E-Business
So, Our Tech StartUps Missed Out at Viva Tech 2016

Recording over 45,000 visitors in three days, 300 seminars with the world’s biggest names in tech, and over 10 million euros distributed to startups, Viva Technology Paris 2016, apparently, exceeded expectations.
Unfortunately, not a single tech startup from Nigeria attended this first edition of the event, held between June 30 and July 2, 2016, dedicated to the growth of startups and the collaboration between large companies and startups has been a success, across the globe.
Not that we don’t have smart people with rugged and tested applications, but one wonders what could have been the limiting bar before our ‘great’ startups that prevented them from being among the 5,000 peera who were in Paris as exhibitors, contributing to the challenges set forth by Viva Technology Paris Lab partners, where over 50 awards given out, or simply as visitors to the event.
With assurance for return ticket, event ticket and simplified visa processing, West Africa’s biggest marketing communications group, Troyka Group and its digital division, HotSauce, offered Startups with ‘disruptive’ ideas in Nigeria, and other West African countries, the opportunity to participate at the event. Therefore, the ‘failure’ can’t be blamed on logistics.
The Group confirmed they reached out and collaborated with innovations hubs in the likes of iDEA, Co-creation Hub as well as Lagos Angel Network, and others, in search of tech startups with competitive prowess. At the end, Viva couldn’t select even one.
In some quarters, there are questions about timing, but reports have it that information dissemination, with regards to Viva tech, was faster in Nigeria than in some other African countries, like South Africa and Kenya. You know what? Close to 20 startups from South Africa applied to pitch at Viva Tech but only five startups from Nigeria yet none scaled through.
What or who is to blame for the inability of our champions to knock horns with other global champions, or even learn from the stories of the biggest names in tech and business who participated in panels and fireside chats, such as Tim Armstrong (AOL), Rania Belkahia (Africa Market), Jim Breyer (Breyer Capital), Jay Carney (Amazon), John Chambers (Cisco), Jim Gianopulos (20th Century Fox), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind), Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Harvard Business School), David Kenny (IBM Watson), Isabelle Kocher (Engie), Robin Li (Baidu), SY Lau (Tencent), David Marcus (Facebook), Stephane Richard (Orange), Eric Schmidt (Alphabet), Joe Schoendorf (Accel), Jimmy Wales (Wikimedia Foundation), and Reem Younis (Alpha Omega Ltd).
It is rather unfortunate! I have met tech starts in Nigeria developing ‘crazy’ applications, ‘disrupting’ industries. Today, there is likely no smartphone imported into this market, without one app or the other developed by/in Nigeria on it. We have emerged champions at DemoAfrica, ImagineCup, Cyberlympics, to name a few competitions. Our startups are toasts of a ‘few’, pious and dedicated venture capitalists and early seed investors but something is seriously missing.
In my opinion, these startups missed out due to two major factors: policy inconsistencies and lack of marketing skills/mentorship. For the sake of this piece, I will dwell on the second point- lack of marketing skills/mentorship. Marketing and mentorship are different subject areas, however, I have chosen to pair them, because with skills, every startup ought to be familiar with marketing and mentorship cultures. They are sine qua nons!
It’s a no brainer that if an entrepreneur is found wanting with regards the ability to sell and promote, no matter what other skills he or she might have, the business will sooner or later hit a rock. We need startups that must never be fearful or shy or apologetic about selling.
This warning is timely, because Viva Tech and several other opportunities will arise for our startups to prove themselves. The truth is that we are late in the block, unlike Kenya that is about ten years ahead, but have we learnt from the mistakes of the past, to push harder and farther?
It is also instructive to bring this case to the attention of the Information Technology Developers Entrepreneurship Accelerator (iDEA- Hub) located in Lagos to support digital entrepreneurs in developing the most appropriate Business Models for their ideas. That is the mandate of iDEA centres in simplified form.
iDEA is singled out here because it has the ears of the government closer than other private Incubators in the country and the below excerpt explain part of the strategy behind the establishment of iDEA: “Beyond the provision of space, entrepreneurship training, capital, a significant value proposition of iDEA Nigeria is the ability to expose and connect start-ups to a pool of key mentors and advisors that provide expertise in growing a business.
Through the mentoring relationship, mentors have the opportunity to coach, guide and share experiences, knowledge and skills, which will contribute to the Mentee’s growth.
From the mentors’ perspective mentoring gives them the chance to give back and directly influence the prosperity of the next generation of business and organization”.
I want to believe, our tech startups were ‘shunned’ by Viva tech, not for lack of disruptive solutions, but the conviction that these new generation of Nigerian digital entrepreneurs can pitch to high powered venture capitalists.
Our goal should be to get our startups to acquaint themselves with HR, Team Building & Strategy; PR and Marketing; Product Development; Business Modeling/ Strategy; Leadership and Teamwork Advice; Legal; Law; Financial Sector knowledge, fund raising; Start-up Funding Programs and Opportunities; Entrepreneurship, economics, venture capital, among others, as preparation for Viva Tech 2017 has already started. Are we going to be there?
E-Business
Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

China’s Huawei Technologies unveiled an AI computing system on Saturday that an industry expert said rivals Nvidia’s most advanced product, as the company aims to expand its footprint in the country’s booming AI sector.
The CloudMatrix 384 system made its public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai, attracting a large crowd to Huawei’s booth with its showcase of cutting-edge AI innovations.
The system has attracted significant interest from the global AI community since Huawei (HWT.UL) first introduced it in April. Industry analysts see it as a direct challenger to Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72, the most advanced system-level offering currently available from the U.S. chipmaker.
In an April article, Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis, stated that Huawei now possesses AI system capabilities that could surpass those of Nvidia.
Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system.
A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions.
Huawei has become widely regarded as China’s most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions.
Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been “moving quite fast” and named the CloudMatrix as an example.
The CloudMatrix 384 system features 384 of Huawei’s latest 910C chips and, according to SemiAnalysis, surpasses Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 in certain performance metrics, despite the latter using 72 B200 chips.
SemiAnalysis attributes this performance advantage to Huawei’s strong system design, which offsets the lower power of individual chips by leveraging a greater number of them and incorporating system-level innovations.
Huawei describes the system as utilizing a “supernode” architecture that enables ultra-high-speed interconnectivity between chips.
In June, Zhang Pingan, CEO, Huawei Cloud confirmed that the CloudMatrix 384 was already operational on Huawei’s cloud platform.
E-Business
Transcorp Hotels Delivers Stellar H1 Results, Declares Over ₦1Bn Dividend

Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.
The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.
In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.
Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.
E-Business
Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
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