₦airaland Forum

MD/CEO Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya and the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta at the 2016 Nigeria Telecom Award on Saturday in Lagos.

R-L, MD/CEO, Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya while receiving the award for the Best Customer Service Operator of the Year from the Ag. Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency, Dr. Vincent Olatunji at the 2016 Nigeria Telecom Award held on Saturday in Lagos.

The 12th edition of the Nigeria Telecom Awards, one of the most credible award platforms in Nigeria went down on Saturday night with Airtel Nigeria coming out the biggest winners bagging the award for the Best Customer Service Operator of the Year.

The highlight of the night was Airtel Nigeria MD/CEO, Mr Segun Ogunsanya winning the award of the Telecoms CEO of the Year. The award was a recognition of his immense contribution to the growth and development of ICT in Nigeria.

R-L, MD/CEO, Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya while receiving the award for the Telecoms CEO of the Year from the Honourable Minister of Communications, Barrister Adebayo Shittu at the 2016 Nigeria Telecom Award held on Saturday in Lagos.

Source: http://worldstagegroup.com/index.php?active=news&catid=37&newscid=30566

While you’re in your 20s, you pretty much have a “get out of jail free” card. It’s somewhat implies that those years are there for making mistakes, learning from them, and bridging the gap between pre-adulthood and adulthood.
So, when you “forget” to wash your sheets for five months or spend your whole pay on a pair of shoes, no one can really give you a hard time. But at some point, we all must brush the dust off our pension packets and embrace that we are, after all, real adults.
Here are some things to quit doing when 30 rolls around:

1. Stalking People on Facebook, particularly your ex.

2. Seeking other people’s approval.

3. Drinking games. It’s time to do away with the excessive boozing.

4. Sleeping away your entire weekend instead of doing something fun or productive.

5. Weeknight binge drinking (or binge drinking in general). Those hangovers get worse with each passing year.

6. Rolling in Debt. Now is the time to pay it back, not make it worse!

7. Hitting up Mum or Dad for money.

8. Keeping bad friends around out of convenience or because you’re too. lazy to cut them out. Send them packing!

9. Buying anything and everything you want when you’re shopping.

10. Sneaking a smoke.

11. Buying new underwear instead of doing laundry.

12. Advertising drunk nights on social media.

13. Skipping beauty routines. Start moisturising ASAP!

14. Pulling all-nighters.

15. Making excuses not to do your workout.

16. Eating fast food.

17. Spending most of your money on alcohol or eating out.

18. Waiting for someone to do something for you so that you don’t have to.

19. Only cleaning the toilet or tub when it literally can’t wait another minute.

11. Giving up when things get hard.

12. Waiting to take out the rubbish until guests are coming over.

13. Holding on to old grudges.

14. Washing your bath towel and sheets once every few months or just when you have company coming.

15. Neglecting family time.

16. Not taking responsibility for things.

17. Unhealthy dieting or buying in to quick-fix weight-loss plans.

18. Texting while driving.

19. Not saving money.

20. Participating in drama.

Source: http://www.naijasauce.com.ng/20-habits-to-break-by-the-time-you-are-30/

Lagos, Nigeria; 1st July, 2016: Leading telecommunications services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has announced its ‘Do not Disturb’ short code, 2442, designed to empower customers in respect to the management of all promotional messages sent to their lines.

The self-service platform allows customers to either opt-in or out of the ‘Do Not Disturb’ service, thereby empowering telecoms consumers to end unsolicited promotional SMS or promotional voice calls.

Chief Commercial Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Ahmad Mokhles, while commenting on the ‘Do Not Disturb’ short code, noted that the company introduced the short code in compliance with the directive of the telecoms industry regulatory body, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and in response to complaints of unsolicited SMS or promotional voice calls by some customers.

“Airtel is committed to offering excellent customer service and we are pleased to introduce the ‘Do Not Disturb’self-service to empower our esteemed customers to decide what messages or calls they receive from the network.

“While there are customers that demand promotional services to keep abreast with various innovative products and services, there are others who do not want to be disturbed - that is why NCC has mandated telecoms companies in Nigeria to create this service, providing options for customers to either opt-in or out,” he said.

It would be recalled that Airtel had introduced *902# as a short code to empower customers activate or deactivate any Value Added Service (VAS) subscription at any point in time.

MODs frontpage

Frontpage MODs

More photos.

Renowned novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, today, flagged off the Airtel Reading for Leading Campaign. The campaign is aimed at helping underprivileged children in public primary schools and providing them with access to relevant, high-quality text books.

The flagging off ceremony held at the Airtel corporate headquarters in Banana Island, Ikoyi, Lagos, and was attended by children of Airtel’s pilot adopted school, Oremeji Primary School 2, Ajegunle, Lagos.

The Airtel Reading for Leading campaign is a partnership with Longman and Macmillan. Under the initiative, Airtel employees will buy over 3,000 high quality and relevant textbooks for children of the company’s six adopted schools.

Many years ago, The Economist magazine carried a cover story describing Africa as a ‘hopeless continent’. Several years later, The Economist reversed itself by coming out with another cover titled ‘ Rising Africa’. There lies the paradox that is Africa- it’s in its narrative! Undisputedly the next frontier in global development, Africa has witnessed impressive growth from foreign direct investment compared to other parts of the world. The disadvantage of our infrastructure deficit has resulted in massive funds injection, which presents significant opportunities for public relations practitioners on the continent.

