E-Business
Africa Tasked to Fast-track AI Skills Development

Africa has been urged to fast-track the development of Artificial intelligence (AI) skill to benefit from its economic value. AI could contribute $1.5 trillion to Africa’s economy by 2030 if the continent secures 10% of the global AI market, according to SAP, which sourced the statistic from online media.

However, a shortage of AI talent, with the need to retain cyber security and cloud skills, threatens to block opportunities to monetise growth.
This is part of a report released by SAP: ‘Africa’s AI Skills Readiness Revealed’, which reveals that African organisations are rushing to enhance their traditional IT skills base in the wake of accelerating adoption of AI.
The report adds that while 94% of organisations offer monthly AI training, none currently allocate more than 10% of their HR or IT budgets to skills development, a sharp decline from 2022.
Genevieve Koolen, HR director at SAP Africa, said: “There is a near-universal need for AI-related skills among African companies this year. Since traditional IT skills such as cloud and cyber security related competencies remain in high demand, companies now face the dual challenge of attracting and retaining traditional tech talent while also building greater AI competencies within their businesses. It is unsurprising then that most African organisations provide career development opportunities for employees with AI specialisations.”
The report reveals that all companies surveyed expect the demand for AI skills to increase in 2025. Nearly half said they expect a ‘significant’ increase.
Koolen added that while there is an urgent need for policymakers and education institutions to fast-track AI skills development initiatives among Africa’s swelling youth population, companies also face pressure to equip existing workers with future-ready skills.
“Thirty-eight percent of companies surveyed said reskilling of employees is a top skills-related challenge for them in 2025, and nearly half said the same of upskilling. The impact of these changes creates its own challenges, as evidenced by the two-thirds of companies that said helping employees understand why reskilling is necessary is a top priority.”
Research also showed that African organisations are alive to the possibilities presented by AI-related innovation, with companies citing perceived value in improved decision-making (64%), marketing capabilities (51%) and innovation (47%) enabled by AI.
However, poor access to AI-ready skills is already causing negative impacts among the same companies, including failed innovation initiatives, delays completing projects, greater pressure on teams and an inability to take on new client projects.
“Organisations are rising to this challenge by increasing the frequency of training offered to employees, with 94% saying they offer training at least monthly,” said Koolen.
However, the latest data indicates a drop in the allocated budget for skills development.
In a previous survey conducted in 2022, a quarter of organisations said they spend more than 15% of their HR or IT budgets on skills development and training. This year, not a single organisation that formed part of the research spent more than 10%.
SAP lists several measures that companies can implement to ensure they cultivate the correct skills mix:
Be prepared: With universal demand for tech and AI-related skills and an ongoing skills scarcity, African organisations must prepare for a shortfall in critical AI-related skills this year.
“The moment calls for a pragmatic approach that combines longer-term skills development – including reskilling and upskilling – with short-term measures that alleviate some of the immediate pressures and creates space for more robust skills development initiatives. Organisations also need to take care to support employees through this uncertain period, for example, by using human capital management technologies that help HR teams identify concerns.”
Prioritise training: Koolen said it is surprising that budget allocations for training and skills development appear to be shrinking. “Too many digital transformation and innovation initiatives fail to deliver the expected business value due to a lack of appropriate skills.
“In light of the rapid pace of technological advancement, any organisation that fails to invest in skills will likely find they are unprepared and unable to leverage new innovations. In time, this will erode their competitiveness and lead to significant impacts to the bottom line.”
Instead, organisations should place skills development at the core of their business strategies to ensure a steady stream of work-ready talent and invest sufficient budget to guarantee high-quality outcomes for employees and the business.
Partner well: While Africa has the fastest-growing youth population of any continent, there are still significant systemic challenges with equipping youth with adequate work-ready skills.
“Africa’s ability to reap the benefits of AI-related innovation rests on broader public-private sector efforts at cultivating the correct skills mix,” said Koolen. “Partnering with educational institutions and other industry skills development initiatives can accelerate the rate at which skills become available to companies.”
She added that technology vendors can also play a valuable role. “Large technology companies often have large global workforces and strong employer brands, allowing them to attract top talent. Partnering with tech venters can augment organisations’ skills base and provide valuable support to AI-led initiatives.”
E-Business
Kaspersky Transforms Threat Intelligence Reporting into an Interactive Content Hub

Easy interaction with exclusive Kaspersky reports, geo-filtering and actionable intelligence in a single click: expert insights on Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), Crimeware and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) threats are now available directly in Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal — with charts and visuals rendered inline.

In an era of increasingly sophisticated and frequent attacks, threat intelligence inevitably evolves into a business enabler that equips security teams with strategic advantage in their mission to back their company’s stability and growth.
Kaspersky, a recognised leader in threat intelligence, facilitates informed decision-making and proactive risk mitigation by introducing simplified access to actionable and relevant threat insights.
Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Reporting is a subscription-based service delivering over 200 in-depth analysis reports annually. These insights are compiled by Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team, Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team and Threat Research experts through the continuous tracking of more than 900 threat actors and campaigns.
Following the update, all reports previously representing a library of static PDF files (that is more than 2000 exclusive Kaspersky reports published to date) are now structured and can be examined directly in the Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal. For offline use, the standard PDF download format remains available as well.
The update also introduces deeper integration within each report, featuring direct links to indicators of compromise (IoCs), detection rules (including YARA), and MITRE ATT&CK® techniques. Users can now perform a single-click drill-down into specific threat actors, malware families and Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) across diverse geographies and industries.
Smart geo-filtering streamlines investigations by prioritising content explicitly mentioning a selected country, followed by broader regional intelligence, giving analysts a complete geographic view in a single query.
Enhanced Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Reporting supports the following use cases:
- Customised content discovery: apply geo, industry and software filters to instantly retrieve a list of relevant reports.
- Exclusive intelligence: access the most recent incident investigation reports, including those without public disclosure, to understand the nature of an attack and identify the actions required for mitigation.
- Actionable intelligence extraction: extract and apply threat data from the reports and apply it across specific infrastructure to detect traces of compromise.
- In-depth Threat Lookup and contextual analysis: investigate suspicious indicators identified within the network and quickly determine if a specific IoC is linked to a related threat report.
“Empowering cybersecurity teams in their mission-critical daily work to ensure business resilience in a complex threat landscape. This is the main driver behind our ongoing visual and functional improvement initiative.
While updating Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal, we focused on refining the customer experience by optimising processes of active investigation, proactive incident monitoring and detailed mitigation techniques,” comments Alexander Mazikin, Head of Threat Intelligence Product Line at Kaspersky.
E-Business
Weebly Websites to Shut Down for Nigeria, 66 Other Countries from September

