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Intafact Foundation Offers N50m to Grow SME Business Stories by Emma Okonji Intafact Hero’s Foundation, a Corporate Social Investment (CSI) initiative of Intafact Beverages Limited, has offered to pay a cumulative sum of N50 million to 120 indigenous youths of Anambra State to help them grow their small scale businesses. The initiative is designed to support and build the youths in the state who are regarded as the nucleus of future development. The donation was made recently when the Obi of Onitsha, His Majesty, Nnaemeka Achebe, hosted the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, during the award ceremony where the cheques were given out.
The measure is to address the difficulties faced by technology startups that have small business, but with great solutions that could address specific challenges. The niche about the initiative is the policy for Intafact as a company to be part of the community in which it does its business, investing in indigenes of its host communities so that both the company and the community can prosper and grow to be mutually dependent on each other. It is a movement that takes consumers away from large, impersonal big-box retailers and introduces them to the people doing business in their very own communities. According to the Obi, who is also the Chairman of the
Board of Trustees of Intafact Hero’s Foundation, the entries were generated from a pool of over 1,700 applications from budding entrepreneurs within the age range of 18-35 years who turned in their proposals for various business initiatives. Achebe said: “We were clearly impressed by the load of responses from the youths. As we can all see, this clearly are the signs that our people do not want to wait for opportunity to be thrust at them but would rather reach out and do something for themselves. Going by this trend, they shall possibly be employers of labour in the near future. I hope that the valuable lessons learnt during the training become lifetime lessons.�
While addressing the audience, Obiano said, “The state government and people are very happy that private organisations are collaborating with the government to fight poverty and unemployment in the state. This Intafact project has greatly empowered our young population to greater productivity through the scheme and we are satisfied with the progress which Intafact Beverages Limited continues to make. Our position derives from both the perspective of a government in whose territory it is based, and as investor in the company. Intafact Beverages Limited remains a case study in the investor friendly approach of the Anambra State government.�
The beneficiaries thanked God for the gesture from Intafact Hero’s Foundation, and they became more excited when they learnt that the seed money does not require repayment of any kind. Rather, it is most definitely an attractive financial consideration for entrepreneurs and small businesses with take-off cash available for start-up. The Intafact Hero’s Foundation programme is aimed at instilling a culture of entrepreneurship among the youth in South eastern Nigeria, especially those resident in Anambra state, by encouraging them to develop their big ideas into sustainable businesses or expand their existing businesses through
the provision of material and financial support. The scheme is a poverty alleviation programme aimed at creating sustainable enterprise development in its areas of operation. It is also designed to assist young people build enduring entrepreneurial business skills. For this purpose, the shortlisted 120 business owners were trained at the Chike Okoli Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies. There they were collectively mentored by Prof. Alex Ikeme and Prof. Ngozi Anyikwa. Thereafter, the short-listed business fledglings underwent five days grooming and submitted their business proposals, by which they were adjudged by a panel of five judges.
Ericsson, Cisco Extend Strategic Partnership on Wi-Fi Solutions Ericsson and Cisco are extending their strategic partnership to include a new Wi-Fi solution offering, named Evolved Wi-Fi Networks (EWN). EWN combines Ericsson’s 3GPP access, core networks and applications with Cisco’s Wi-Fi portfolio, to provide reliable Wi-Fi with the highest performance to Ericsson’s mobile, cable and other industries customers. The offering will include pre-integrated and verified solutions and will offer a range of benefits to include Indoor Small Cells; Operator Wi-Fi; Traffic Steering; Core Network Integration, among other benefits. Combining indoor Ericsson access networks with Cisco WLAN enables deployment in venues of both Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity. With Operator Wi-Fi, operators who have outdoor Ericsson access networks, could use Cisco WLAN to offer access to their subscribers. The Traffic Steering will allow integration of Cisco WLAN with either Ericsson macro or indoor access networks via Ericsson’s unique real time traffic steering feature enables operators to steer users between mobile and Wi-Fi access networks, ensuring the best end-user experience. The Core Network Integration is used for integrating Cisco WLAN into Ericsson packet core. Using trusted configurations will allow operators to offer all their core network services over Wi-Fi for multimode devices. Ericsson’s highly successful Wi-Fi calling capabilities already deliver seamless voice mobility over Cisco WLAN. Describing the features as unique, the Head of Region, North America with responsibility for the strategic partnership with Cisco and Ericsson, Rima Qureshi, said: “Our strategic partnership brings together the capabilities of two leading players in networking, mobility and cloud, creating the best end-to-end solutions and opportunities for our customers. By adding Wi-Fi solutions
into the partnership, we will enable our customers to offer best-in-class Wi-Fi in their networks, complemented by our leading 3GPP portfolio and services organisation.� The General Manager of the Service Provider Business Unit, Cisco, Yvette Kanouff, said: “With Wi-Fi traffic predicted to grow to 50 percent of the total IP traffic by 2020, a top priority for service providers is to deliver the best possible connected experiences to their customers. Through our extended strategic partnership with Ericsson, we are committed to providing Wi-Fi solutions of the highest quality performance and reliability.� The design and deployment of solutions based on the new offering will be handled by Ericsson’s services organisation, with full product support from Cisco. Ericsson’s capability to offer worldwide services will allow operators to adopt new business models and expand into new markets. EWN can be offered as a fully managed service with the global reach of more than 180 countries. This enables faster rollout times and ease of adaption of the solution. Ericsson and Cisco, the two industry leaders in the development and delivery of networking, mobility, and cloud, formed a global business and technology partnership in November 2015 to create the networks of the future. The partnership offers customers the best of both companies, ranging from routing, Datacentre, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities. The next-generation strategic partnership will drive growth, accelerate innovation, and speed digital transformation demanded by customers across industries. To date, over 250 active customer engagements have now started to turn into won deals. More than 60 deals, spread around the world, are in IP and services. The companies announced deals with three Italy, Vodafone Portugal, Aster Dominican Republic and Cable & Wireless in Caribbean in 2016.