The origins of Public Relations practice in Africa are somewhat hazy. What is clear though, is that a substantial dose of public relations was used in Africa during the Second World War not just to encourage Africans to enlist in the home armies of their various colonial masters, but also to keep the war propaganda machine going on the continent. During periods of colonial rule, European trading companies like the United African Company (UAC) engaged public relations, perhaps for the very first time, in the area of private sector business. Many government organisations and agencies soon caught on and appointed PR executives. The first set of PR professionals were mostly media and Information Officers of government organisations.

The 1960’s and 70’s were characterised by struggles for, and the attainment of political independence. The effect was the entrenchment of one form of democratic rule or the other across the continent. In these nascent democracies public communication, especially public relations, was an imperative but this new found opportunity was rather short-lived as many African nations soon fell under the jackboot of military coups. A failure of public relations perhaps? Whatever the reason, military takeovers severely stunted the growth and development of public relations practice. Happily, the late 1980’s and 90’s brought about a resurgence of democratic rule in Africa, with an attendant rise in the engagement of public relations.

PR in Africa had hitherto been largely media-centric because the pioneers of the profession were journalists and broadcasters. But over time, its further application in solving marketing and brand challenges, has led to the deepening of the profession across board. Such tools include Strategy, Corporate Social Responsibility, content development & management, reputation management and creativity.

Key PR practice centres on the continent are South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt, with South Africa taking the lead. These countries are located in southern, eastern, western and northern Africa respectively. South Africa’s leading role is understandable considering that most public relations networks and global corporate giants have headquartered their African operations in South Africa. The biggest consumers of public relations are telecommunications companies, with banks, retailers, the entertainment industry and IT also gaining a fair share of the market. Naturally, PR consulting practices have grown over the years in line with demand. However, with the exception of South Africa, most practices have remained sole proprietorships or partnerships.

As public relations has developed on the continent, so also has the establishment and operations of professional public relations associations. The first association was founded in 1956 in South Africa followed by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations in 1963. The Public Relations Society of Kenya was inaugurated in 1971. The umbrella body for public relations associations- the Federation of African Public Relations Associations, was established in 1975 with the sole mandate of developing PR as a tool for selling Africa’s positive image. FAPRA became APRA in 2008 and began to admit individual members in addition to national associations.

In spite of the considerable gains, there is still a lot of ground to cover. For instance the lack of clarity about the value that public relations brings to the table remains an issue. Perhaps because its value is difficult to measure, lack of appreciation for the practice of PR as a profession in its own right is also an issue.

Measurement and evaluation continue to be a challenge, as is the dearth of data across the continent. PR also suffers from the intrusion of its twin cousin-professions- journalism and advertising. Today, many markets see PR as little more than an extension of journalism, thus denying PR of its much needed professional and financial regard.

If the narrative must change, it must change from within so that we can take advantage of the significant opportunities that ‘Rising Africa’ presents. Whether the conversation is about the continent or the practice, there is a glaring need to change the narrative.

Yomi Badejo-Okusanya is the current President of the African Public Relations Association (APRA), a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations and Chief Executive of CMC Connect Burston Marsteller, Lagos, Nigeria.

Recently I had to take a trip to the United Kingdom and was faced with the challenge of which airline to fly based on my schedule and pricing. Eventually, largely swayed by the renewed sentiment of ‘Buy Nigeria, I settled for Arik Airlines, the the self-professed ‘Wings of Nigeria’.

I looked forward to the flight experience even though I had once flown the airline on the same route many years ago. But at that time I was unable to critically assess it as it had just launched its UK route and in a group that distracted me severely. But on this occasion, I was thankfully alone . My friends who believe I know everyone will have been shocked to find out that I only recognised two people in my cabin of choice. This is in contrast to what happens on my regular airline where I often know the larger portion of the cabin, plus ground and cabin crew for good measure.

Our outward journey started late due to fact that the flight had to be combined with that of another indigenous airline that had been cancelled for operational reasons. Despite that, the flight was uneventful. I found the cabin space rather generous, the staff courteous and a wide choice of entertainment options both local and international. The cuisine was not very appealing to me even though I am not a big fan of airline food. This is however not to say it cannot be significantly improved upon.

The return leg left dead on time. This time I checked in online which I was unable to do on my outward journey. Not only that, the flight landed in Lagos at 3.40 am, a forty good minutes ahead of schedule. Quite unbelievable for Arik that had gained notoriety for being abysmally late on its local flights. This advantage was however masked by the lack of on-board entertainment and vanity kits for those in business class. Barring the these hitches, it was a good experience for me, the biggest plus being that I was able to avoid the Murtala Mohammed International Airport during the highly riotous hours of 6-10pm.

However, Arik still has a long way to go if it intends to compete with international airlines. There can be no Nigerian standards. It has to be global. While the airline has a lot to do in this area, it has even more work to do in terms of brand essence, appeal and likeability. These are seriously lacking. Being the nearest thing to our national carrier, its brand conversation is relatively weak. The experience of United Kingdom starts once you step on a British Airways flight ditto for Virgin Atlantic and many other foreign airlines. Beyond its tagline, Arik fails to strongly communicate Brand Nigeria in costume, imagery or otherwise. Why can’t any of our traditional attires be proudly infused into the crew’s attire? eg. Caps adorned with aso oke which is uniquely ours. If that was the aim of the printed blouses won by the female staff, they in my opinion, it is a very weak and uninspiring one. Another unique platform to strongly communicate Brand Nigeria is completely lost by Arik not having it own business class lounge. Rather it shares one with several other international airlines even in its own home country!

