Mobile technology is transforming Africa by addressing longstanding issues like poverty, food insecurity, and lack of access to information and financial services. Mobile phones have seen unprecedented growth in Africa, with over 600 million subscribers compared to just 4 million in 1998. This has led to innovative mobile applications that provide farmers with agricultural information, enable peer-to-peer payments and money transfers through mobile banking, and allow civic engagement through open data and crowdsourcing. Mobile technology is empowering citizens, boosting economic growth, and helping lift people out of poverty in Africa.
Revoda: Mobile Election App for Nigeria 2011 ElectionsEmeka Okoye
Revoda Mobile app is a mobile application for citizens to monitor the electoral process including election.
ReVoDa turns eligible voters into informal election observers, and allows monitoring organizations to draw conclusions about the legitimacy and accuracy of the elections
South Africa isn't just Africa’s biggest economy, it’s also home to some seriously impressive mobile internet statistics.
Our report looks at everything mobile internet-related - from social media to education, banking to e-commerce. It's hard not to be impressed by how quickly mobile has built new opportunities for locals, and also businesses looking to enter South African market.
+ Overview of MOBILE EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNET.
+ MOBILE INTERNET: TRENDS AND GROWTH
+ BENEFITS OF THE MOBILE INTERNET
+ CHALLENGES OF THE MOBILE INTERNET
+ SOLUTIONS
Revoda: Mobile Election App for Nigeria 2011 ElectionsEmeka Okoye
Revoda Mobile app is a mobile application for citizens to monitor the electoral process including election.
ReVoDa turns eligible voters into informal election observers, and allows monitoring organizations to draw conclusions about the legitimacy and accuracy of the elections
South Africa isn't just Africa’s biggest economy, it’s also home to some seriously impressive mobile internet statistics.
Our report looks at everything mobile internet-related - from social media to education, banking to e-commerce. It's hard not to be impressed by how quickly mobile has built new opportunities for locals, and also businesses looking to enter South African market.
+ Overview of MOBILE EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNET.
+ MOBILE INTERNET: TRENDS AND GROWTH
+ BENEFITS OF THE MOBILE INTERNET
+ CHALLENGES OF THE MOBILE INTERNET
+ SOLUTIONS
This presentation illustrates how digital is transforming Africa, through figures and examples (health, education). It has been created for "Semaine du Web" event in Algiers. (www. semaineduweb.com)
Development Challenges, South-South Solutions is the monthly e-newsletter for the United Nations Development Programme’s South-South Cooperation Unit (www.southerninnovator.org). It has been published every month since 2006.
ISSN 2227-3905
Stories by David South
Design and Layout: UNDP South-South Cooperation Unit
Follow @SouthSouth1
Around 40% of people in the developing world now actively subscribe to mobile services, with many more having access to a mobile, if not direct ownership. Mobile access in these regions has outpaced the rate at which much of the population is gaining access to basic services such as electricity, sanitation, and banking. As such, there has been increased focus on the role mobile can play in improving social, economic and environmental development in emerging markets. There are now over 1,000 live, mobile-enabled products and services in the developing world across several verticals, including financial services, health and entrepreneurship. While there has been substantial growth in the number of these services over the last three years, the opportunity to achieve broad-based scale is significant.
Mobile operators are increasingly incorporating these 'mobile for development’ (M4D) services as important components of their value added services (VAS) portfolio in developing markets, partly as a contributing driver of future revenue growth, but more importantly as an enabler to forging a loyal relationship with previously unconnected, low-income subscribers. As the use of mobile data rises over the next three to five years, capturing the loyalty of these subscribers now will be key to solidifying the operators’ place in the data value chain in the future.
Our new report, Scaling Mobile for Development, outlines the challenges and opportunities for achieving commercial success and social impact through M4D services. It has been developed by Mobile for Development Intelligence with support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Our inclusive approach included a research process and production of an interim (April 2013) and final report, with a series of peer review workshops held in Nairobi, Kenya and Washington DC to drive collaboration and thought leadership across stakeholder groups.