Weebly, US-based free, beginner-friendly, drag-and-drop website builder and eCommerce service, will no longer be available for customers in 67 countries, including Nigeria, after September 2026, according to an email seen by Nigeria CommunicationsWeek.

Weebly said it is “winding down” services in different nations “due to changes in regulation and to simplify our global operations”.
The firm released a timeline of gradual changes, to help existing users access their data before the site shuts down.
Starting June 29, customers of 67 countries were no longer able to publish any new pages.
September 27, 2026: Weebly websites will be unpublished.
Before this date, users should download site content and data. Follow these steps:
Go to Account Settings, click on My Data, and select Download My Data.
This will help you migrate your content to another website provider, or retain it.
Concerned about privacy? Ask Weebly to delete your data, through the Erase Data and Forget Me option under the My Data tab on your account page.
December 26, 2026: Last date of accessing Weebly account.
Until this date, you will have access to the account, although sites will be unpublished.
This period helps users move their site, domains, and data to another service.
Domain names can be moved to another registrar only after 60 days from the registration date.
According to the Weebly website, users must make sure that they do not make changes to your registrant contact information (email, phone number, first/last name), as this will lead to a 60-day registrar lock and prevent you from transferring your domain name.
Note that domain name transfers work differently for country-specific domains; users must contact Weebly’s support team for assistance.
How to unlock, transfer domain name
From your Weebly Dashboard, go to websites, and click on Domains, then select Manage Domain.
Disable registrar lock, get EPP authorisation code, and copy the full code.
Disabling registrar lock will also disable privacy protection. It is important to set privacy protection once again with the new registrar.
Follow the instructions for the newly chosen registrar as the rest of the transfer process will be managed by them
Why is Weebly winding down?
While the firm attributed it to “a change in regulation,” online users have argued that Square, which acquired Weebly in 2018, is pushing its platform ‘Square Online’.
Square is originally a US-based payment processor, and the firm says it has since evolved into the “largest business tech platform”.
It calls Square Online a “free online store” but clarifies that those who do not sell online can also use it to build their websites.
In an earlier support update for the Weebly Website Builder, Square Online was consistently referred to as a better alternative, although at the time, it was said that Square “has no plans to discontinue the Weebly website builder”.
Which countries will Weebly no longer be available in? Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Armenia, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbadoa, Belarus, Benin and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Others are: Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, and Côte d’Ivoire.
Also affected are: Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, French Polynesia, Gabon, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea, Iceland, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Mauritius, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal and New Caledonia.
The rest are: Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Korea, Suriname, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
E-Business
NOTAP to Commercialise University Research, Expands Patent Drive

National Office for Technology Acquisition and Transfer (NOTAP), has commenced the process of patenting and commercialisation of research works by universities and other research institutions in the country.

Dr. Obiageli Amadiobi, director general of NOTAP
Dr. Obiageli Amadiobi, director general of NOTAP, stated this in Abuja, during an interaction with journalists on her achievements since assuming office.
Speaking on the theme, “Strengthening Indigenous Capacity: NOTAP’s Drive for Technology Transfer, Local Content Development, and Innovative activities,” Amadiobi said the agency had involved both the academia and industry so that researchers can work on topics brought forward for commercialisation purpose.
“My minister is very intentional about this– very intentional about commercialisation of research results, which we have already submitted to him. They are meaningful researches, which we need to commercialise.
“We have established 69 intellectual property technology transfer offices in 69 universities that we are still counting. We have informed the vice chancellors of Nigerian universities to set up such offices and we will come and educate them on intellectual property and technology transfers.
“As we are doing this, we are also taking record of all the researchers of these universities and research centres and documenting them in a compendium.
“So, we have compendiums from the universities to us and we put them in a database. If you will recall, recently, the ministry, our supervising ministry, which is the Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Technology, launched a programme titled Energise Commercialisation. This entirely was for commercialisation of all R&Ds,” she said.
On research Institutions carrying out research on areas of industry needs, she said, “NOTAP is bridging the gap between research and development with industry needs, “it is on our programme called the NITDF, NOTAP Industry Technology Transfer Fellowship. By this programme, we engage the universities and the industries, in what we call the triple helix. We liaise with the universities and the industries to sponsor, the industries will sponsor a Ph.D candidate in a Nigerian university to conduct relevant researches.
“They will provide the topics that they want researches for and such students will research on that with the assistance of the industries, because they wear the shoes, so they know where it pinches them. But usually, there are Ph.D candidates already established. This year alone, we certified about 15 of them to enter into this programme and they have gone into the various universities.
“And we are still looking for people to update some of the projects; the research topics we already have. But we are not getting enough persons to do the researches. So, we are going to do further advertisement to see if other candidates will come up.
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