Furthermore, Arik is not doing enough reaching out to its primary target Nigerians. Beyond mere advertising, we should see more of the airline in various aspects of our national life like entertainment, sports, business, tourism, economy etc. There are creative ways of weaving the brand into the fabric of the nation. A significant vacuum exists in its sector that can be taken advantage of as a key mover of the Nigerian economy. Arik cannot afford to sit on the fence. It must strongly join in the conversation of nation-building as part of its reputation management strategy. Perhaps, the airline is too busy coping with core issues of operations leaving the ‘mundane’ one of brand communication to just a desk. If that is the case, then it is not the way to go in building a sustainable brand. Arik must not only make its brand more appealing, but in doing so, it must constantly think out of the box! Presently the brand lacks character beyond its functionality.

The government of the day must also line up behind our national brands like Arik. What a morale booster it will be if President Muhammadu Buhari or his deputy Professor Yemi Osinbajo leads a large Nigerian business delegation to the United Kingdom and all of them fly Arik. This will surely send a strong message to Nigerians that we must own and support our own. Government must also encourage its staff to ‘Fly Nigeria First!’ Otherwise, the government risks the possibly of appearing insincere in its call for us all to ‘buy Nigeria’.

The government can still go further by supporting the indigenous aviation sector. Buoyed by the potential of flying 180 million people, we cannot stand by and watch foreign airlines take the lion-share of this market leaving us with miserable crumbs. Government must facilitate low interest loans and facilities that will oil the sector. Anybody that has collected and diverted previous disbursements from the Aviation Intervention Fund, must be investigated and swiftly brought to book. Such people must be dealt with as national economic saboteurs. I also counter any idea of the government launching a national carrier as history has shown that government business is not in business!

I will encourage all my Nigerians especially frequent flyers, to start by committing a certain portion of their portfolio to flying indigenous airlines like Arik on their intercontinental trips. The advantages of this as earlier enumerated, are quite considerable with Nigeria being the ultimate beneficiary. Yes I admit,there will be the initial discomfort of adjusting to new standards, but that is the only way we can build our national businesses. After all, ‘if Rome was not built in a day’, why should we expect the ‘wings of Nigeria’ to be.

Yomi Badejo-Okusanya consults in a public relations firm and he writes from Lagos, Nigeria.

@Lalasticlala this is front page material. Pls push to front page

If you are a frequent reader of Nigerian tech blogs, you’d have seen the news currently making the rounds that Airtel has released a new data plan which offers 2gb for N200 and 6gb for 500. Airtel launched N200 and N500 unlimited plans that work only on 2G network. This is Airtel’s way of making sure that everyone has access to data.

It’s now an open secret that Airtel now leads the data wars with the new data plan, offering unlimted data for N500; trumping that of their closest rival who offer the same data plan of 6gb at almost ten times the price Airtel is offering.

However, there’s been a slight misconception about the new data plan, with a few blogs sharing varying information, which upon verification turned out to be inaccurate. It is important to correct this notion with some key facts about this exciting data plan.

Myth
The new data plan is not available on some devices.
Fact
The new plan works on all devices; but the device must be set to 2G network.

Myth
The plan fails to work after subscription
Fact
The data plan is a 2G pack targeted at users on the 2G network, hence it is ideal for users in areas with 2G network and users who want to do minimal browsing and chatting.

Myth
The 2G plan does not work with other data bundles
Fact
The new 2G pack works perfectly with other data bundles. Users on the 2G pack can take up other data bundles. However, the 2G pack will have priority when a subscriber’s device is set to 2G. Note that if you switch to 3G, this pack will not work.

How to Subscribe to the Data Plan
- To activate this plan, ensure you have either N200 or N500 on your Airtel SIM card
- Dial *482# to subscribe to the unlimited 2G Packs.
- You will receive a text message confirming your subscription

Please note that the N200 plan is valid for 14 days while the N500 plan is valid for 28 days.

Dain Hansen, Director, Cloud Platform GTM, Product Business Group @Dainsworld

Rapid trial and error holds the key to digital transformation
There was a time that all failure was unacceptable to businesses. However, today the digital world means that conservative ways of doing business are increasingly being rethought. Now, not only is failure accepted it is seen as part and parcel of what it means to be a successful digital entrepreneur or web scale business: it simply goes with the territory.

The only caveats are that failure must be fast, and the lessons of failure learned even faster. Businesses must recognize a simple rule: that some applications will be hugely disruptive and others won’t. Some will require rapid and massive scale; others will need to be discarded ruthlessly if they prove unpopular. Fast failure in essence allows businesses to take a shotgun approach to digital innovation; developing every creative idea they have into an application and then releasing them into the market to see which ones work. When only one success out of ten has the potential to transform, or as some like to say ‘disrupt’ entire industries, this is a highly rewarding success rate.

Of course, the fail fast approach is as much a consequence of digital transformation as it is a driver for it. After all, failure is only acceptable in a world where application development is agile, cost-effective and scalable. As such, it is an innovation discipline that is inseparable from the cloud.

