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Nigeria Discusses ICT as Alternative Revenue Source at CeBIT 2016

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Nigeria has taken a major practical step in its efforts to actualise plans to diversify its economy away from oil by sending a high-powered delegation to attend CeBIT 2016, the world’s leading information and communications technology conference and expo.

The Nigerian delegation was led by Dr. Vincent Olatunji, acting director-general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), who represented the Honourable Minister of Communication, Barrister Adebayo Shittu.

Speaking on behalf of the Minister when he led the delegation to meet with the management of Deutsche Messe, organisers of CeBIT, to explore ways of collaboration and how Nigeria as a country can actively play and participate at CeBIT, Dr. Olatunji told the organisers that Nigeria is looking towards ICT as a very good avenue to tap into so as to shore up her revenue inflow especially as price of oil is falling at the international market.

Having explained that the Honourable Minister would have personally attended CeBIT 2016 but was engaged in another international programme on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria, Dr. Olatunji told his hosts, “One unique feature of Nigeria is a huge population of nearly 180 million people who are very IT savvy. And, currently the government is looking for alternative revenue channels to oil, hence the government is ready to support the activities focused on ICT.

“And, backing up the government’s efforts, stakeholders in the private sector are coming up with various solutions,” he stated, adding:

“So, I think CeBIT is the platform where we can really showcase and promote what we have; and even look for markets for what we have in Nigeria; look for investors for the young innovators that are coming up; investors that will say if I put in this amount of money in this idea or solution, in the next five or 10 years, this is what will likely be the turnover for me.”

Explaining the uniqueness of Africa’s largest economy, Olatunji said: “Because the market in Nigeria alone is enough to convince an investor to say I really must go into this market; Nigeria is like putting five to six countries in Africa into one country, because of the population. And a very high percentage of the population are the youths, and they are really ready and willing to adopt and use ICT.

“So next year, yes, we are willing to work with you; we are willing to partner with you. And, I am happy that our very important personalities in the government, from the National Assembly, are here with us.

“In fact, their presence is a clear testimony to government’s overall preparedness and willingness to adopt ICT as a reliable alternative to oil for economic growth, for earning foreign exchange and for growing a self-reliant population.

“We are glad to further assure you that we will work with you on the part of the Agency in implementing government’s policies in the area of ICT development in Nigeria.

“For CeBIT 2017, we will start working towards it immediately; we will not wait till close to 2017 before making the moves. In particular, we are very keen on working to bring our young innovators to CeBIT 2017 as a country, among other key areas to showcase.”

Speaking on his impressions of CeBIT 2016 and the impact it could have on Nigeria, Honourable Mohammed Onawo, the chairman, House of Representatives Committee on ICT said: “I am particularly excited that I have attended CeBIT 2016; and with what I have seen, it has encouraged me to take a lot of things back home. One, the digital economy. While we were going round on the guided tour, we visited SAP; and they demonstrated to us software where everything that is done in government can easily be monitored. I was excited about that; because what makes most of our governments fail in the Third World is lack of proper monitoring.

“For instance when budgets are not monitored, a lot of things are done under assumptions; results are not achieved at the end of the day. And, I will really want to take that back home.”

Speaking further, Onawo added: “The second one is the young innovators, start-ups. Before the next CeBIT where we would like to bring our country to showcase our young innovators, I would encourage NITDA to organise a mini-exhibition back in Nigeria; we will discuss with the minister in charge of communication, to see how we can bring young inventors or young innovators together to showcase what they have.

“From there, the best will emerge, that can present something international, that is those that can represent us will emerge from there; and will be selected to come down here. If that is done, a lot of young people who have ideas, but do not know how to bring them out can be encouraged to come out with such ideas.”

Also, Senator Abdulfatai Buhari, chairman, Senate Committee on ICT added: “The opportunity of being at CeBIT 2016 is really commendable. I’m coming to CeBIT for the first time. What we witnessed today while being given the guided tour was amazing. I compare it to what happened in my country some months ago – and I thought if the guy in question was in Europe or America probably investors would have identified his talent.

“This Nigerian in a rural area in the country, manufactured an aircraft, and everybody watched in amazement; and, like a joke, he was able to fly the aircraft. He tried it once; the second time, it landed on water. When he was interviewed, he said that is IT (information technology). But if nobody identifies him that’s how he could remain with his initiative.

“So, I thought about this guy; and, my feeling is we need to pick up such talent that has been identified; these are the young innovators we are talking about. And there are several of them like that across our country. So, our hope is that by the time we are coming for CeBIT 2017, we would have a good story to tell,” Senator Buhari stated.

The NITDA Acting D-G further explained that the agency’s annual lead event for 2016, e-Nigeria, is themed and focused on young innovators. His words:

“Incidentally, the focus of e-Nigeria this year is on Young Innovators, where they will pitch, for three days, in a competitive atmosphere.”

The delegation, which included ICT stakeholders, regulators, as well as the chairmen of the ICT Committees in the Senate and House of Representatives, Senator Abdultfatai Buhari and Honourable Mohammed Onawo, Executive Commissioner of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Engr. Ubale Maska and the Director, Customer Affairs Bureau of NCC, Mallam Abdullahi Maikano, Dr. Agu Collins Agu, Director, Infrastructure and Technical Support Services, NITDA as well as  Mrs. Hadiza Umar, Head, Corporate Affairs of NITDA, had earlier been given a guided tour of selected but leading exhibitors, including Huawei, Tesla, SAP and Intel, among others.

The five-day CeBIT 2016 conference, which put digitisation at the top of the business, political and social agenda, featured more than 500 concrete examples of digitisation and the Internet of Things, where it was reported that in the coming years, more than 50 billion objects will likely be connected with the Internet, with 90 per cent of added value being created in the B2B sector.

With the lead theme “d!conomy: join – create – succeed” , CeBIT 2016 focused on the people behind the decisions powering the digital transformation.

A major feature also on the exhibition areas was the Start-ups at SCALE11 which demonstrated how the Internet of Things can create new business models. More than 400 start-ups at CeBIT 2016 provided a creative boost. They demonstrated how technological innovations go hand in hand with innovations in business models.

Plans are being put together for Nigeria to feature at CeBIT 2017 very strongly.

 


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Kaspersky Transforms Threat Intelligence Reporting into an Interactive Content Hub

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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.


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

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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.

 

 


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NOTAP to Commercialise University Research, Expands Patent Drive

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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.


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