PRODUCT LAUNCH
L-R: Product Specialist, Value Added Services, MainOne Cable Company, Adeyemi Tanimomo; Director, Small, Mid-Market Solutions and Partners Group, Microsoft Nigeria, Oluwawemimo Adeniyi; Founder of GigaLayer, Ahmad Mukoshy; Chief Executive OďŹƒcer, MainOne Cable Company, Funke Opeke and Small, Mid-Market Business, Marketing Manager, Adeniyi Adebote, during the media launch of Microsoft/MainOne SME-In-A-Box Pro at Microsoft OďŹƒce, Victoria Island Lagos...recently
Qualcomm Chief Harps on 5G Samsung Forecasts Increase in As Next Generation Technology Q4 Operating Profit Speaking on the emergence of robots and driverless cars at the just concluded CES technology event in Las Vegas, Qualcomm Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf, said the global focus should be on mobile technology, in order to bring such innovations to life, proclaiming that 5G will be the most important revolution. According to Mollenkopf, Qualcomm, after powering smartphones with its mobile processing chips for both 3G and 4G, is now getting ready to capitalise on 5G, and offered some bold predictions on what it will mean for the global economy. According to a Qualcomm commissioned report, the company expects 5G to create up to 22 million jobs and produce $12 trillion in 5G related goods and services by 2035, bringing new business opportunities across new and existing industries.
Mollenkopf added that 8.3 billion smartphones will ship between 2016 and 2020, the equivalent of 50 smartphones per second. His speech centred around three key areas he predicts will take off with 5G networks; VR, autonomous driving and the internet of things, all enabling a number of real-life benefits through mission critical connectivity. “5G will be the tipping point and build on the foundations that have already been laid by LTE,� he said. “It will be the intelligence to create new things. 5G will make it possible to trust mobile when failure is not an option,� he said. The company also talked up its upcoming mobile processor, the Snapdragon 835, which it unveiled earlier this week at CES. It is designed to power AR and VR, as well as offer a better smartphone performance.
Samsung has announced that it expects its fourth quarter (Q4) 2016 operating profit to increase 50 per cent year-onyear, with brisk sales of chips and displays offsetting losses from its global recall of the Galaxy Note 7 in October. The world’s largest smartphone maker forecast operating profit for the quarter would hit $7.72 billion, its highest since Q3 2013, on revenue estimated at KRW53 trillion, which is down slightly from Q4 2015. For the full year 2016, Samsung predicted operating profit will increase nearly 11 per cent year-on-year to KRW29.2 trillion, with revenue rising marginally to KRW201.5 trillion. Samsung did not provide any additional detail on its 2016 results but it will release official earnings figures later this month. Analysts said a rebound
in memory chip prices and healthy sales of flat-panel displays helped Samsung make up for losses from the Note 7 debacle, Yonhap reported. Samsung is expected to announce the final results of its investigation into the Note 7 this month. The company said in November it is working with authorities in its home market and the US. The South Korea-headquartered company axed the Galaxy Note 7 in early October last year, after several devices caught fire. While the vendor initially blamed a faulty batch of batteries from another Samsung unit (Samsung SDI) for the problem and recalled 2.5 million units, it conceded defeat after some initial replacement devices featuring batteries from its other supplier, China’s Amperex Technology, were affected by the same problem.