The pre-cloud glacial pace of enterprise IT, which still predominates in the majority of businesses today, means that a trial and error approach to application development is simply not possible. The costs associated with development are prohibitively high and line of business managers need to ask the IT department to do the majority of the heavy lifting in terms of toolset development and integration.

By the time IT had scheduled and procured the human and infrastructure resources required to build or customize an application, momentum is lost and, more importantly, costs rack up. In these instances failure is not an option: too much time and money would have been spent on the project. It is little wonder that such business would rather fully market test an application before letting development resources anywhere near it: they needed to have a good idea whether the application would succeed or not.

Thanks to the cloud – particularly cloud-based Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions – businesses now have the agility they need for fail fast innovation. Instead of market testing an application they can simply take the resources they need as a service from the cloud, paying only for what they need, and using pre-existing development tools to bring their ideas to life. This can be done without the costs and risks associated with traditional IT projects, and the platform can co-exist with the existing infrastructure that serves the day-to-day running of the business.

Take the example of Calix, an Oracle customer. As with any technology company Calix is in a continual innovation cycle and the IT team is tasked with driving this innovation. Using the Oracle Integration Cloud Service, Calix was able to seamlessly integrate its heterogeneous systems in an accelerated time frame, using a single platform. All existing and new integrations now go through the Oracle Cloud, and Calix can now deploy new applications in just 6-8 weeks.

PaaS enables new applications to be cost effectively built and launched within days or weeks, and it enables application development to be integrated into all parts of the business as a day-to-day task, where business units themselves can take on some of the development functions that have traditionally been the preserve of the IT team.

Modern PaaS also enables businesses to shift workloads between public and private cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments, allowing them to easily migrate on-premises applications to the cloud (and back). So, if a business wants to rapidly evaluate an application it can do so in the cloud, using pre-existing toolsets to build the application and test it using cloud resources. If successful, the business can then easily scale up, either by buying more capacity from cloud providers or moving the application to their on-premises or private cloud resources if preferred.

A fail fast approach will continue to drive innovation in the digital space, helping businesses rapidly create and launch applications with the power to change our world. To embrace fast failure however, businesses must be truly agile and increasingly that means one thing: moving application development to the cloud.

If you want to see how PaaS can help improve innovation in your business please [url]download our guide[https://go.oracle.com/LP=21911?elqCampaignId=32835&src1=OW:O:S:&src2=Paasd-Ocoms1/url].

Dain Hansen, Director, Cloud Platform GTM, Product Business Group @Dainsworld

Rapid trial and error holds the key to digital transformation
There was a time that all failure was unacceptable to businesses. However, today the digital world means that conservative ways of doing business are increasingly being rethought. Now, not only is failure accepted it is seen as part and parcel of what it means to be a successful digital entrepreneur or web scale business: it simply goes with the territory.

The only caveats are that failure must be fast, and the lessons of failure learned even faster. Businesses must recognize a simple rule: that some applications will be hugely disruptive and others won’t. Some will require rapid and massive scale; others will need to be discarded ruthlessly if they prove unpopular. Fast failure in essence allows businesses to take a shotgun approach to digital innovation; developing every creative idea they have into an application and then releasing them into the market to see which ones work. When only one success out of ten has the potential to transform, or as some like to say ‘disrupt’ entire industries, this is a highly rewarding success rate.

Of course, the fail fast approach is as much a consequence of digital transformation as it is a driver for it. After all, failure is only acceptable in a world where application development is agile, cost-effective and scalable. As such, it is an innovation discipline that is inseparable from the cloud.

The pre-cloud glacial pace of enterprise IT, which still predominates in the majority of businesses today, means that a trial and error approach to application development is simply not possible. The costs associated with development are prohibitively high and line of business managers need to ask the IT department to do the majority of the heavy lifting in terms of toolset development and integration.

By the time IT had scheduled and procured the human and infrastructure resources required to build or customize an application, momentum is lost and, more importantly, costs rack up. In these instances failure is not an option: too much time and money would have been spent on the project. It is little wonder that such business would rather fully market test an application before letting development resources anywhere near it: they needed to have a good idea whether the application would succeed or not.

Thanks to the cloud – particularly cloud-based Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions – businesses now have the agility they need for fail fast innovation. Instead of market testing an application they can simply take the resources they need as a service from the cloud, paying only for what they need, and using pre-existing development tools to bring their ideas to life. This can be done without the costs and risks associated with traditional IT projects, and the platform can co-exist with the existing infrastructure that serves the day-to-day running of the business.

Take the example of Calix, an Oracle customer. As with any technology company Calix is in a continual innovation cycle and the IT team is tasked with driving this innovation. Using the Oracle Integration Cloud Service, Calix was able to seamlessly integrate its heterogeneous systems in an accelerated time frame, using a single platform. All existing and new integrations now go through the Oracle Cloud, and Calix can now deploy new applications in just 6-8 weeks.

PaaS enables new applications to be cost effectively built and launched within days or weeks, and it enables application development to be integrated into all parts of the business as a day-to-day task, where business units themselves can take on some of the development functions that have traditionally been the preserve of the IT team.

Modern PaaS also enables businesses to shift workloads between public and private cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments, allowing them to easily migrate on-premises applications to the cloud (and back). So, if a business wants to rapidly evaluate an application it can do so in the cloud, using pre-existing toolsets to build the application and test it using cloud resources. If successful, the business can then easily scale up, either by buying more capacity from cloud providers or moving the application to their on-premises or private cloud resources if preferred.

