E-Business
Blinken, Tony Elumelu, Rally U.S. and African entrepreneurs, investors & policymakers @U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit
About 300 entrepreneurs, investors, and celebrities took part in the opening reception for the US-Africa Leaders Summit, the investment-focused “Innovators Gathering”, honoring the influx of two-way investment and trade opportunities set to be announced at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.
The Innovators Gathering: Investing in U.S.-Africa Cultural and Economic Ties was hosted on December 12 by the U.S Secretary of State, the Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships, the Prosper Africa Initiative, and the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
Attendees included Secretary Blinken, Tony Elumelu, Dr A.V. Elumelu, Idris Elba, Yvonne Orji, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, and more – with virtual remarks from former President Barack Obama. All came together to celebrate and catalyze partnerships between U.S. investors and African and Diaspora innovators, influencers, and entrepreneurs.
The evening included a panel discussion themed “The Power of Investing in Africa” moderated by U.S. Special Representative for Global Partnerships, Dorothy McAuliffe, panelists included Dr. A.V. Elumelu, and Tony Elumelu Foundation entrepreneurs who shared inspiring stories of their startup journeys and the impact of the Foundation in empowering them to build, scale, and sustain catalytic businesses that have created jobs and helped eradicate poverty in their communities. According to a PWC impact report, TEF Entrepreneurs have collectively created over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs across all 54 countries in Africa.
Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation and Group Chairman, United Bank for Africa(UBA), Tony Elumelu, CFR; United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken; and Co-Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation, Dr. Awele Elumelu, at the opening reception hosted by U.S. State Department and Tony Elumelu Foundation, at the ongoing U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington on Monday.
The night also included a pitch competition organised by U.S. African Development Foundation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, featuring dynamic African entrepreneurs, and a reception hosted by celebrity chef and entrepreneur Pierre Thiam.
In his remarks, Tony Elumelu shared, “I am an entrepreneur and I know the transformative power of entrepreneurship. In 2010, we started the Tony Elumelu Foundation- a platform that identifies, supports and trains young, brilliant entrepreneurs. To date, we have disbursed over $85 million to more than 18,000 young female and male entrepreneurs living across the 54 African countries, each with a non-refundable seed capital of $5,000. Additionally, we have trained over 1.5 Million African entrepreneurs, giving them world-class mentorship and business training. We have delivered effective programs to female entrepreneurs in fragile states and are now working on our intervention in the green economy.
We know we can do much more with partnerships. This is why we have convened this summit in collaboration with the U.S. State Department and other US Government agencies, to drive a global coalition, an alliance to catalyse entrepreneurship across our continent.
Mr. Elumelu further reiterated, “In the 21st century, the kind of support that Africa needs is one that moves away from aid and prioritises self-reliance, self-independence and sustainable progress”
Speaking on the panel, Dr. A.V. Elumelu highlighted the importance of entrepreneurship in building sustainable economies, particularly in Africa’s response to climate change. She said “No one will develop our economies but us. I see entrepreneurs playing vital roles in transformative sectors including healthcare, technology and the green economy. We invest in and train entrepreneurs to build sustainability, climate-conscious initiatives into their business models.”
The gathering was an important opportunity for the Biden Administration to demonstrate its support for Africa and to hear directly from African stakeholders on the development agenda needed on the continent – one that empowers, that prioritizes mutual benefit and delivers self- reliance.
Former President Barack Obama commended the U.S. Secretary of State, Prosper Africa, and The Tony Elumelu Foundation for putting together the kickoff event for the US-Africa Leaders Summit. Encouraging young African entrepreneurs, Pres Obama said “When you succeed, your country succeeds and that creates opportunity for everyone”, and to investors all over the world, he charged to “Look towards Africa, because something special is happening there”
The event kicked off the week of President Joe Biden’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, held from December 13 – 15, an initiative birthed in 2014 under the administration of former President Barack Obama to demonstrate the United States’ longstanding commitment to Africa and the investment ecosystem they share.
E-Business
CrediCorp Partners FintechNGR to Drive Consumer Credit Initiative
Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CrediCorp), has partnered Fintech Association of Nigeria (FinTechNGR) to drive consumer credit scheme initiative through a robust payment platform that would be provided by members of FinTechNGR.
Speaking at a Social Meet in Lagos, organised by FinTechNGR, with the theme: “Augmenting the Future, AI, Credit and Transformation of Nigerian Finance,” the Chairman, CrediCorp Board of Directors, Aderemi Abdul-Bojela, said members of FinTechNGR would have specific roles to play in the partnership, in the areas of providing robust platform for money transfer, technology evaluation, among others.
“Today, CrediCorp is engaging with members of FinTechNGR in a social interactive gathering to discuss collaboration and support for the growth of Consumer Credit Corporation in Nigeria. We want to interact to understand how technology will drive the crediCorp initiative in Nigeria and also to understand the role that members of FinTechNGR will play in all of these initiatives around CrediCorp,” Abdul-Bojela said.
