Connect with us

E-Business

Exploring the Potential of Digital Transformation on the Nigerian Economy

Published

on

President Muhammadu Buhari
Kindly share this post

The concept of a digital economy is essentially a new economy stream that brings with it new momentum.

 

As ICT technologies develop rapidly and become integrated into more and more verticals, the digital economy is becoming the fastest growing, most innovative, and widest-reaching economy.

 

Unleashing the potential of economic development, it drives the transformation of traditional industries, fuels sustainable economic development, improves social management and services, and fosters innovation.

 

Accenture forecast that optimizing the use of digital skills and technologies could generate US$2 trillion of additional global economic output by 2020.

 

The study also revealed the vast role digital technologies play in economic activity, with more than one-fifth of the world’s GDP attributable to digital skills, capital, goods, and services.

 

According to Tencent’s 2017 report China’s Internet + Digital Economy, China’s digital economy created about 2.8 million jobs in 2016, accounting for 21% of the total new jobs.

 

Nigeria is undoubtedly one of Africa’s most promising nations with over 190million people, this country remains the largest mobile market on the continent.

 

Over the past years the country has witnessed a surge and growth of e-commerce businesses, an increase in small to large scale enterprise and not to mention a ton of mobile based services that meet a wide range of needs for people every day.

 

A majority of these innovations and establishment are riding on the back of Technology and Connectivity.

 

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) predicted that the e-commerce sector is expected to contribute about 10 per cent, a projected N10trillion, to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2018.

 

The e-Commerce market in Nigeria is currently worth around $13billion (about N4.01trillion), according to a report by London based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Nigeria’s e-commerce market value could rise to $50billion (N15.45trillion) over the next decade.

 

However Africa and specifically in Nigeria face challenges stemming from insufficient ICT infrastructure, to the lack of unskilled human capital and most importantly firm government push on ICT and digital transformation.

 

Specifically Nigeria as a country needs to focus on its infrastructure establishment. Reliable and affordable broadband for businesses and individuals are critical for future stages of ICT use.

 

While it is evident that there has been some considerable level of development and adoption of technology and telecommunication, however to build and sustain a viably digital economy in Nigeria and to fully reap the benefit from it, there are critical areas that need attending to.

 

Connecting the Unconnected

The relevance of the connectivity cannot be over emphasized. Taking communication sites for instance, Indonesia, a country with similar population with Nigeria, has more network base station sites than Nigeria.

 

According to ICT development Index 2017 by ITU, there is a need to increase network sites in Nigeria like the one in Indonesia, both urban and rural areas, not to mention that more than half of Nigeria’s 180 million population living in rural areas have much poorer mobile signal coverage.

 

It is important to note that with the increasing rate of mobile internet penetration in Nigeria, 23million of the Nigerian population still have no telecommunication access largely in the rural communities.

 

Is some rural villages in Ogun State bordering with the Republic of Benin, residents would have to go over the border to Benin Republic just make a phone call, which would be International call as the telecommunication provider was not Nigerian based. Worse case they would need to commute to the next village to make local calls via local operators.

Huawei-Logo.jpg

Huawei has started a series of rural telecommunication access initiatives with some of operators across Africa, leveraging our Rural Star solution.

 

The solution is specifically designed for remote parts of the country that do not currently have mobile network coverage, our goal is to bridge the digital divide in remote parts of Africa, especially in Nigeria.

 

The solution leverages cutting edge technology innovation by reducing the total cost of building and running a mobile network site by up to 70 per cent.

 

There is an increase in the MBB subscription rate with affordability being improved over the year. However, there are limited metro and access fiber network in Nigeria 11% proportion is far lower than other Africa countries Affecting user experience and broadband development.

 

The growth in internet/mobile adoption amongst Nigerians present huge opportunities for businesses that take advantage of new technologies such as social media and e-commerce.

 

The annual research project called the Global Connectivity Index (GCI). Nigeria ranks 70th in GCI 2018. The report shows that as an early starter (countries in the early stage of ICT infrastructure build-out), Nigeria needs to focus on increasing ICT infrastructure and policies to give more people access to the digital world.