A fail fast approach will continue to drive innovation in the digital space, helping businesses rapidly create and launch applications with the power to change our world. To embrace fast failure however, businesses must be truly agile and increasingly that means one thing: moving application development to the cloud.

If you want to see how PaaS can help improve innovation in your business please [url]download our guidehttps://go.oracle.com/LP=21911?elqCampaignId=32835&src1=OW:O:S:&src2=Paasd-Ocoms1[/url].

Dain Hansen, Director, Cloud Platform GTM, Product Business Group @Dainsworld

Rapid trial and error holds the key to digital transformation
There was a time that all failure was unacceptable to businesses. However, today the digital world means that conservative ways of doing business are increasingly being rethought. Now, not only is failure accepted it is seen as part and parcel of what it means to be a successful digital entrepreneur or web scale business: it simply goes with the territory.

The only caveats are that failure must be fast, and the lessons of failure learned even faster. Businesses must recognize a simple rule: that some applications will be hugely disruptive and others won’t. Some will require rapid and massive scale; others will need to be discarded ruthlessly if they prove unpopular. Fast failure in essence allows businesses to take a shotgun approach to digital innovation; developing every creative idea they have into an application and then releasing them into the market to see which ones work. When only one success out of ten has the potential to transform, or as some like to say ‘disrupt’ entire industries, this is a highly rewarding success rate.

Of course, the fail fast approach is as much a consequence of digital transformation as it is a driver for it. After all, failure is only acceptable in a world where application development is agile, cost-effective and scalable. As such, it is an innovation discipline that is inseparable from the cloud.

The pre-cloud glacial pace of enterprise IT, which still predominates in the majority of businesses today, means that a trial and error approach to application development is simply not possible. The costs associated with development are prohibitively high and line of business managers need to ask the IT department to do the majority of the heavy lifting in terms of toolset development and integration.

By the time IT had scheduled and procured the human and infrastructure resources required to build or customize an application, momentum is lost and, more importantly, costs rack up. In these instances failure is not an option: too much time and money would have been spent on the project. It is little wonder that such business would rather fully market test an application before letting development resources anywhere near it: they needed to have a good idea whether the application would succeed or not.

Thanks to the cloud – particularly cloud-based Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions – businesses now have the agility they need for fail fast innovation. Instead of market testing an application they can simply take the resources they need as a service from the cloud, paying only for what they need, and using pre-existing development tools to bring their ideas to life. This can be done without the costs and risks associated with traditional IT projects, and the platform can co-exist with the existing infrastructure that serves the day-to-day running of the business.

Take the example of Calix, an Oracle customer. As with any technology company Calix is in a continual innovation cycle and the IT team is tasked with driving this innovation. Using the Oracle Integration Cloud Service, Calix was able to seamlessly integrate its heterogeneous systems in an accelerated time frame, using a single platform. All existing and new integrations now go through the Oracle Cloud, and Calix can now deploy new applications in just 6-8 weeks.

PaaS enables new applications to be cost effectively built and launched within days or weeks, and it enables application development to be integrated into all parts of the business as a day-to-day task, where business units themselves can take on some of the development functions that have traditionally been the preserve of the IT team.

Modern PaaS also enables businesses to shift workloads between public and private cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments, allowing them to easily migrate on-premises applications to the cloud (and back). So, if a business wants to rapidly evaluate an application it can do so in the cloud, using pre-existing toolsets to build the application and test it using cloud resources. If successful, the business can then easily scale up, either by buying more capacity from cloud providers or moving the application to their on-premises or private cloud resources if preferred.

A fail fast approach will continue to drive innovation in the digital space, helping businesses rapidly create and launch applications with the power to change our world. To embrace fast failure however, businesses must be truly agile and increasingly that means one thing: moving application development to the cloud.

If you want to see how PaaS can help improve innovation in your business please [url]download our guide[/url]https://go.oracle.com/LP=21911?elqCampaignId=32835&src1=OW:O:S:&src2=Paasd-Ocoms1.

Vicky Falconer, Big Data Solutions Lead, Oracle Australia

Choosing how to implement your Big Data capabilities is critical; buying a complete solution could reap rewards
Building your own big data capabilities from scratch does seem tempting to many companies. They see it as a way to tailor the technology to their specific business needs and to give their IT department complete oversight and control of the processes and capabilities.

There is some truth in this, but when it comes down to it, this approach is fraught with challenges that could mean business goals take a long time to be delivered, are only partially met, or aren’t achieved at all.

In this blog, we’ll explore the challenges of the taking the DIY route with big data and how buying the capabilities packaged together on a pre-built system can overcome them.

Time to value
It’s the age old dilemma for IT departments: How can you do more with less? And this is particularly true when discussing big data, which for many companies is a new set of capabilities.

When tackling big data for the first time, most IT departments will have little experience or expertise to tap into. This makes the task of building capabilities with technology from a range of vendors all the more challenging.

And it’s not just building the infrastructure – it’s also about evaluating, testing, developing, integrating and tuning. This all takes time and, with the added issue of a small knowledge base, will take even longer.

