Afrobeat sensation and Nigerian music star, Rema, will this week share his inspiring story on CNN International’s African Voices Changemakers, sponsored by Globacom.

Born Divine Ikubor, the 24-year-old Edo-born singer-songwriter, discovered his passion for music in church and school. His big break came after posting a viral freestyle on Instagram, catching D’Prince’s attention. This led to a record deal with Jonzing World, a subsidiary of Mavin Records, owned by Don Jazzy.

Rema’s global ascension gained momentum in 2022 with the release of his hit single “Calm Down”. The song’s massive success led to a collaboration with American pop sensation Selena Gomez, propelling it to greater heights.  Notably ‘Calm Down” reached number three on the prestigious Billboard Hot 100 chart, number one on Billboard Afrobeats Songs chart, where it held the top spot for a record- breaking 58 weeks.

His star status was crowned on November 7, 2022, when he received an award for achieving 1 billion streams worldwide during his London concert, in addition to performing at the Ballon d’Or ceremony held at the Theatre du Châtelet in Paris, France on October 30, 2023.

The interesting episode of African Voices awaits viewers on CNN on Saturday at 8.30 a.m., with repeats at noon the same day.  More repeats come up on Sunday at 4.30 a.m., 7.00 p.m. and on Monday at 4.00 a.m.

By Linda Saunders, Director Solutions Engineering, Africa Salesforce

AI is advancing rapidly, capturing the attention of CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs with its proven ability to boost productivity, enhance employee performance, and improve customer relationships.

We are entering the third wave of AI where autonomous AI agents will go beyond simply generating and analysing content, as chatbots and copilots did in the first and second waves and will be able to reason and autonomously take action for human colleagues. Indeed, they’ll work 24/7 to tackle individual, low-value, time-consuming tasks or collaborate with other agents to get larger, more complex jobs and projects done.

In sales, for example, they’ll engage with prospects, answer questions, manage objections, and schedule meetings based on CRM and external data, allowing sellers to focus on building deeper customer relationships. With dynamic, conversational self-service, they can be configured to answer customer questions using companies’ existing knowledge base so they can automatically resolve account access. They can also triage registration and payment issues, directing customers to the appropriate resources.

Put simply, the future of AI is agents, and it’s here. Companies need to get ready to implement fast as these autonomous agents will become central to organizations’ customer engagement and experience strategies.

Working together, these customisable agents can autonomously take action on tasks and free up workers to focus on the jobs only they can do.

At Dreamforce, Salesforce unveiled Agentforce – a groundbreaking suite of customizable, autonomous agents and tools, makes it easy for customers to build their own ‘agent force’ — a revolutionary step forward in enterprise AI that will boost productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction across service, sales, marketing, commerce, and more. Agentforce is how humans with AI drive customer success together and it’s been designed so that any organisation can build, customise, and deploy their own agents quickly and easily, with low-code tools.]

Complementing skills, and ensuring accountability

The leap from generative to agentic AI will transform how humans work.

Despite business eagerness to experiment with and deploy AI, many still worry about how to do so safely, how to keep data under their control, and make sure they can trust the AI’s output.

There is considerable concern about AI ‌displacing workers or becoming too powerful and working at odds with humans.

Agents require guardrails, and they have to be monitored to make sure that they’re doing what they’re supposed to.

Success requires not just finding the AI models or building AI actions that best suit a company’s needs but having the infrastructure and data security to do so responsibly.

Audit trails are necessary to hold autonomous AI agents accountable, just as employers might establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to keep human workers marching toward their expected goals.

It’s important to think about the role of agents at work as a partnership between people and AI. Complementing skills and intelligence will bring better business outcomes.

While agents can orchestrate complex actions on behalf of the user, they require those skills to be configured and need a degree of hand-holding to perform at their best.

Businesses need to take their employees on the AI journey. They will require training to work with autonomous AI agents because they need context and onboarding much like new employees.

Setting direction, clear goals, and giving feedback ultimately helps AI train itself better.

The future of work is a hybrid workforce

Together, agents with humans will drive customer success. This is what AI is meant to be.

Every company has more jobs to be done than the resources available to do them. As a result, many jobs go unaddressed or uncompleted.

An estimated 41% of employee time is spent on repetitive, low-impact work, and 65% of desk workers believe generative AI will allow them to be more strategic, according to the Salesforce Trends in AI Report.

However, it’s essential for AI agents to understand and execute their expansive capabilities. It’s equally, if not more, important for them to recognize their limitations and understand when human intervention is necessary.

The future of work is a hybrid workforce composed of humans with agents, enabling companies to compete in an ever-changing world. With AI, humans can focus on what’s really important: human relationships.

Celebrating excellence in leadership: Mojisola Ologe, a recognized risk management professional, has won The Peak Performer FEST 2024 Admirable Woman in Leadership Award.

Mojisola Ologe (middle) receiving the The Peak Performer FEST 2024 Admirable Woman in Leadership Award.

The event, held at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos, brought together women leaders from various industries as part of TPP FEST 2024. With the theme, “Enhancing Women Leadership with the Magic of Emotional Intelligence,” it highlighted essential behavioral insights and strategies for women to excel in their careers and business ventures, while also recognizing outstanding women in society and promoting leadership skills, global connections, and well-being.

With over 20 years of experience in technology, risk management, and cybersecurity, Mojisola Ologe has been at the forefront of safeguarding critical infrastructure within the financial and technology sectors.

Her comprehensive expertise in audit, regulatory compliance, and innovative risk management strategies has strengthened organizational resilience and driven operational excellence, establishing her as a trusted authority in the field.

Mojisola has successfully led transformative cybersecurity initiatives that align with global standards such as ISO 27001, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and PCI DSS. Her strategic oversight has driven the implementation of advanced security controls, threat assessment protocols, and incident response frameworks, significantly enhancing organizational resilience against emerging cyber threats.

Beyond her professional expertise, Mrs. Ologe is a passionate advocate for empowering and mentoring women in cybersecurity, a field traditionally dominated by men. Her efforts have contributed to shaping a more inclusive technology landscape in Nigeria.

As a dynamic leader, Mojisola is recognized for her ability to foster collaboration and drive cross-functional teams towards shared objectives. A trailblazer in the field, she continuously pushes the boundaries of innovation and security in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Presenting the Admirable Women in Leadership Award to Mojisola, Dr. Abiola Salami, publisher, The Peak Performer, said, “This is in acknowledgement of your excellent leadership by those you have led in the year under review 2023/2024.

“We hope this will inspire you to deliver a higher level of excellence in future”.

In her response, Mojisola said it was a very auspicious moment for her “as we all have gathered to celebrate myself and others who have excelled in different fields.

“It’s a great honour for me to be given accolades and award; I am truly obliged for this great honour and recognition given by The Peak Performer team”.

She said she is more energised and charged up to take up new and challenging projects which would work in the benefit of her organisation and the environment.

Other prominent award recipients included Lady Maiden Alex-Ibru, Chairman, Publisher, and CEO of Guardian Newspapers; Dr. Mosun Belo-Olusoga, a leading figure in Nigeria’s financial services sector; Bodam Taiwo, Head of Portfolio, Bond and Connect at Pernod Ricard; Chichi Emenike, Head of Gas Ventures at Neconde Energy Limited; Rachel Adeshina, Country Head of Technology and Services at FBN Bank Ghana; and Mabel Adeteye, Head of Brands and Communication at Wema Bank. Each of these women was recognized for their exceptional achievements and impact within their respective fields.