E-Business
COVID-19: Laptops Scarcity Hits Europe as Request Floods Nigeria
The on-going COVID-19 crisis has sparked a spike in demand for laptops in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa as Europe, the Middle East and other continents face a scarcity of devices occasioned by the global pandemic which has disrupted supply chains across the world.
Investigations reveal that the COVID-19 crisis has necessitated a de-emphasis on mass gatherings, thereby prompting businesses and educational institutions in Europe and other continents to turn to virtual work in order to keep the wheels of their enterprise and academic pursuits turning. Consequently, staff and students have been encouraged to work and learn from home.
The development has seen increased demand for laptops and other work tools to enable staff who would otherwise have relied on work systems in the office; to be able to turn in productive work on personal laptops.
Also, a number of educational institutions in these advanced climes have embraced e-learning as a way to bridge the gap between tutors and students/pupils while complying with the lockdown being enforced in many of these countries.
Furthermore, parents and other social media-savvy youth have had to purchase laptops in view of the lengthy stay at home as a means of enjoying more convenient screen time for leisure activities such as chatting or seeing movies on Netflix.
These factors have all combined in engendering a scarcity of laptops in these zones; with supply stunted and few available units all being snapped up by eager shoppers.
Consequently, attention has turned to Africa and to a larger extent, its biggest market, Nigeria for inventory.
‘‘Businesses have bought up almost all available laptops in Europe for their staff working from home.
“The benefits of e-learning as a tailor-made solution for the lockdown in most countries has also seen increased demand for these tools.
“Most professionals and social media users have also considered bigger screens as a better option for the long stay at home as against mobile phones.
“This has seen a massive demand for laptops from other parts of the world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa,’’ disclosed Ravi Zack, a supply chain specialist based in Germany.
Furthermore, he disclosed that Nigerian businesses with international outlook are being looked up to for help in meeting the supply gap in Europe and further afar.
As a matter of fact, Konga, one of the foremost e-commerce companies and largest stockists in Nigeria had fielded enquiries from some of the biggest products merchants in the UK and other parts of Europe.
‘‘Konga has been identified as a credible outpost with the capacity to retain huge inventory which could come in handy to bail out a lot of people in Europe,’’ says Vipin Shaw, a mega electronics business owner based in Dubai.
‘‘In fact, few international computer OEMs had recommended Konga as one of the structured sources that could be of assistance. TDAfrica, another Nigerian-based tech firm, was also mentioned as a reliable HP partner which could be in a position to make some stock available.’’
When contacted to verify these claims, Vice President, Konga Offline, Kalu Johnson admitted that some enquiries had been received over the past few days on the possibility of supplying laptops abroad at double the market price. Nevertheless, he affirmed that the management of Konga was considering the needs of Nigerians.
‘‘Yes, Nigerians are not heavy on e-learning and we will make more money selling these devices over there.
“However, we are not so keen to push these devices abroad as we also have thousands of Nigerians who are in need of these PCs and laptops. Same goes for schools, businesses and other establishments in Nigeria.
‘‘The Federal Government is enforcing a lockdown and the Ministry of Education has also urged educational institutions to go online to continue teaching and learning.
“Millions of Nigerians are also working from home this period. If we offload these devices overseas, who knows when we will be able to achieve such inventory capacity to serve the local needs, especially as no one has an idea when the COVID-19 crisis will end,’’ he said.
Nigeria is currently looking to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic as confirmed cases rise across the country.
E-Business
Cyber Resilience a Critical Priority for Manufacturing Amid Rapid Digitalization – Report Shows
As 60% of manufacturers race toward full digitalisation, cyber risk is increasingly manifesting as a business risk, according to a new global report by Kaspersky and VDC Strategy.
This means cybersecurity is not merely a compliance function, it is a cornerstone of production assurance, safeguarding uptime, quality, and operational continuity.
Manufacturers are modernising to deliver safer, more consistent and more cost-effective production and digitalization is moving fast: just 9% of organisations describe themselves as fully digital today, but 60% expect to get there within two years, according to the joint report by Kaspersky and VDC, titled ‘Cyber Resilience, Built for Manufacturing’.
That shift links shop-floor equipment, production lines and site operations to platforms such as Manufacturing execution systems (MES), Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and historians, turning many plants into cyber-physical systems (CPS), where a digital disruption doesn’t stay digital. It can slow production lines, quarantine work in progress, invalidate traceability records, or halt production outright.
What’s driving manufacturing digitalization?
Manufacturers are digitising for measurable operational gains, not novelty. Survey respondents identified the primary drivers of their digital transformation strategy as:
- Improving production output or efficiency (24%)
- Reducing operational or production expenses (15%)
- Enabling new strategic opportunities (14%)
- Improving cyber resilience (13%)
The same connected systems that unlock these gains, including MES, IIoT sensors, automated material handling, remote engineering access, also become the systems that determine whether production can be trusted to keep running.