Describing the partnership as a welcome development that will enhance savings culture among Nigerians, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of FinTechNGR, Dr. Babatunde Obrimah, said: “FinTechNGR is an enabler of technology advancement in Nigeria. We bring the players together to drive technology innovation.
“Our role in the FinTechNGR-CrediCorp partnership is to ensure that our members support the growth of consumer credit in Nigeria, by providing the relevant payment platforms for all financial transactions among the banks who are the lenders, the customers who are the burrowers and the CrediCorp who is the guarantor.”
Speaking about the benefits for Nigerians, Obrimah said the Consumer Credit Corporation in Nigeria would enhance the country’s credit culture and enable Nigerians to save and plan well with their savings. “The initiative will address inflation, help in liquidity flow, build trust in customers’ borrowing, boost credit culture and enhance the culture of savings among Nigerians,” Obrimah said.
Addressing the issue of risk and consumer trust, Abdul-Bojela said the CrediCorp has put measures in place to ensure that the banks that would be involved in lending, would be protected and guaranteed of the repayment of the loans within the CrediCorp ecosystem.
He said there would be an independent management that would ensure that the right technology is put in place to recover all monies.
E-Business
NITDA to Integrate of Digital Literacy into School Curriculum
Kashifu Abdullahi, director general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), announced plans to integrate digital literacy into Nigeria’s education system, to achieve a 70% literacy rate by 2027 and 95% by 2030.
The NITDA’s DG made the announcement on Wednesday in Abuja during a media parley.
He stated that in order to include digital literacy in the curriculum at all educational levels, from kindergarten to university, the Agency was collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Education.
Abdullahi, said that this program would equip Nigerians with the digital know-how and abilities they need to succeed in the digital economy.
He emphasized that NITDA would also launch the “Digital Literacy for All Initiative” to educate Nigerians outside the formal education system and provide access to quality digital content.
Nigeria would train over two million young people in in-demand IT skills in order to become significant global outsourcing hub
NITDA is also collaborating with the Defence Headquarters and security agencies to develop digital solutions to address security concerns, including the use of drones, artificial intelligence, and other digital resources to combat banditry, abduction, and terrorism, he said.
According to him, the agency’s draft SRAP 2.0 plan aims to establish Nigeria as a digitally empowered nation, with a focus on innovation, national prosperity, and inclusivity.
The director general of NITDA added that, if successfully implemented, this strategy could propel Nigeria into a new phase of digital empowerment and leadership in the global digital economy.
E-Business
Experts Highlight Trusted Relationships as Key Vector
In 2023, more than 1/5 of cyberattacks persisted for over a month, the annual Kaspersky Incident Response 2023 report has revealed, with trusted relationships emerging as one of the main attack vectors in these prolonged cases.
The report draws on the results of Kaspersky’s cyberattack investigations throughout the year, gathered when supporting organisations sought incident response assistance or when hosting expert events for their internal incident response teams.
Primary reasons of organisations approaching Kaspersky Incident Response team with service requests were encrypted files (32.8% of requests), suspicious activities (31%), data leakage (20%), and also included non-authorised accesses (3%), service unavailability (3%) and money theft (1.6%).
Among initial attack vectors of the investigated incidents were exploiting public facing application (42.4%), compromised accounts and BruteForce attacks (28.8% in total), trusted relationships (6.78%), phishing (5%), insider’s activity (3.4%).
Kaspersky Incident Response 2023 report indicates that long-lasting cyberattacks that persist for more than a month constituted 21.85% of the total, increasing from 2022 by 5.55%.
One notable trend observed in these attacks was the exploitation of trusted relationships as a primary vector. Compromises leveraging trusted relationships have occurred previously, but in 2023 their frequency increased.
As this method of attack enables threat actors to infiltrate multiple victims through a single compromised organisation, investigative teams face several additional challenges. Firstly, initially targeted organisations don’t always recognise the importance of thorough investigations and may be reluctant to cooperate.
Secondly, attacks initiated through trusted relationships often require more time to progress from the initial intrusion to the final incursion phase. Therefore 50% of these attacks lasted more than a month. A similar proportion of attacks exceeding one month were exclusively registered within the insider and phishing vectors.
“Our latest findings underscore the critical role of trust in cyberattacks. In 2023 and for the first time in recent years, attacks through trusted relationships were among the three most used vectors. Half of these incidents were discovered only after a data leak had been found.
“By exploiting trusted relationships, threat actors can prolong attacks and infiltrate networks for extended periods, posing significant risks to organisations. It’s imperative for businesses to remain vigilant and prioritise security measures to safeguard against such sophisticated tactics,” comments Konstantin Sapronov, Head of Global Emergency Response Team at Kaspersky.
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