king.
He argued that as economies become knowledge-intensive, information-rich activities in which content is created, collected, managed, processed, stored, delivered and accessed are increasingly being developed.
Experts say high growth in digital content offers significant opportunities for telecommunications providers, stating that the success of the venture would be hinged on the ability of telecom operators to upgrade their networks and technology platforms to handle more sophisticated content, provide relevant and local content and extend the addressable market; this is in addition to delivering value beyond just access.
To Omo-Ettu, building the rapidly expanding mobile system to generate more business makes good sense, saying, "The millions of SIM cards that exist in the market are supposed to be doing quite a lot beyond voice.
"Content creation is key and I am particularly concerned about how much of this can be locally targeted and locally produced."
Omo-Ettu, who delivered the keynote address at the recent Mobile Web West Africa conference hosted in Lagos　by All Amber, United Kingdom, noted that mobile network operators in many markets are known to be making huge amounts of revenues and profits from voice and text.
He maintained that as competition, penetration and innovation increase, they will hit a plateau and the new area of profitability will be data usage.
He said: "We have begun to see the mobile phone, in particular, as a device for change; a tool for closing the digital divide, an ultimate closer of the gap between the rich and the poor, and between the rural and the urban.
"For those who live in the developed economies, mobile telephony has surpassed its raison d’etre of information exchange between peoples and seamlessly moved into the socio-political realm of politics and consumption.
"With the unrest raging across the Northern African countries, it is irrefutable that mobile telephony is driving the mobilisation and emancipation of people against many tyrannical state machines.
"Mobile Network Operators in many markets are known to be making huge profits from voice and text. However as competition, penetration and innovation increase, these will hit a plateau and the new area of profitability will be data usage.
"For operators to take full advantage of this they need to have content and services for their consumers to use. This is why the entire ecosystem needs to work together to enhance the development of the mobile Web and applications.
"As we speak, a lot of　viewed content is imported into Africa because it is so much cheaper to do so than to produce African content.
"The end result of that can only be negative – loss of culture, language and people engaging content that isn’t directly relevant to them.
"People want local, relevant information. It is important to take this opportunity to boost the local mobile ecosystem so that companies can start producing content for the local market.
"This is an opportunity to reach Nigerian mobile subscribers with Nigerian created information and services. Sports, news, jobs, education, music, film, democracy, finance, social development, and commerce are all areas where content and services can and need to be produced."
According to him, this is happening already; citing South Africa, where he said about 60 per cent of Google searches are made on mobile phones, he said: "For operators to take full advantage of this, they need to have content and services for their consumers to use. This is why the entire ecosystem needs to work together to enhance the development of the mobile Web and applications.
"Mobile advertising is a case in point. This is the single biggest opportunity to monetise the mobile Web and applications.
"Mobile marketing has created a new medium for advertisers – an entirely new way for them to reach out to and connect to consumers. Indeed, some experts consider it to be the superior way of marketing their products."
Speaking on capacity development and employment opportunities for youths, Omo-Ettu said the possibilities for capacity development were endless; already embedded in prevailing mobile systems without dependence on the government, arguing that if capacity development can be achieved, then it is to the advantage of the country as a whole in relation to local content and services.
"Having the resources of the Internet at your fingertips at a reasonable cost is fantastic for all members of society, especially if a local industry has contributed significantly to the information they are consuming," he submitted.
To expand the growth of the industry, he said the role of institutions in the development of the mobile Web and applications is a key one and their active support would have a considerable multiplier effect on the speed of the expansion of the ecosystem.
Omo-Ettu stressed that institutions such as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) feature prominently in this area as their mandate has suddenly grown beyond what was written in the act setting them up long before mobile opportunities came into our lives.
He advised content developers on the need for collaboration to achieve set goals.
"While everyone today speaks of Google, Facebook, Skype among others, a clear difference between these companies (led by youth like Nigeria’s) and Nigerian startups is the fact that the average young Nigerian goes his way to start something without the discipline of mentors and accountability to senior professionals.
"But these mostly Silicon Valley-based companies know what it means to collaborate with other people to build a powerful team. And when these teams form, they have healthy competition," he said.
Senior Manager, Value Added Services, Globacom, Bankole Ojutalayo, advised that local application developers should be adequately funded; relevant services and applications should be built to meet local needs.

He further said operators should be encouraged to offer more attractive revenue shares, adding that: "For as long as the customer remains active, the operator, the content provider, and the application developer all have an opportunity to generate revenue."

