Three things to learn from Dr. Joe Abah's keynote speech at the Lagos Digital Summit 2018

i. You cannot completely remove the human element from Machine Language. 

ii. In 2017, Nigeria's tech start-ups raised over $114m. Not many people know that Ebony rice is actually more expensive than Thailand rice in the US and the UK. Even Guinness is more expensive in Nigeria because they concluded that we come closest to the original recipe from Ireland. 

iii. In this digital age, everyone has a role to play in shaping how digital ideas are created and built. This means that the difference between the software expert and an ordinary citizen is narrower than ever.

FlexPai - the foldable smartphone finally debut

Shenzhen and Silicon Valley based startup, Royole has announced the arrival of the FlexPai - a foldable screen smartphone.

The device, supposedly to roll out mid december, however, made its way to the market prior to the date scheduled. 

Royole [@royoleofficial], founded in 2012, is the first to achieve the industry’s long-standing goal of delivering a foldable screen — beating even the massive Samsung to market.

At an event in Shenzhen, CEO Bill Liu told TechCrunch; "being first isn’t always a blessing in this industry, but it’s an impressive feat, nonetheless." 

“We started the company with a focus on the flexible displays and sensors. And then along the way, we realized this could be a huge application for the technology.” 

The device is expected to commence shipping next month with a premium price at $1,300.


Image Source: [TechCrunch]

Instagram is removing fake followers from automated apps. .

The company has announced its intention to remove false followers that regularly leave spammy comments on people's post or follow, then unfollow other IG users in the hopes of growing their audience. So, If you notice your number of followers or likes drop, it's likely because these followers were fake. 

Some of the bot apps that violate Instagram's policies on growing fake followers like Instagress and Social Growth have been shut down. But other apps that charge users $10 - $45 per month like InstarocketProX, Archie, and Boost are still in operation despite the abuse on Instagram policies. 

This call of action is seen as a preventive measure to curb the menace of misinformation drive on Facebook and Instagram that are premeditated to split communities. 

However, since 2014, Instagram has been on the movement of pulling out fake likes from posts and followers from users accounts respectively. 

Instagram loses two senior leaders after founders exit

Instagram is losing two of its higher-level employees: Bangaly Kaba, the head of growth, and Ameet Ranadive, who ran product for the well-being initiative that sought to combat bullying on the app.

Instagram confirmed the departures, which were previously announced internally. The leaders are leaving on the heels of the company’s founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, who exited at the end of September.

Kaba, who was previously at Facebook’s main social network, helped Instagram grow beyond 1 billion users earlier this year. Ranadive, who earlier worked on ad products at Twitter Inc., left that company in 2017 to lead the well-being initiative, one of Systrom’s priority projects to improve Instagram’s effect on young users.

Source: [Bloomberg]

Farmcrowdy launches National Agricultural Day

In this age of data, technology, and digitalization, Farmcrowdy, a leading digital agriculture platform that allows Nigerians to venture in and sponsor agriculture projects announced the launch of Nigeria’s first annual National Digital Agriculture Day.

The National Digital Agriculture day has been set aside as a day to recognize the contributions made to Nigeria’s growing agri-tech sector that provides farmers with improved seedlings, train farmers on modern farming techniques etc. It will further act as a vehicle to highlight the essential role that agriculture plays in building and maintaining a robust Nigerian economy.

Farmcrowdy since its birth in 2016 has been contributing its quota to diversifying the Nigerian economy through the Agric sector.

Source: [Venture Africa]

Google employees protest against sexual harassment, seek transparency and equal opportunity

Google employees across the world are walking kit of their offices in protest as part of the ongoing #GoogleWalkOut.

According to nytimes report, google employees began to organize a protest when Andy Rubin; the Android creator was asked to resign after a credible sexual harassment allegation, in addition with a complete $90M exit package offer.

The protest has 5 demands, including;

i.the release of a sexual harassment transparency report,
ii. an end to pay
iii. equal opportunity and
iv. an end to forced arbitration in harassment cases.

Employees are also uneasy with Google's reported censored search engine for China, with around 1,000 employees signing a letter requesting transparency on the project.

New Zealand bank used blockchain to send meat to South Korea

A prominent bank has claimed a piece of New Zealand’s exporting history, by sending some meat to Korea and tracking it with its fancy new blockchain system.

ASB, a subsidiary of Australia’s Commonwealth Bank, says it has conducted New Zealand’s first “bank blockchain” trade. Kiwi meat exporter Greenlea Premier Meats conducted the meat trade with a large Korean importer.