Doing Good Is Good Business -ARM Keynote Erica Kochi UNICEF InnovationErica Kochi
Technology has already changed the way we live but still has the potential to do so much more. In emerging markets, if applied properly, it can be a driving force for good. It also provides immense opportunities for the bottom lines of technology companies.
This presentation illustrates how digital is transforming Africa, through figures and examples (health, education). It has been created for "Semaine du Web" event in Algiers. (www. semaineduweb.com)
Development Challenges, South-South Solutions is the monthly e-newsletter for the United Nations Development Programme’s South-South Cooperation Unit (www.southerninnovator.org). It has been published every month since 2006.
ISSN 2227-3905
Stories by David South
Design and Layout: UNDP South-South Cooperation Unit
Follow @SouthSouth1
Around 40% of people in the developing world now actively subscribe to mobile services, with many more having access to a mobile, if not direct ownership. Mobile access in these regions has outpaced the rate at which much of the population is gaining access to basic services such as electricity, sanitation, and banking. As such, there has been increased focus on the role mobile can play in improving social, economic and environmental development in emerging markets. There are now over 1,000 live, mobile-enabled products and services in the developing world across several verticals, including financial services, health and entrepreneurship. While there has been substantial growth in the number of these services over the last three years, the opportunity to achieve broad-based scale is significant.
Mobile operators are increasingly incorporating these 'mobile for development’ (M4D) services as important components of their value added services (VAS) portfolio in developing markets, partly as a contributing driver of future revenue growth, but more importantly as an enabler to forging a loyal relationship with previously unconnected, low-income subscribers. As the use of mobile data rises over the next three to five years, capturing the loyalty of these subscribers now will be key to solidifying the operators’ place in the data value chain in the future.
Our new report, Scaling Mobile for Development, outlines the challenges and opportunities for achieving commercial success and social impact through M4D services. It has been developed by Mobile for Development Intelligence with support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Our inclusive approach included a research process and production of an interim (April 2013) and final report, with a series of peer review workshops held in Nairobi, Kenya and Washington DC to drive collaboration and thought leadership across stakeholder groups.
Doing Good Is Good Business -ARM Keynote Erica Kochi UNICEF InnovationErica Kochi
Technology has already changed the way we live but still has the potential to do so much more. In emerging markets, if applied properly, it can be a driving force for good. It also provides immense opportunities for the bottom lines of technology companies.
Mobile Internet - Africa's Digital BackboneAdeyemi Fowe
A presentation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to the students in Faculty of Engineering on the state of the art of Mobile technology in Africa.., the hopes and what the future holds.
The Rule of Thumb – Mobiles for Governance in India VodafoneIN
“The Rule of Thumb – Mobiles for Governance in India”, a report that explores India’s governance challenge across six dimensions: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption.
M-governance utilizes mobile technology such as mobile phones, pagers, laptops, tablets, personal digital assistants and two-way radios to improve benefits for citizens, businesses and government. With over 930 million connections and 13% of the global mobile users, India has a unique opportunity to leverage mobile technology to take good governance to its citizens across the country, states the Rule of Thumb – Mobiles for Governance in India report.
Why the future of African journalism lies in mobile social networksJude Mathurine
Why the digital divide should not be an excuse for African media leaders to ignore the power of social media particular and the Internet in general.
