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THE GUARDIAN, Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Minister unveils national ICT Incubation programme By Adeyemi Adepetun HE Minister of T Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola
Johnson over the weekend launched the National ICT Incubation Programme tagged iDEA (Information Technology Developers Entrepreneurship Accelerator) in Lagos. The Minister emphasized that the goal of iDEA is to support Nigerian ICT Entrepreneurs create successful businesses by offering support to promising ICT entrepreneurs through ICT incubation centres that will be established in a selected number of cities. The second centre will be launched soon in Calabar. She said that while these centres are being initially established and funded by government through the National Information Technology Development Fund (NITDEVF), they would subsequently be
funded and managed independent of government through iDEA under the guidance and supervision of the Governing Council, which was inaugurated earlier in February. The minister disclosed that the primary goal of the iDEA Incubation Centre is to create 25 successful ICT businesses by 2015 and catalyse the ICT Industry by helping Nigerian ICT Entrepreneurs create successful businesses. She added that the centre will also support the interactions between software entrepreneurs/start-ups and their partners, thus developing indigenous skills and capabilities. It will also act as hubs of innovation that support the development and maturity of a local software economy. The IDEA centre she added will provide incubates business and technical training, access to software develop-
WITIN plans forum for girls on ICT development
mostly private sector and government constituted to develop Incubation operational blueprint. In February, we inaugurated the Governing Board of the program (iDEA), comprising of industry players and experts with Mr. Dotun Sulaiman as the Chairman. This is a right direction for us to take to ensure sustainability of this program’’ On access to funding, the Minister disclosed that ‘’We are setting up a venture capital fund in conjunction with priJohnson vate equity investors to be solement tools at no cost, use of ly focused on ICT businesses. facilities and computing Initial and final close of $15 milresources for development pur- lion and $30 million respectiveposes, mentoring, assistance ly with N500 million/ $3.5 milwith marketing and promotion lion Seed Capital secured from and access to finance. NITDEVF; while the remaining On the sustainability of Idea, fund will be sourced through Johnson stressed that ‘’Our IT private equity. She added that a Incubation Centre journey fund manager has been selectstarted in 2011 when we consti- ed to manage the Fund and distuted an IT Incubation bursements will commence Committee comprising of April 2013.
HP plans improved server market in Nigeria By Bankole Orimisan P has vowed its effort to transform of server market in the Nigerian IT space. The firm said this when it unveiled ‘Odyssey’ in Lagos Recently has described ‘Odyssey’ as a project that would redefine the future of mission-critical computing with a development roadmap to unify UNIX and x86 server architectures. This, it stressed, would lead to increased performance and uncompromising client choic “Organisations need the availability and resilience of
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UNIX-based platforms along with the familiarity and costefficiency of industry-standard platforms,” the firm said. Using advanced technology across a common, modular HP BladeSystem architecture, the firm said it was developing platforms to enable clients to choose the best environment aligned to their organisations’ needs without compromise, while also helping to ensure investment protection. HP’s new development road map includes ongoing innovations to HP Integrity servers, HP Non-Stop systems and the
HP-UX and OpenVMS operating systems. The road map also involves delivering blades with Intel Xeon processors for the HP Superdome 2 enclosure and the scalable c-Class blade enclosures, while fortifying Windows and Linux environments with innovations from HP-UX within the next two years. “Clients have been asking us to expand the mission-critical experience that is delivered today with HP-UX on Integrity to an x86-based infrastructure,” the Senior Vice-President
and General Manager, Business Critical Systems, HP, Mr. Martin Fink, said. “HP plans to transform the server landscape for missioncritical computing by using the flexibility of HP BladeSystem and bringing key HP technology innovations from Integrity and HPUX to the x86 ecosystem. Unlike the competition, HP offers an open, integrated, single platform approach,” he added. For more than 25 years, HP said it had powered the most demanding workloads by
OMORROW, Women In just concluded Technovation Technology In Nigeria T challenge. (WITIN) will join the world to
According to her, keynote speakers include Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman Diaspora Committee of the Nigeria Federal House of Rep. representing Ikorodu Federal Constituency in Lagos State, Prof. Ita Okon Bassey Ewa, Minister of Science and Technology and Ann Mei Chang, Senior Advisor for Women and Technology at the US Department of State under the chairmanship of Chief Oma Eyewuoma, Exec. Vice-President, Technical Conoil Producing Ltd, Nigeria. Ann Mei Chang pointed out that “Women and girls continue to be dramatically underrepresented in the ICT field around the world. Not only is this an issue of opportunity for individual women and girls, but as the ICT sector continues its outsized growth it will increasingly contribute to a talent gap which leaves critical jobs unfilled. Girls often lack role models and may be discouraged from pursuing ICT by parents, teachers, or building a robust and proven peers. Girls in ICT Day is an franchise of technology and service innovations for mission- important event to raise visicritical computing. bility of the many successful “Intel’s continued innovation women who have pursued with a multi-generational ICT careers” Itanium processor road map, Other speakers include combined with existing and Njideka Jack of MTN Nigeria, future mission-critical capabili- Folakemi Olawolu of Phase3 ties of Intel Xeon processors, Telecoms, Chinyere Edward allow HP and Intel to provide Azike of Signal Alliance customers with greater flexibil- Limited, Adedoyin Jaiyesimi ity and choice,” the Viceof YNaija, Martha Omoekpen President and General Alade of Women in Manager, Datacenter and Technology in Nigeria and Connected Systems Group, Samuel Eyitayo of the U.S. Intel, Mr. Kirk Skaugen, was Consulate General, Lagos. quoted as saying mark the International Girls in ICT day, an initiative of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to advance a universal environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to pick up careers in the growing information and communication technologies (ICTs) sector. WITIN is organizing a oneday conference themed— Women and Girls in Technology-Expanding Horizons”. According to the President of WITIN, Mrs. Martha Alade said this inaugural conference will bring together high school students and women in Nigeria to discuss how to foster women’s contributions and empowerment through ICT as well as to celebrate the feats of young girls in the