The issue of expertise also applies in the longer-term. It’s likely that the people that worked on building the big data capability will no longer be in the team after a few years. This means the expertise that has been built up has gone when organisations want to evolve what they’re doing with big data.

There may also be a basic lack of resources to devote to the task, meaning the project takes longer to complete, delaying the business benefits that big data is meant to deliver — also known as ‘time to value’.

And if there are problems with the implementation of the new technology, this could lead to further complications and delays that will require numerous hours and investment to correct.

For example, poor network performance can often take months to solve when taking the DIY approach, especially when taking into account the multiple vendors involved. With the pre-built approach, a single vendor will take responsibility to track down and fix the issue much more quickly.

For many businesses, the ‘buy’ approach will be the better option. By investing in a suite of big data technologies packaged together, either deployed on-premise or via the cloud, companies can address all of the time to value challenges.

The technology is already tested, integrated and optimised for the task, with the vendor providing the expertise and support that may be lacking in the IT department, and which will evolve with the technology.

And while even well thought-out DIY implementations take months to make production-ready, in theory, Oracle’s Big Data Appliance can be up and running on-premise in a matter of hours.

Counting the pennies
Some organisations may see the DIY approach as a way to save money, as they can seek the best deal for each component of the stack they are building. This may also be in the belief that they are paying a premium for the work that a vendor puts into packaging the technology for an engineered system.

But, according to research by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) and commissioned by Oracle, taking the pre-built approach when ramping up your big data capabilities is likely to save you money, and a significant amount at that.

For a medium-sized Hadoop-oriented big data project, ESG found that a pre-built system, like the Oracle Big Data Appliance could be around 45 percent cheaper than the DIY equivalent.

As an example of the savings that a pre-built solution provides, Oracle includes the annual subscription licence for Cloudera Enterprise as part of the fully tested and integrated hardware and software solution, whereas, buying the same Cloudera licence separately would incur an annual fee, increasing overall cost of ownership.

By taking the ‘buy’ approach, Belgian media group De Persgroep was able to deploy its big data project in a mere three months. The Big Data Appliance also proved to more cost-effective than an internally-built Apache Hadoop cluster, which would have required multiple servers and software licences, as well as greater maintenance resources.

De Persgroep analysed customer behaviour, such as website interactions and payment behaviour, so that it was able to predict subscription churn for its newspaper business with an accuracy of 92 percent.

Future proofing
Such is the speed of development of open source big data technologies, that in order for organisations to continue to be at the cutting edge of big data technologies, they will continually need to re-evaluate and integrate new open source projects whilst delivering enterprise grade platforms and services.

For example, there is currently a move towards the Apache Spark cluster computing framework. This shift means a significant migration and integration activity for Hadoop users to ensure the most relevant technology is being used.

With Cloudera’s distribution for Hadoop coming as part of Oracle’s Big Data Appliance, the technology can be easily and quickly updated as the technology evolves. The testing, integration and support efforts are part of the service that Oracle delivers to its customers.

The cloud-ready nature of Oracle’s capabilities also means that organisation can easily test their big data capabilities in the cloud, and then migrate the services on-premise if and when they feel the time is right. In contrast, the DIY approach will make this a hugely complicated and time-consuming process.

Pre-built systems, such as Oracle’s Big Data Appliance or Big Data Cloud Service, avoid many of the issues presented by organisations building their own big data capabilities — while also bringing a host of additional benefits. Building big data systems is not what gives value to businesses — it’s the value gained through the use of analytics. By choosing the pre-built route, businesses can slash the time to value, save money and future proof their capabilities. And by doing so, they will ensure their big data strategies are successful, both now and in the future.

This Big Data article is brought to you by Oracle and Intel®.
Intel® and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

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Renowned American vocalist and mentor/judge in Airtel Trace Music Star 2, Keri Hilson, has arrived Nigeria in preparation for the grand finale of the biggest Pan-Africa music competition.

Keri Hilson during a press conference held on Friday, 10th June, 2016 at Southern Sun Hotel, Ikoyi expressed optimism that Africa can produce the next music superstar judging by the raw music talents participating in the competition.

The grand finale is billed to hold on Saturday, 11th June, 2016 at Ultima Studios, Lekki, Lagos.

Ehieduonye Ezehike, a.k.a ‘Edu’ yesterday emerged Nigerian winner of Airtel Trace Music Star Season 2 at a colourful finale held yesterday at the Hard Rock Café, Oniru, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The four other finalists that contested with Edu at the finale were Hannah Ogheneyole, Ife Ajayi, Onyinye Ginikanwa and Azigalobari Menegbo.

Ehieduonye Ezehike a.k.a Edu who eventually emerged winner, Hannah Ogheneyole, Ife Ajayi, Onyinye Ginikanwa and Azigalobari Menegbo shortly after their first round performance.

MODs please push to front page.

1. Insert an Airtel Sim card.

2. Turn on the mobile data in your settings.

3. Launch your internet browser

4. Type in www.internet.org and accept the terms and conditions

5. Start browsing the selected websites on the Free Basics services for free


You can also download the internet.org app from the Google Play Store.

…Offers 30MB for N100, 7GB for N3,500

Lagos, Nigeria; Monday, 16th May, 2016: In demonstration of its commitment to becoming the mobile Internet services provider of first choice for telecoms consumers in Nigeria, leading telecoms operator, Airtel Nigeria has announced a review of its data tariff plans in a strategic move to offer more value to customers.