Introduces SMS for Social Networking Systems in Africa.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Search and Society: Reimagining Information Access for Radical FuturesBhaskar Mitra
The field of Information retrieval (IR) is currently undergoing a transformative shift, at least partly due to the emerging applications of generative AI to information access. In this talk, we will deliberate on the sociotechnical implications of generative AI for information access. We will argue that there is both a critical necessity and an exciting opportunity for the IR community to re-center our research agendas on societal needs while dismantling the artificial separation between the work on fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in IR and the rest of IR research. Instead of adopting a reactionary strategy of trying to mitigate potential social harms from emerging technologies, the community should aim to proactively set the research agenda for the kinds of systems we should build inspired by diverse explicitly stated sociotechnical imaginaries. The sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin the design and development of information access technologies needs to be explicitly articulated, and we need to develop theories of change in context of these diverse perspectives. Our guiding future imaginaries must be informed by other academic fields, such as democratic theory and critical theory, and should be co-developed with social science scholars, legal scholars, civil rights and social justice activists, and artists, among others.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
"Impact of front-end architecture on development cost", Viktor TurskyiFwdays
I have heard many times that architecture is not important for the front-end. Also, many times I have seen how developers implement features on the front-end just following the standard rules for a framework and think that this is enough to successfully launch the project, and then the project fails. How to prevent this and what approach to choose? I have launched dozens of complex projects and during the talk we will analyze which approaches have worked for me and which have not.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
From Siloed Products to Connected Ecosystem: Building a Sustainable and Scala...
Thoughts about the African Revolution
1. 2013
Thoughts about the new African Revolution
How Technology is re-inventing Africa
Emeka Okoye
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Introduction
These are a summary of my thoughts on the effects of Mobile technology and Social Media in Africa.
Part of this post was used for an article I submitted to CNN Marketplace Africa as part of my
nomination for Africa’s Tech Leaders to follow on Twitter in 2012.
Africa before the Mobile era (Africa 1.0, Africa 2.0)
Africa has always been about rapid population growth, food shortages, low literacy level, climate
changes, poor governance and corruption, rampaging poverty before the arrival of mobile phones.
The Power of Mobile
The power of the mobile telephony is forging a new era in Africa where these challenges like poverty
are now inspirational to the efficient use of resources with solutions that the developed world can
learn from.
Mobile phones have become accessible to Africans at a staggering rate over the past decade. In 1998
there were less than 4 million phones, today there are over 600 millions. Most Africans would buy a
mobile phone before a computer because they are very expensive thus the technology culture took
a different path than the west. This has made developers to be more resourceful and innovative.
Mobile penetration has exceeded infrastructure development like roads, electricity and the internet.
Mobile Technology carries huge economic potential and is unlocking Africa’s potential to transform.
In every additional 10 phones per 100 people the GDP increases by 0.8%.
Mobile as a Gift for Social Development
These ubiquitous devices are not for communication only but they are a way of life. They have
integrated into our lifestyles and culture. The mobile phones are being used also for movement of
money and the spread of vital information about farming, healthcare and many more. Some of these
innovations have been conceived by low-income users themselves, to meet their everyday needs.
These innovations are being developed with little or no resources.
The Africa 3.0
African developers like me are creating mobile-based applications that are solving problems in our
community. These mobile applications are turning mobile phones into a platform of services which
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solve Africa’s development challenges. These solutions are gaining traction in Africa because they
are being built around people's needs, desires, culture, behaviour and challenges.
Reducing Poverty with Mobile Money (Money 3.0)
A good example is Mobile Money which allows users store money on their phones. It is cheap and
easy to use especially for those with no access to banking services. Mobile money is stopping the
rural to urban drifts, empowering the have-nots (and women) to start small-scale enterprises which
is creating wealth, employment opportunities and contributing to the development of the continent.
Reducing Hunger and Increasing Growth with Mobile Agriculture
Another example is Mobile Agriculture which addresses challenges of growing and bringing the
crops to the market. At Next2 (http://next2.us), we are developing mobile-based solutions that can
run on low-end cheap phones for farmers to receive relevant and timely information on shared
farmer’s local knowledge & innovation, crop-saving weather reports, market prices, pests & diseases
data, seeds data, etc and also receive their feedbacks so as to empower them to boost productivity.
With mobile technology, Africans can lift themselves out of poverty, drive agriculture to feed
Africans and the rest of the world and increase economic growth.