Cyber risk is now a business risk
Cyber risk has evolved from a mere IT concern to a direct threat to revenue generation, as environments transform into cyber-physical systems. In these integrated settings, digital disruptions like malware no longer just affect data, they can cause unsafe operations, scrapped batches, and halted production on the plant floor. This shift highlights the urgent need to treat cybersecurity as a key part of operational resilience.
According to the report, nearly 60% of manufacturing organisations estimate that cyber incidents cause damages exceeding $1 million per event, with an average disruption of 15.3 hours. The most significant losses often result from production halts, missed delivery commitments, and penalties, rather than just forensic costs.
In this context, downtime links cybersecurity risks to overall business performance. Cyber incidents can reduce Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), strain staffing, and disrupt supply chains. Recovery involves more than system restore, it requires re-establishing confidence in process parameters, quality records, and traceability before resuming operations.
Mature cybersecurity programs now incorporate OT security into governance, focusing on metrics valued by production leaders such as time to restore, backup confidence, legacy asset coverage, and safe degraded operation. This alignment ensures cybersecurity supports continuous production and resilience, not just IT compliance.
However, challenges remain due to split ownership. While 59% of organisations’ IT departments manage security policies, these often overlook plant realities. Managing many security tools (44%) and OT patching issues (38%) show that cybersecurity must be embedded into daily routines of production, engineering, and quality teams. Only through such integration can cybersecurity effectively enhance operational reliability and defend against evolving threats.
“As manufacturing environments become increasingly interconnected, cybersecurity shifts focus from merely adding protective layers to ensuring the availability, resilience, and integrity of production processes. The goal is to minimise operational impact and speed up recovery, rather than solely preventing intrusions.
“Kaspersky offers a unified ecosystem that integrates IT, OT, and IIoT security, empowering manufacturers to pursue digital transformation securely. This strategy helps maintain operational continuity and reduces long-term cybersecurity costs,” comments Andrey Strelkov, Head of Industrial Cybersecurity Product Line at Kaspersky.
To implement this strategy, manufacturing companies can leverage solutions from the Kaspersky OT Cybersecurity Ecosystem, centered around Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity (KICS), a native Extended Detection and Response platform designed for critical infrastructure protection. KICS enables centralised detection and response to complex attacks across the entire industrial network, ensuring comprehensive visibility and security.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has commenced a forensic investigation into the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Lotus Bank and Hackerbella Ltd over alleged violations of data protection laws involving students’ personal information.
The investigation follows public complaints alleging that students’ personal data were used to open bank accounts without a lawful basis.
Dr Vincent Olatunji, national commissioner and chief executive officer of the NDPC, directed the investigation team to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the circumstances surrounding the collection, processing, use and disclosure of the affected students’ personal data.
The investigation will also determine the respective roles and responsibilities of UNILAG, Lotus Bank and Hackerbella in the alleged processing of the data.
According to the Commission, the investigation will assess the data protection compliance obligations of the parties under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 (NDP Act), as well as potential risks posed to the rights and freedoms of the affected data subjects.
The NDPC said the probe would cover several areas, including Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), the lawfulness and transparency of credit scoring or profiling activities, and the use of automated decision-making systems.
It will also examine the adequacy of privacy notices, data-sharing arrangements, lawful bases for processing, data minimisation and purpose limitation.
Other areas include data retention policies and the adequacy of technical and organisational measures put in place to safeguard the rights and personal data of affected students.
The Commission reiterated that institutions entrusted with the personal data of students, staff and other members of their communities have a heightened responsibility to ensure that such information is processed lawfully, fairly, transparently and securely.
The NDPC therefore warned educational institutions that are yet to comply with its existing data protection compliance directives to take immediate steps to achieve compliance.
The Commission said it would continue to exercise its regulatory mandate to protect the privacy rights of Nigerians and ensure that organisations processing personal data comply with the provisions of the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023.
Microsoft is planning to unveil its new Maia 300 AI chip this fall, potentially as soon as next month, The Information reported on Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the plans.
The company introduced its Maia AI chip in November 2023 but has lagged rivals such as Alphabet and Amazon in scaling up its in-house chip efforts as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Nvidia’s costly processors.
Google began recognizing revenue from direct sales of its custom AI chips, called Tensor Processing Units, in the quarter ended June, while Amazon has also seen growing adoption of its processors, including its Trainium chips.
Microsoft has been in talks with chipmaker TSMC to secure manufacturing capacity for more than 300,000 units of the chip for delivery in 2027, according to the report. It is also looking to significantly ramp up production and persuade major cloud customers such as Anthropic to adopt the chip.
Microsoft ultimately aims to secure capacity for more than 1 million Maia 300 chips, though component supplies and ongoing capacity negotiations with TSMC could constrain its plans, according to the report.
It unveiled its second-generation Maia 200 in January, built by TSMC using 3-nanometer technology.
Microsoft packed the chip with a significant amount of SRAM, a type of memory that can provide speed advantages for AI systems handling large numbers of user requests.
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