 

The report finds that a 1 point increase in GCI score is equivalent to 1) a 2.1% increase in competitiveness 2) 2.2% increase in national innovation, and 3) a 2.3% increase in productivity.

 

Reaping the benefits of a digital economy starts with having reliable mobile networks and internet access to connect the unconnected. Internet access itself is not enough though.

 

Huawei believes that in Africa connectivity brought by the network of communication towers and fiber is like the “soil”, which provides the fertile ground for important value-adding crops, which in this case are services including Safe City, E-government, E-education, E-health, E-agriculture etc. that enhance public social services delivery and better allocation of resources.

 

Public sector as an Enabler and Private Sector as an Innovator

To achieve digital economy, we need joint efforts from both private and public sectors, with the right programs and policies the Nigerian governments can make digital transformation a reality much seamless for citizens and businesses.

 

According to OECD’s Digital Economy Outlook 2016, by the end of 2015, 80% of OECD member states had developed national strategies or departmental policies and built strategic frameworks for the digital economy. Nigeria is not left behind in building a framework to boost its digital transformation;

“SMART Digital Nigeria” has been proposed as the required panacea to bridge the uneven growth presently dominating the ICT sector. The plan observed that Nigeria’s longstanding focus mostly over the last seventeen years on Information Technology infrastructure development and also other areas in the industry including promotion of ICT local content, ICT deployment in Government and expansion of ICT access to Nigerians by deepening the penetration of broadband to ensure that information and knowledge is not only secured but enhances national security and creating of more jobs for as well as unleash the creativity of our teeming youth for overall national development.

 

To make a lasting impact with this program, there are three levels that should be looked into: Public investment and support for private investment in ICT infrastructure, particularly data centers and broadband connectivity, through Infrastructure sharing, investment-friendly regulations, Taxation Policies that fosters investment, spectrum policies that aims to improve coverage, and cutting of red tap to ease the investment e.g. in approval of Right of Ways. Policies that support the advancement of digital transformation of industries.

 

Support for online services, including ecommerce, internet banking, e-government, e-health, and e-learning. These steps will not only enhance the availability and accessibility of internet and other serviced based on ICT infrastructure, but also can be interpreted directly into affordability of those services to bridge the digital gap and achieve digital inclusiveness.

 

Take Infrastructure sharing for an instance, research shows that Infrastructure sharing can impact the reduction of capital investment substantially with on-going operating cost reductions between 50% and 80% depending on market structure and the sharing model implemented. Opening up public infrastructure such as lamppost, Electric Pole, government buildings, billboards has an important role to play in limiting the cost and increasing speed and smoothness of network expansion projects.

 

These efforts will enable private sectors deploy and scale network access much faster and seamless across and the country and ultimately increasing connectivity access and reach to more citizens much faster.

 

A look ahead

Information technology is not the ultimate solution for economic growth, however ICT serves as a tool that enables digital transformation and provides newer and smarter way of communicating and transacting.

 

For Nigeria Unlocking the dividends of digital economy becomes imperative in the face of dwindling oil revenue with increasingly pressure on the economy.

 

An effective blend of broadband access coupled with effective and reliable internet connectivity will also go a long way in fast tracking business productivity and thereby promote digitalized business behavior which in reality is the bone of future economy.

 


Kindly share this post

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. So since 2007, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and how they affect lives.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Comments

E-Business

Kaspersky Transforms Threat Intelligence Reporting into an Interactive Content Hub

Published

on

Kindly share this post

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.


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

E-Business

Weebly Websites to Shut Down for Nigeria, 66 Other Countries from September

Published

on

Kindly share this post

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 Websites to Shut Down for Nigeria, 66 Other Countries from September

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.

 

 


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

E-Business

NOTAP to Commercialise University Research, Expands Patent Drive

Published

on

Kindly share this post

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.

NOTAP to Commercialise University Research, Expands Patent Drive

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.


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

Trending