The Rise of the Citizens (Citizen 2.0)
Africa will soon be the hot bed of data-driven connected democracy because of the Mobile, Open
Data and Social Media revolution that is slowly building up. Crowd-sourcing and Open Data is
creating a paradigm shift from "Citizen as a victim of democracy" to "Citizen as the author of the
agenda".
The new development framework for Africa will soon be: Mobilize, Connect and Empower the
citizens by civic societies and the social enterprises so as to take advantage of technology to lead
their governments.
Civic organizations and NGOs have a big role to play in Africa using Open Data crowd-sourced from
mobile citizens to reap the promises of Open Government and Open Society with Open Knowledge.
Open Data is putting governance into the hands of the citizens (Smart Citizens)
Our world is changing. Technology (Mobile, Open Data, Crowd-sourcing) and Civil Societies (and
Social Enterprises) will soon be running African countries to make it better resulting in Africa 3.0.
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Social Developments
African institutions are often weak, ineffective and many times corrupt but mobile networks or the
large networks of connected users are by-passing these existing institutions with new ideas and
services that will impact on government, corruption, the media, politics, culture, society. They have
ability to make weak institutions stronger and fundamentally corrupt institution weaker.
Mobile networks are creating a connected community of trust that is encouraging P2P (peer-to-
peer) payments and money transfer (Money 3.0), Micro-Insurance, etc in Africa thereby unlocking
the potentials of the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoPs), creating wealth, empowering women and
improving quality of life & homes.
These large networks of connected users are also flattening layers, elimination of middlemen,
wringing out of cost and complexities from the system while boosting its efficiency which is so
exciting when applied to fundamental human needs and desires as found in Africa eg. Mobile
Agriculture (mAgric), Mobile Health (mHealth), Digital Education, etc.
These are just to name a few.
Conclusion
Cheap and efficient mobile technologies are disrupting ways of lives of people in Africa for the better
and also bridging the gap between the isolated African communities and the global market. Mobile
technology is playing a key role in solving the Africa’s economic and social problems.
Africa will also be a good example to showcase how harnessing mobile devices to improve the
physical world can lead to substantial gain.
About Emeka Okoye
Emeka Okoye is the CEO of Vikantti Nigeria Limited, a software development company, has over 17
years of progressive experience in Web, Semantic, Enterprise & Mobile Software development.
An innovative, visionary and creative technologist with deep understanding of the full spectrum of
Data, Social Media, Mobile, and Semantic Web related technologies.
Graduated as a Geologist in 1990 but passionate about software engineering, he built Nigeria’s first
banking website and Internet Banking app (IBTC, 1996), co-founded one of Nigeria’s earliest startup
and built the biggest Nigerian Portal (NgEx.com, 1997), was the Project Manager/Lead Architect of
Nigeria’s first E-commerce Project in 2000 (FSB Bank, Valucard, UPS & Xerox).
He started Vikantti Software in 2006 as a consulting firm offering specialized software development,
technology strategy for the financial sector and Government, enterprise mobile app development,
5. 5 | P a g e
mobile strategy, Semantic Web and Open Data development and consulting, and enterprise
software development.
Some other milestones
Listed among the 20 most influential technology people in Africa by IT News South Africa in 2013
Named among the Influential people in technology in Nigeria and Africa by the top Nigerian
technology blog, Techloy (2010, 2011, 2012).
Listed among the World’s 20 most influential people in Mobile Money, Mobile Banking, Mobile
Commerce and Mobile Payments by Obopay in 2012
Nominated by CNN Marketplace Africa for Africa’s Tech Leaders to follow on Twitter in 2012.
Built the first Mobile App for Election reporting and violence monitoring in Nigeria (2011),
Liberia (2011) and Ghana(2012)
Worked under the winner of the 2003 InfoWorld Magazine Innovator of the year, Mr. Kingsley
Idehen (OpenLink Software)
Emeka can be followed on twitter via @EmekaOkoye and can be reached on email via
emeka.okoye@gmail.com