Under the new data plans, customers can now enjoy up to 30MB with just N100, and 7GB at just N3,500 for a 30 day period. Customers can activate the new tariff plan by dialling *141#

With the review, telecoms consumers will be further empowered to connect to their dreams as well as fulfil their professional and personal endeavours at an amazingly discounted rate.

Speaking on the revised data plans, Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Ahmed Mokhles, said the data offering is designed specifically to cater to the needs as well as empower the different segments of mobile Internet consumers.

According to him, Airtel Nigeria has a key objective of delivering innovative, bespoke and quality data offerings to telecoms consumers in line with its commitment to empowering more Nigerians to succeed professionally and personally.

The new data plans come in six variants. Customers who subscribe to the N100 Daily Plan will now get 30MB instantly, unlike the previous plan, which offers of 20MB, while those on the Easy Plan of N500 will now enjoy 750MB valid for 14 days rather than the previous data value of 250MB.

According to the telco, the megabyte offer on other bundle plans such as the Android bundle plans have also been increased accordingly as customers will now get 7GB of Data Bundle for N3,500; 1.5GB for N1,000; 3GB for N2,000 and N2,500 for 5GB, respectively.

For further information, please find below for a table:

Pls help push to frontpage MODs

…Excites customers with free 160MB on FREE SURF

Leading telecommunications services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has unveiled a revolutionary data campaign and value offering branded ‘SmartSpeedoo’ to offer unique mobile Internet experience to telecoms consumers in Nigeria.

Smart Speedoo, which has a variant Free Surf, was unveiled on Tuesday, April 5th, 2016 at a press conference held in Ikeja, Lagos. Free Surf offers Airtel customers unfettered access to the Internet and it can be activated by dialling *141#.

Speaking at the press conference, the Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Ahmad Mokhles who was represented by the company’s Sales

Customers who subscribe to the Airtel Free Surf will enjoy an amazing discounted rates as well as free data up to 160mb. According to the telco, surfing tariff continues to drop as the customer increases data usage, and tariff can drop as low as 0.2kobo/kb on the Airtel Free Surf package.

Airtel further explained that FREE SURF, which is one of the series of offers that will be launched under the SmartSpeedoo umbrella of ‘free mobile Internet in everyone’s hand’ empowers customers to be in control of their data usage while also surfing at very low rate, without upfront payment.

Customers on Free Surf do not need to remember USSD activation code, or worry about their airtime being used up when they run out of data while browsing, as the new data offering gives pop-up notifications to show data usage of customers.

The telco said it will continue to roll out more innovative services designed to further empower Nigerians and offer them unique Internet experience.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj9Ftr5nLQI

… Unveil new user-friendly channels to enhance bill payment
As part of efforts to ensure efficient service delivery to its customers across its network, Nigeria’s largest electricity distribution company, Ikeja Electric has cautioned customers against making cash payments to its staff.

In a statement released by the company’s Head of Corporate Communications, Felix Ofulue, he noted that the company’s Linesmen, Engineers and Technicians are not commissioned to receive cash payments of any kind.

“Basically, our Linesmen should not collect reconnection fees, neither are our Energy Sales Representatives (ESR’s) permitted to receive bill payments on behalf of customers. We have therefore embarked on an aggressive “Name & Shame” campaign where parties who engage in this fraudulent act will face prosecution as dictated by the laws of the land,” he said.

Ofulue, who labelled staff and ex staff who engaged in this illegal act as saboteurs, further urged all customers to resist efforts by any staff to extract monies from them illegally and also report them to the management.

He disclosed that new multiple payment channels have been provided by the company to enable customers make convenient and seamless payments and purchase of tokens.

He explained that the new payment options were designed to offer all customers security, greater convenience and choice, and also intended to make the payment process more efficient.

“By expanding our payment platforms, customers can now make payments and purchase tokens seamlessly by using scratch card vouchers, which are sold by vendors and agents across its networks; Quick teller which can be accessed on mobile devices and through internet banking on online banking portals” he added.

The other payment channels, according to him, include Pawakad, a mobile app payment system which is managed by strategically located agents; Baxibox, commonly known as ‘Baba-Ijebu’; Point-of-Sales terminals as well as through Direct Bank Teller in any Zenith Bank branch.
“We are committed to providing our customers with the greatest level of customer service and introducing these multiple secure and convenient payment channels is yet another aspect of our service offering,” he said.

Ofulue explained that with the expansion of the payment channels, the company is addressing the challenges of all category of customers as post-paid customer accounts are credited promptly, avoiding unplanned service interruptions while prepaid customer are provided with more convenient vending channels. He, however, reminded customers to ensure they collect their receipts as it is the only proof of payment.

He warned that customers who continued to make illegal payments to IE staff were not only doing so at their own risk, but were also sabotaging the efforts of Ikeja Electric to improve service delivery across her network.

While reacting to the issue of unauthorized technicians and electricians posing as IE linesmen, the company spokesman advised customers to ascertain the true identity of staff who call on them on behalf of Ikeja Electric by requesting to see their identity cards.

He noted that all authorized IE staff would normally display identity cards at all times and be correctly kitted in complete safety outfits, otherwise known as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

“Ikeja Electric is a responsible organization which is accountable to its customers and have put processes in place to ensure the safety of our customers as well as the integrity of the company”, he maintained

…empowers customers to subscribe and unsubscribe with *902#

Leading telecommunications services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has introduced a new Service Short Code, which empowers customers to choose, activate or deactivate their Value Added Service (VAS) subscription at any point in time.

