Author: ITPulse

The path to financial inclusion holds different marketplace barriers and opportunities in different countries, but the push continues because of proof that an increase in economic activities among the financially vulnerable can reawaken a comatose economy. For Nigeria, the last three years have seen significant growth of the financial inclusion rate from 56.8% in 2016 to 63.2% in 2018. FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking service is playing a key role in it. FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking initiative is already averaging about 99 million transactions monthly, with a naira worth of (N’m) 370,543 on these transactions. This figure includes the undergraduate doing…

By Mubarak Umar The outcome of any ideation, roadmap and strategy is turning the vision into a reality. This requires facilitation and engagement of action plan to ensure everyone understands their contribution to high impact goals and what they can do to achieve it together – working even asynchronously. The development of a four-year Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan has therefore become an integral process of operation in the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). The aim of NITDA’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan 2021-2024 (SRAP) is to give direction to the initiatives of the Agency and realign its operations…

Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading technology, lifestyle and solutions distribution giant, TD Africa, has again blazed the trail, beating other multinationals in the West African region to obtain the much-coveted Huawei Enterprise Business Group (EBG) 4-Star Certified Service Partner (CSP) Certification for Internet Protocol (IP) and Information Technology Networking. With the certification, TD Africa has become the first and only technology distribution company to obtain the certification in West Africa, especially in Nigeria and Ghana, West Africa’s leading technology markets. The certification comes with lots of good news for TD partners in the region, says the company’s Head of Marketing, Foluso Olulade,…

The Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) has announced the Minister of Communications & Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami as the Guest Speakers of this year’s National Conference, which will hold in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State from 3rd – 5th of August. Other personalities expected at the 3-day conference include the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta; the Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mal. Inuwa Abdullahi, President (International Federation for Information Processing  (IFIP), Prof Mike Hinchey; the Managing Director/ CEO Rack Centre Limited, Ayotunde Coker; Canada Research Chair Persuasive Technology, Prof Rita Orji; Group Managing…

To reduce the risk of falling foul of scams and receiving malicious links across messenger, Kaspersky, an internet security firm has highlighted five simple tips that can be followed, as various researches have shown that messenger apps outstripped social networks by 20% in 2020, in terms of popularity among users, and became the most popular tool for communication. This is coming after anonymized data, voluntarily provided by Kaspersky Internet Security for Android users, has shown which messenger apps are the most popular among phishing scammers. The five bullet tips are: Be vigilant and look for misspellings or other irregularities in…

StockApps has revealed in its new data that popular video-sharing platform, Youtube hit 34.6 billion visits in the month of May 2021 in what can be described as an impressive growth, with no signs of stopping in the years to come. The data revealed that although Facebook still dominates the social media space with over 2.1 billion million active users, the Youtube hit in the month of May surpasses Facebook and Twitter combined. Statistics show that last year, YouTube’s user base hit over 2.1 billion. India accounted for the biggest share of that number, with 373 million users in 2020.…

As part of its continued efforts to revolutionize the public transportation sector, Nigeria’s premier Bus-hailing firm, Plentywaka has sealed a partnership deal with Autochek Africa to facilitate vehicle inspection, financing and maintenance for its teeming number of vehicle partners. Announcing the partnership, Plentywaka noted that the strategic alliance will facilitate hassle-free vehicle inspection and hire-purchase for prospective Plentywaka vehicle partners, within a short period of time. “Just like Plentywaka, Autocheck Africa was born out of a need to disrupt an underutilised and unstructured industry. Now, a partner or hero on Plentywaka can onboard their vehicle within 30 minutes and even…

In a bid to recognize individuals who have been outstanding in the field of expertise, meet Confidence Staveley, fondly described as the ‘Relatable Cybersecurity Queen’ who was recently announced as a finalist of the prestigious Cybersecurity Woman of the Year Award 2021. Confidence is not just the first Nigerian to become a finalist but also the first African to be a finalist in her category, Cybersecurity People’s Choice. The Cybersecurity Woman of the Year Award is an annual event celebrating female cybersecurity leaders changing the world. Hosted by inteligenca, winners of each category will be revealed at the Cybersecurity Woman of the…

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has listed some terms and conditions that shall be met before access providers and access seekers can share infrastructure in the Nigerian telecom industry. According to the telecom regulator, an Access Provider shall provide capacity to other operators on a “first-come, first-served” basis and must be determined in accordance with the order in which the operator owning or having control over a facility, receives requests for infrastructure sharing. “Every Access Provider shall reserve the right to refuse an application for infrastructure sharing on grounds of Insufficient capacity, Safety, reliability, incompatibility of facilities and general engineering…

On Tuesday, July 6, 2021, the world awoke to the news that Jeff Bezos, founder of e-commerce giant, Amazon, had further left the rest of the world behind in the wealth accumulation race. The Amazon boss and world’s richest man is now worth a record $211 billion. In the process, he became the richest ever person in history and the first to gross $211bn. Reports in the media indicate that the last time anyone neared this amount was in January when Tesla boss, Elon Musk briefly hit $210 billion. Bezos’ latest jump came after Amazon shares rose 4.7% after the…