The bank’s blockchain platform was used in parallel to the traditional trade process, indicating ASB probably didn’t trust it enough to rely on its distributed ledger tech (DLT) just yet, a wise move.

The idea is to use ASB’s blockchain to reduce the time local exporters spend on documenting the trade process, reducing exposure to fraud and cyber security threats in the process.

Never stop looking for new ideas

Even if you reach a certain level of success, you should never stop looking for fresh new ideas that could move your business unto the next level.

It may be you desire to break into a new market, use cutting-edge technology or just take a different approach to what you have always done.

The most successful businesses are always in the lookout for new ideas as well as for useful business tips and tricks that can use. If you just stand still then you open yourself up to the risk of others overtaking you.

Content creative tools you need

Creative tools to help you with content creation. These set of tech toolkit can help you create consistent epic content.

Some of those tools are;

i. Graphics: Canva, Wordswag, Logopittplus

ii. Video Editing Apps: Filmorago, Video Editor, Inshot, Powerdirector, Quick, Vivavideo.

iii. Illustrations: Bitmoji, Wacom Tablets, MoleSkin Smart Writing Set.

Learning how to use these tools would help you to attract attention and increase engagement on your content.

Kindly share below other creative tools you use.

Nigerian startup, Paga hits 10 million customers, set to launch cloud payroll

Nigerian mobile money startup, Paga announced a record milestone of 10 million users. This achievement surpasses the 9 million users it recorded precisely 2 months ago.

The company is geared towards a renewed drive to improve on its services and has finalized the development of a cloud payroll, set to be in operation soon.

Paga was founded in 2012, by Tayo Oviosu with a vision of innovating the cashless system in the Nigerian financial sector and to provide diverse online platforms for people to access any form of financial services.

Facebook's growth is slowing

The social media company said on Tuesday that its revenue rose 33 percent and profit increased 9 percent for the third quarter from a year earlier, roughly in line with what Wall Street had expected. But revenue growth was down from the 42 percent jump that Facebook had reported in the previous quarter when it had also cautioned that its business was set to decelerate.

Facebook also said its daily active users increased 9 percent from a year earlier to 1.49 billion, compared with 11 percent growth in the previous quarter. Its monthly active users reached 2.27 billion.

Facebook’s shares rose about 1 percent in after-hours trading, after declining steeply over the past few months.

The social network has spent the past 18 months under scrutiny for the spread of disinformation, hate speech, and leaks of user data. Executives have vowed change and Facebook has scrambled to apply fixes, even as new issues surface on an almost weekly basis.

Apple has announced a brand new MacBook Air

The MacBook Air also referred to as the "Greenest Mac ever" is back.

i. It's made from 100% recycled aluminum.
ii. It has a 13 Retina Display, slimmer bezels and a couple of colors.
iii. 8 gen Intel CPU
iv. 15.6mm thick and weighs 2.75 lbs
v.  16GB RAM
vi. 1.5 TB SSD
vii. A touch ID
viii. 2 USB-C
ix. A headphone jack
x. Back-lit keyboard
xi. Price starts at 128/8GB, Core i5 = $1199.

Welcome to 2018 

"I think people don't focus enough on accessibility in tech" - Ire Aderinokun

Ire Aderinokun is a self-taught front-end developer and UI designer based in Lagos, Nigeria.

From software development to web development, from front-end to back-end, the career paths you can choose in the world of development are an endless realm of opportunities.

Aside from the multiple routes you can take, there are also multiple ways to start out on those routes.

Ire Aderinokun started her career working as a freelance developer in 2014.

“After doing that for a few months, I worked at a media company in Nigeria, Big Cabal, for a few years as their head of technology. Then, I went on to work at Eyeo, the company behind products such as Adblock Plus,” she said. “Now, I’m building a start-up called BuyCoins, a cryptocurrency exchange for Africa.”

“A lot of people also seem to think that you can’t have a nicely designed website that is also accessible. Because of this, accessibility isn’t really ingrained in the entire process of building a product, from research to design to implementation. And it leads to people trying to ‘fix’ things when it may be almost too late.” 

For those coming up the career ladder behind her, she wanted to impress upon them the value of continuing, even through the difficult periods. 

“Development can be frustrating, but it is also very rewarding – so, if it is something you are interested in, you should keep at it.”

>> Source: [Silicon Republic]