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T H I S D AY • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2016
BUSINESSWORLD
E-BUSINESS
Uber to Cause More Technology Disruptions in Transportation Emma Okonji Having grown from 250 cities in 2014 to over 450 cities and 70 countries in 2016, Nigeria inclusive and with over one million drivers in its employment, Uber has promised to trigger more technology disruption in the transport space, especially in Nigeria, given the many business opportunities. General Manager for West Africa, Uber, Ebi Atawodi, who made the disclosure at a media briefing in Lagos recently, listed the next technology disruption to include initiative to introduce
Uber Pool and Uber Eat to its transport business that has totally changed the face of intra-state transportation in cities where it has presence. Giving details of the disruptive technology, Atawodi said the Uber Pool initiative would allow more than one passenger who travel the same route at the same time to ride together in one Uber Taxi, and share cost. This, she said, would eventually reduce the cost that a single passenger would have paid when riding alone in Uber Taxi. The other initiative, which is Uber Eat, will allow passengers make orders for food
of their choice while riding Uber Taxi and the food will be delivered in minutes, fresh and hot for the comfort of Uber riders. “Technology disruption will never end and we will continue to seek news ways that will make life very comfortable for all our riders, since change and disruption are the keys to unlock potentials in the digital age,” Atawodi said. According to her, the initiatives have been implemented in some parts of the world, but Uber is still studying the Nigerian environment in terms of infrastructure and the market readiness to introduce
the initiatives in Nigeria. She, however, promised that the initiatives would be launched in Nigeria soon. Speaking on the advantages of technology disruption in the transportation space, the Operations Coordinator, Uber West Africa, Atta Arome, said it would help to reduce congestion on the roads, as more people use Uber Taxis; reduce tear and wear on personal cars; extend the lifespan of roads; and crate lots of employment opportunities for drives. Addressing the issue of training and re-training of drivers, Atawodi said Uber had been organising constant
training for its old and new drivers, to enable them make better use of the google map in navigating their environment. “Uber carries out online training for its drivers and they are also trained on how to use video and read the google map,” Atawodi said. She called on all riders of Uber Taxis to report unruly behaviour of any driver for prompt disciplinary action. She equally asked riders to show some respects to drivers during communication for the purpose of mutual respect and understanding. She encouraged more Nigerians to download the Uber app
and engage the services of Uber for all their intra-city transportation, in order to enjoy the comfort that Uber brings to all its riders. “Gone at the days when people walk distances to wait for a roaming taxi and pay more because the driver has to factor in the quality of fuel burnt whole roaming for passengers. From the the comfort of the home and office, people could actually engage the nearest Uber Taxi that will come straight to the persons home or office for pickup and the convenience is always guaranteed,” Atawodi said.
Experts Urge Nigerians toTake Advantage of FinTech Products Experts in the technology space have urged Nigerians to take full advantage of the products and services emanating from Financial Technology (Fin Tech) companies. According to them, the call became necessary following recent reports on the how economies are built on digital finance. The experts were of the view that tomorrow’s economy would be built on digital finance as the world looks for alternative and faster ways to achieve inclusive growth, empowering individuals, businesses and governments to carry out cheaper and more effective transactions. One of such experts, SystemSpecs Executive Director, Deremi Atanda, while citing the McKinsey report for September 2016, which reinforces the projection, giving insight that “widespread adoption and use of digital finance could increase the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) of all emerging economies by six percent, or a total of $3.7 trillion, by 2025,” said it goes on to explain that additional GDP will generate 95 million new jobs across all sectors of the economy, provide access to 1.6 billion unbanked people, while governments could gain $110 billion yearly by reducing leakages in public spending and tax collection. “As one of the emerging economies, Nigeria is poised to leverage the opportunities associated with this projection. This year’s KPMG FinTech Report says Nigeria is fast becoming a dynamic ecosystem bursting at the seams with opportunities for FinTech start-ups,” Atanda said. According to current statistics, less than 50 million people have bank accounts in Nigeria’s population of over 170 million people, 115 million of whom are youthful and use mobile phones for financial transactions. Not surprisingly, FinTech companies are cashing in to launch products cutting across lending, payment, transfer, purchasing, investing/ borrowing and switching. Paga, PayPal, PaywithCapture, QuickTeller, GTMobile, eTranzact and Remita are only a handful of the dominant players in Nigeria’s burgeoning FinTech industry. Collectively, they have made financial transactions much easier, eliminating the need for consumers to join
long queues in banking halls or restrict their financial transactions to official work hours Mondays through Fridays. Some FinTech products such as Remita have gone beyond basic financial services to impact government finance and national bottom lines massively. Launched in 2006, Remita is an electronic platform that helps the government, corporate organisations, SMEs and individuals make and receive payments easily. It aggregates multiple bank accounts, giving customers the ability to perform the complete suite of eTransactions. On September 15, 2015, Nigeria adopted the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy, praised at home and abroad for returning over N4.3 trillion cash assets to the country’s treasury. The policy, initiated by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration but implemented by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, stipulates that government funds generated from taxes, levies and tariffs should be deposited in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and disbursed subject to stringent procedures to ensure accountability in the management of government cash resources. For years, the government’s attempts to adopt TSA were unsuccessful, as the CBN lacked the technological capacity to manage the retail aspect of the policy. A foreign e-technology platform, RTGS, initially expected to drive the payment leg of Nigeria’s TSA project, was subsequently found to be unsuitable for retail payments. SystemSpecs came into the picture and wasted no time overcoming this challenge with Remita. According to Atanda, one year on, the government has identified and closed over 17,000 ministries, departments and agencies (MDA) accounts and transferred the recovered funds to the TSA. Deposit money banks have also been constrained to diversify their sources of deposit mobilisation rather than rely on these idle funds which yielded interest for faceless individuals and groups while the government was starved of funds. Remita, according to Atanda, processes over $30 billion worth of transactions every year, and that is just within Nigeria.
CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE
L-R: Comrade Segun Oni of Federal Polytechnic, Ede; Comrade Mohammed Eneji of Federal Polytechnic, Bida; President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Olusola Teniola; Comrade Olusegun Taiwo of Federal Polytechnic, Kaura-Namoda; Comrade Benjamin Rosemary of Federal Polytechnic, Auchi and Comrade Abdullahi Ilyas of Kogi State Polytechnic, when the students conferred an award of “National Outstanding Performance” on Teniola in Lagos...recently
Emplug Set to ReduceYouths Unemployment Emplug, a business social network platform, with target on youth employment and empowerment, has restated its commitment to engage millions of job seekers, through its technology platform. Unveiling the platform at a media briefing in Lagos on Tuesday, its Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Azunna Chukwu, said the platform would eliminate middlemen who extort money from job seekers, without giving them the jobs. The platform is designed in such a way that it would link job seekers directly to employers who actually need their services. To benefit from the platform, candidates are expected to register to become members of the platform and have access to every information shared on the platform. Apart from linking job seekers directly to their employer, Emplug also organises technology training and mentorship for members on the platform, and at the end, provide seed capital to fund business ideas from among members of the platform, to make them competitive in business. According to Chukwu, Emplug would set aside 30 per cent of its revenue to fund technology start-ups
that have received training and mentorship from Emplug. According to him, Emplug would develop a strong and reliable data bank from where information could be sourced by members. Giving details of the benefit of the platform, Chukwu said members of the platform could access the data to provide information for people who need them. For instance a member of the platform who needed to fix his laptop or to fix some plumbing facilities in his or her home, could send a text message across the platform asking for help and how he or she could get an artisan to handle the job, and any one from among the platform who can offer the service or who has idea of someone that could offer the service will reply within the platform, providing solution. The platform, he said, was designed to also create eCommerce space among members, where people are connected and share information regularly. Although the platform serves as a one-stop-shop for funding of technology start-ups within the group, Chukwu said Emplugis open to investors who are ready to invest in the business of developing and empowering the Nigerian youths.
Uwaje to Represent Nigeria at IoT Summit in Geneva The Director General, Delta State Innovation Hub (DSIHUB), Mr. Chris Uwaje will be representing Nigeria at this year’s first global Internet of Things (IoT) Summit holding in Geneva, Switzerland from June 6-9, 2017. Uwaje, who has been selected into the steering committee of the Global IoT Summit, will be speaking on Nigeria’s interest when discussions are held on country’s participation in IoT, which is the next big technology that is tipped to connect the rest of the world, including devices that will be communicating to humans on a daily basis. Designed to explore IoT innovation, global convergence and international cooperation, IoT Week 2017 expects to bring together, the research and industry IoT community, with the international organisations to address emerging IoT technologies and applications in various application domains. General Chair and President of the IoT, Sebastien Ziegler, said: “IoT is rapidly evolving with the substantial risk of not paying attention to safety, reliability, privacy, security, and interoperability. Research has a fundamental role to enable a globally interoperable IoT and to
make it right.” He further explained that the summit would attract experts from industry and research in current and emerging technologies such as 5G-based IoT, softwaredefined IoT, IoT-centric Cloud Computing, including the Social IoT. TPC Chair Dr. Antonio Skarmeta, said: “The selected technical topics seek some maturity in IoT across the board. There are many facets that need research and experimental pilots to put the pieces together and give IoT innovation a roadmap.” Global IoT Summit 2017 is supported by the IoT Week of the IoT Forum, The IPv6 Forum, the IEEE 5G subcommittee, the IEEE SDN-NFV subcommittee as well as the IEEE BiG Data TC. It will be collocated in Geneva with the IoT Week 2017, bringing together cutting edge research results, the IoT innovation community and the UN system with a unique worldwide outreach. The Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers (IEEE) of the IoT technical subcommittee supported by IEEE ComSoC, has announced the launch of the 1st Global IoT Summit (GIoTS) and the call for papers is open for submission.