First of its kind in the telecoms industry, customers are to dial *902# to choose from two options of either activating or deactivating a VAS or SMS service. The customer either presses 2 to deactivate or 1 to activate a service.

Speaking on the innovative service, the Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Ahmad Mokhles, described the new offering as ‘placing power back in the hands of consumers’, as it enables them to easily decide what services to enjoy on the Smart Phone network.

Mr. Mokhles said: “With the introduction of the service short code, Airtel as a customer-centric brand has yet again, broken new grounds and also set another benchmark for the telecommunication industry in Nigeria.

“This simple-step service short code offers our customers ‘freedom of choice’ which ties with our commitment towards enriching the lives of Nigerians through the provision of exceptional service experience, driven by innovative products and services.

CC: @lalasticlala push to front page to educate users

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Lagos, Nigeria; March 2, 2016. All is set for this year’s edition of The Economist Event’s Nigeria Summit. Philip Walker, Regional Manager of The Economist Intelligence Unit, Miguel Melo Azevedo, Head of Investment Banking, Africa, Citi Group among others will, on Monday March 7 and Tuesday March 8, 2016, join eminent Nigerian businessmen and top government officials—from around the world—to review Nigeria’s current economic situation and provide an overview of the global macro-economic picture, talking through the growth prospects for Nigeria and the region.

This will be taking place at the 11th Annual Nigeria Summit being organised by the events’ arm of the foremost international socio economic news magazine, The Economist. The 2-day summit, themed The Dawn of A New Day, is scheduled to take place at the highbrow Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos.

The event will feature exhibitions, experts’ submissions, panel discussions around the opportunities and challenges that lie at the point where technology, infrastructural development, political transparency and global partnerships meet.

The forum will bring key government ministry officials, industry and business leaders as well as representatives of the Nigerian civil society; together with international investors, economists and academics to discuss and debate Nigeria’s economic direction.

The summit will also examine and review the socio economic challenges that Nigeria is facing in view of her first democratic power transfer and the implication of the global macro-economic forces as being shaped by the ridiculously low global oil prices which is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.

The guest line up and speaker list includes: Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Vice-President, Federal Republic of Nigeria; Alhaji Aliko Dangote, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Group; Danladi Verheijen, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Verod; Herbert Wigwe, Chief Executive Officer, Access Bank, Nigeria; Okechukwu Enelamah, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Nigeria, Jonathan Rosenthal, Africa Editor, The Economist.

Other speakers and panelists are Alhaji Kashim Shettina, Governor, Borno State, Nigeria; Franklin Cudjoe, Founding President and Chief Execuive Officer, IMANI; Philip Lindop, Head of Africa Investment Banking, Barclays Africa Group, Fola Laoye, Chairman, Hygeia Group.

The list also includes: Alhaji Umaru Tanko Al Makura, Governor, Nasarawa State, Nigeria; Chief Willie Obiano, Governor, Anambra State, Nigeria, Issam Darwish, Executive Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, IHS Towers; Adebola Williams, Co-Founder, RED among others are also billed to speak at the summit.

Now in its 11th year, the Nigeria Summit is part of the Economist’s successful high-growth markets series that has become one of the leading events in Africa where business, government and ideas people meet.

Chaired by a senior Editor from The Economist, the summit will explore the economic and social progress made to date and take an in-depth look at what the future will hold for Africa’s biggest economy

“This year’s Nigeria Summit will bring together over 350 participants drawn from different walks of life including Nigeria’s public and private sectors, international business players and investors for a discussion on how Nigeria can turn its economic growth into social and political prosperity,” Daniel Franklin, Executive Director of The Economist disclosed.

Further details about the summit and registration process visit www.nigeriasummit.economist.com

Lagos, Nigeria; 22nd February, 2016: Leading telecommunications services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has thrown its weight behind the Social Media Week (SMW) Lagos 2016, which begins on 22nd to 26th February 2016 at the Land Mark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Themed ‘The Networked African: Technology’s Impact of Africa’, the 5 day-long Social Media Week provides a platform for experts and participants to interact, share ideas, brainstorm and discuss the impact of social media and technology on business, society and culture around the world.

With its innovative offerings on display at the venue of the event, Airtel will also host top bloggers and influencers at the media lounge.

Commenting on its support to the 2016 Social Media Week, Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Ahmed Mokhles, noted that the company is committed to developing digital technology as well as creating access for millions of Nigerians to connect with their friends, family members and business associates in line with one of its key objectives of becoming Nigeria’s number one mobile Internet services provider.

“As a tool, the social media has become indispensable aspect of existence that individuals and businesses cannot relegate to the background or overlook. That is why Airtel Nigeria is proud to back the Social Media Week, a platform that emphasizes the significance and impact of social media in today’s world,” he noted.

During the Week, the innovative products and services that enhance social media experience will be available to participants and customers.

According to the organisers, this year’s programme will explore how mobile technology, networked connectivity, data and other technologies are radically changing industries and communities across Africa.

Now in its 4th edition, the 2016 Social Media Week Lagos features keynote speeches, panel discussions, masterclass workshops, exhibitions, networking opportunities while also bringing together professionals from various fields and influential consumers across the country.