Nigeria’s ICT performance index 2010 and expectations for 2011

How has the Nigerian ICT vision, mission and strategies faired as crafted and enunciated under the National Policy for information Technology Development and the Telecommunications Act 2003? Indeed, a great and challenging question. How have we faired? Answer is Yes and NO! Reason, we should have done better! The decades-long mission and goal has been to find repeatable, predictable processes that improve nation building, national productivity and quality – aimed at creation of abundant wealth. Some try to systematize or formalize the seemingly unruly task of delivering IT development. Others apply traditional project management techniques to deploying IT deliverables. Some to many budget IT out of context and deliver them late or over budget. With large numbers of embedded IT-related projects during the 2010 assessment year, one could have overtly given kudos to the nation. But the bottom-line with hindsight now reveals that, those kudos are for “not meeting their expectations in terms of functionality, cost, or delivery schedule, effective project management”. With ease, ICT Nigeria would have fared better if the political will to drive,enforce and sustain the vision of creating a model whose focal point is anchored on technology process improvement – composed of line practitioners who have varied skills and potential to conquer global competitiveness. Yes, Nigeria ICT profession and industry has done well individually in ICT consumption engineering and marketing! Just like other Domain of our development landscape, we have developed special appetite for conscious consumption for new IT gargets – especially in Telecommunications. Yes, we have continued to run after the “products of technology” but we have abandoned the principles of technology and alienated by the real Technology (Concept and process)! In summary, the ICT industry has done well in further creating awareness through conferences, seminars, and workshop. However, a close study will reveal that majority of those workshops are covertly organised platforms aimed at promoting physical technology and increasing the market shares of ICT products devoid of the real content of technology knowledge. The beneficiaries of these awareness platforms are the misled kids whose future remain uncertain in the ocean of ICT Product Support Certification. No doubt, the ICT market has grown, but users have abandoned the ICT tools and devices after acquisition! Those computers and associated devices remain un-used and therefore does not contribute to national productivity and development. Fueled by this tools usability abandonment is the prone factor of diminishing power supply nation-wide and the failed-maintenance culture at home – leading to infrastructure decay. All the above ICT development meltdown have a common source: the nation is yet to fully understand the future potentials, benefits an consequences of the emerging Cyberspace – inspite of Wikileaks Cyber power and revelations. Four major areas where ICT Nigeria has failed in 2010 and should be focused upon in 2011 are: Software Engineering Development, Retooling the Nigerian Workforce with core ICT skill sets and capability; the National ICT Gateway project and National IT Legislation/Security Framework – all of which are critical to the future IT development process, security and success story. Finally, for 2011. the nation should concentrate on building ICT Innovation and knowledge Clusters with particular reference to Software Development Parks and Information Technology Knowledge Parks.  Also, the Nigerian IT professional and industry must imbibe collaborative and partnership strategies and re-connect with the education institutions. taken from http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/01/nigerias-ict-performance-index-2010-and-expectations-for-2011/

How To Build Wealth With Google Adsense

A New Post on the Blog.

You’ve probably heard a lot about Google AdSense, but if you haven't tried it yet you might not know exactly what it is. Well, for one thing, it’s a one of the most popular ways to make money online without having to do a whole lot. If you’ve read Robert Kiyosaki’s book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” you know that passive income is the best kind of income to have.Passive income is basically money that you earn without having to work for it. Unless you've experience it, this may sound like some kind of “pie in the sky” get-rich-quick scheme, but this kind of earning power is for real. In fact, I would reasonably guess that almost every billionaire on earth uses it to keep cash coming in while he or she jets off to parties and resorts and whatever else billionaires do!The best example of passive income in the "physical" world is real estate. When you own an apartment building and hire a property manager and a maintenance crew to take care of it for you and collect the rent, all you have to do is cash the checks that come in each month.Of course this doesn’t just happen overnight, or everyone would be doing it. In the case of the apartment building owner, it took time, money, and knowledge to set up an "S" corporation, find a building to buy, put up the cash to buy it with and get a loan for the rest, renovate it, then screen and hire the property manager and maintenance crew. But once that was all done, checks began rolling in with little or no effort.Well, Google Adsense is the online equivalent of that scenario. You’ll have to invest a little bit of time in learning about it, and a little more time setting it all up, but once you get it set up you can look forward to seeing those nice checks roll in. That's what this site is all about. You'll find dozens of step-by-step tutorials and strategies to help you set up your own profitable AdSense business.
Please click on the "Table Of Content" on the right hand site of this blog to learn more. 

Education in Nigeria

What needs to be done to face the challenges of Education in Nigeria include:

	Adequate resourcing which will be needed to build new schools, train more teachers etc
	Implementation of the UBE Act and ensuring that all forms  of user fees are abolished
	Dealing with the quality issues including size of classes, number of teachers and provision of materials.

" ICT - NIGERIA'S ROADMAP TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT" PREAMBLE

SUBMISSION OF MEMORANDUM TO THE NATIONAL POLITICAL REFORM CONFERENCE (NPRC)
BY THE INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES GROUP OF TWENTY TWO (ICT-G22)

Globalization and its impact on Development in the 21st century has caught many unprepared nations unawares - especially developing nations, including Nigeria. We are thus left in a catch-up mode in a very significant and critical variable in human existence and development equation.