Internet of Things: Catalyst for Nigeria’s smart cities

Futurists have long painted a vision of the revolutionary “smart city,” a gleaming metropolis of clean streets and punctual public transport, where issues of crime, congestion and pollution have been engineered into irrelevance. A great deal of people believes that building the smart city will be extremely disruptive, but the Managing Director of Vodacom Business Nigeria, LanreKolade, has a different perspective. Kolade explained at the recent Nigerian-South African Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting that governments did not have to tear down the towns of today to build smart cities, which would improve services and the quality of life for their inhabitants. He said that by using the Internet of Things technology, a host of intelligently connected services would become possible. According to Kolade, about 48 per cent of Nigerians are living in urban areas and this proportion will continue to grow as urbanisation continues. With the number of people living in urban areas around the world predicted to rise to 6.4 billion by 2050, cities like Lagos need to adopt IoT technology to meet the rising challenges of a mega city. He maintains that governments have a central role to play in making towns and cities run effectively but that with constrained budgets and a growing population, issues such as traffic, pollution and public safety are becoming more difficult to manage. Authorities must adopt technologies that will improve sustainability, ease congestion, help citizens and attract new businesses to their towns and cities. “An IoT-enabled city can reroute traffic around congestion in real time, automatically schedule repairs for failed infrastructure like street lighting or bridges, and intelligently manage energy use and pollution right across the environment. It can also protect citizens and businesses from crime more effectively, and safeguard vulnerable inhabitants in their homes,” Kolade said.

Invest in ICT and create new billionaires, Zinox boss tells FG

With the right kind of investment in technological platforms and the overwhelming support of the government in providing the requisite enabling environment, Nigeria can effortlessly produce global billionaires from the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. This much was disclosed by Leo Stan Ekeh, chairman, Zinox Group, in an interview feature with renowned media outfit, Cable News Network (CNN) which has received significant mention since it was first aired in the first week of January 2017. Serial digital entrepreneur, Ekeh who has built arguably Africa’s most integrated ICT conglomerate – the Zinox Group – is confident that with significant investment in ICT, the challenge of youth unemployment, inadequate opportunities and growing restiveness among the youth can be arrested. For this to happen, however, the government has to actively engage the youths by investing massively in ICT which, in his opinion, has become the fancy of young people. Ekeh is a firm believer in the numerous opportunities which abound in the rapidly evolving ICT-driven future – a knowledge economy in which wealth is no longer the exclusive preserve of a privileged few. “The miracle of ICT is that it is the only profession in the world today that can make the child of a poor man the richest man in the world. The challenge, however, is that majority of our youths are in a closed community in which the standards are still poor so they cannot exhibit their innate intellectual strength. As a result, they are seen as defeated and a lot of them are unemployed. “We are doing our bit to correct this situation but government support will go a long way in helping the country achieve more. Presently, Zinox is building digital training centres and tech hubs across the country and empowering many of our youths. We have also committed some significant investment in a number of tech start-ups. Recently, we invested in an Ibadan-based software company – Xputer. Interestingly, some of the apps being created by the young chaps Xputer are driving the business processes of the major e-commerce outfits in the country. All they needed was a bit of exposure and support to help them scale up. “The same situation applies to many of our youth. Today, if you give these youths the right platforms, which I must say is not expensive, Nigeria can produce a minimum of 10 billionaires from the ICT sector in the next few years.” “Ninety percent of youths today want to go into trending professions; lifestyle professions and that is what ICT really is. If government invests in this sector as it should, Nigeria is capable of producing several billionaires straight out of the technology space”, he added. Ekeh is the founder and chairman of the Zinox Group, a technology company based in Nigeria that manufactures and distributes computers at home and abroad. Zinox employs 1,800 Nigerians and Ekeh thinks the company can play a role in improving the tech economy, while tapping into Nigeria’s young population.by pioneering several successful technology start-ups and taking them to the zenith of marketplace competition.

Five things you need to know about artificial intelligence

Article The next big thing in the technology world is artificial intelligence (AI). Big tech organisations like Apple and Google are aggressively investing in AI. Google has been partnering Oxford University to expand Artificial Intelligence. Some examples of everyday AI include iPhone Siri and Microsoft Windows 10 Cortana. Before going further, it will not be out of place to define AI. Wikipedia simply describes AI as ‘intelligence exhibited by machine”. It further explained that the term AI is applied when a machine mimics cognitive functions that humans associate with other human minds such as learning and problem solving. Now AI is trending. Therefore, Jumia Travel shares five things you should know about AI as it would soon become an important part of our daily life just like social media. AI was coined in 1956 The first ever mention of AI was in 1956. John McCarthy was famously quoted at a conference at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire as saying: ‘As soon as it works, no one calls it Artificial Intelligence.” Since its mention, AI has pretty much been evolving to become a popular phenomenon today. Robots will do your job Perhaps the time is here when human presence will not be required to provide services. It will be the job of Robots to provide the service. A good example of this is the Henn-na hotel in Japan which is the first ever robot-staffed hotel in the world whereby the reception desk is staffed by Robotic Dinosaur. So, be prepared. Autonomous vehicles will be the poster tech of AI The overall functions of autonomous vehicles are premised on Artificial Intelligence. If Google and car companies eventually perfect their driverless car's technology, it will be a huge boost thus making AI commercially viable. This may even encourage more companies to embrace AI. In fact, driverless cars are already being tested in the United States. There will no more error in saving lives This is important in the area of medicine. There are reported cases in which fatal mistakes by doctors have led to the death of patients. For example, in Vietnam recently, a man had a pair of surgical scissors removed from his stomach left during an operation 18 years ago. With machine performing surgery, there will be nothing like error or mistakes in saving lives. So the fear of world famous astrophysicist, Prof Stephen Hawking that the development of AI means the end of humanity is unfounded. Computer will be as smart as humans If you think computers are smart now, you have to reconsider your stance. It is projected that by 2040, computers will be as smart as humans. Thanks largely to Artificial Intelligence. Leave your comment.