If you are experiencing slow Internet connection, it is because strong typhoons around Hong Kong have ravaged four main cables connecting South-East Asia to the United States.

The damaged cables – ASE (Asia Submarine-cable Express), Asia-American Gateway (AAG), TGA-Intra Asia (TGA-IA), and SEA-ME-WE3 (SMW3) – will take up to six weeks to be fixed, according to the tech site SnowTechStuff.

Submarine cables are difficult to fix because repair work is dependent on ship availability, weather conditions and permits.

ASE is a 7,200km submarine cable jointly owned by Telekom Malaysia, Singapore's Starhub, Japan's NTT and the Philippines' PLDT. Telekom Malaysia is also part of the consortium that owns AAG.

Local telcos were not available for comment due to the public holiday, but TM tweeted that it was aware of the problem and was working on it.

PLDT also tweeted that users may experience slowdown, especially during peak hours, but it had rerouted traffic to lessen the impact.

“To the women doing this, there’s no female brain and male brain, we are all persons not just gender. Career and professions don’t have gender. It’s about your ability, not your gender. So if there is something you can do, you don’t have to look at who is in there. They are a human being just like you.”

— Anne Amuzu, CEO Nandi Mobile

In an industry where men outnumber women, the tech scene in Ghana has seen some tremendous growth over the years. From software development, training, influencing, blogging, engineering, to leadership roles with top global I.T giants, these women are blazing the trail for women in this space here in Ghana. They are influencers and role models not just for young women aspiring for a career and impact in the tech space but any young person aspiring to reach the skies in tech here in Ghana.

Here are women influencing tech.

Lucy Quist is an international business leader and the CEO of Airtel – one of Ghana’s largest telecommunications companies and industry leader in data and digital innovation. She passionately believes in harnessing the potential of people to deliver outstanding results in business to improve society.

At Airtel she has grown customer market share for both voice and data transformed Airtel into the most loved telecom brand in the daily lives of Ghanaians. This transformation has been recognized repeatedly with the company winning over 20 major awards during her tenure.

Her vast business experience has seen her work in the UK and Portugal as well as in West, Central and East Africa. Lucy is a great advocate for STEM encouraging greater student participation in STEM to accelerate development.

She is an accomplished speaker on many subjects in business leadership and technology. She has been on platforms such as TEDxEUSTON, the Leadership and Ethics Conference at Columbia Business School and the African Development Investment Convention in Zurich. She was featured on BBC’s Power Women series http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38033551

Lucy serves on several international and local Boards including the International Board for African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), Petra Trust Company Ltd, the Business Environment Enabling Programme under UKAID, the Industry Advisory Board for Ashesi University and The Exploratory – an initiative of the African Women Advocacy project.

She is a founding member of the Executive Women Network, a non-profit organization of women in senior management and executive positions committed to inspiring, empowering and supporting women executives to succeed.

She holds a first class degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of East London and is a Chartered Engineer with the Institute of Engineering and Technology, UK. She also holds an MBA from INSEAD in France.

Ethel D. Cofie. Named one of the top 5 women impacting I.T in Africa, Ethel is the CEO and Founder of EDEL Technology Consulting- I.T Consulting Company in West Africa and Europe (I.T Consulting Firm of the Year-Ghana Telecoms and I.T Awards) and founder of Women in Tech Africa (Africa’s Largest Tech Group) with members in over 30 African countries and in the diaspora and growing.

Ethel also created Women In Tech Week, a global event which started in 2016 which impacts over 10,000 women globally. She’s been featured on BBC and have had her opinion pieces published on CNN on topics of technology in emerging markets, and women leadership. When Ethel is not running EDEL or Women in Tech Africa, she advises and consults on technology growth in emerging markets. She sits on a number of boards across the continent.

Former U.S first lady, Michelle Obama believes, “Ethel is a blessing to her generation.”

Regina Honu is a Ghanaian Social Entrepreneur, software developer and founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana. She has just opened Soronko Academy, the first coding and Human-centered design school for children and young adults in West Africa. As one of the few women making significant contributions to Africa’s development through innovative technological solutions, Regina has received multiple awards for her tireless efforts, including being named by CNN as one of the one the 12 inspirational women who rock STEM. She was also named as one of the six women making an impact in Tech in Africa and one of the ten female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies.

Her success has garnered international attention with features on platforms such as CNN African Voices, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Aljazeera as well as the Impatient Optimist blog by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

She was unveiled as the 2016 Vlisco Brand Ambassador. In an interview with the CNN’s African Start-Up she is described as a Ghanaian tech guru who wants to develop the next generation of women in technology.

Regina’s story was also published in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In book.

Regina started Tech Needs Girls Ghana movement which aims to train and educate more Ghanaian girls into studying technology related courses. The movement is well noted for teaching girls how to code.

Dr. Kajsa Hallberg Adu is an interdisciplinary academic with a strong foundation in research, liberal arts, and community involvement. She joined Ashesi University College in 2009 as a lecturer, and teaches social theory, leadership as well as leads the work with our writing courses.

Kajsa is the founder of BloggingGhana, an organization for social media influencers in Ghana. She is herself a successful blogger on kajsaha.com and tweets @kajsaha, BloggingGhana has influenced blogging in Ghana since its inception.

Roshi Motman is the first woman to become the Chief Executive Officer of Tigo, Ghana. She studied Electrical Engineering and Business Development at Chalmers University in Goteborg, Sweden.

She has about ten years’ experience working with various companies in the Kinnevik Group, a key investor in Millicom. She occupied the roles of Product management, Sales and Customer Operations at Tele2 in Sweden. At Tele2, she was also responsible for development of mobile entertainment at Modern Times Group, parent company of TV channel Viasat. She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Tigo, Ghana.

Roshi won the 2015 COM World Series AfricanCom Awards for CEO of the year in 2015. She was also recognized as a trailblazer at the 5th Ghana Telecom Awards in May 2015. She was also named second on the Sweden’s list of 75 young and promising women.

Estelle Akofio-Sowah. Currently the Country Lead of Google Ghana, Estelle is a highly motivated individual, committed to the social and economic development of Ghana. Previously the Managing Director of BusyInternet, Africa’s hugely successful internet startup, highlights of her leadership there include launching an ISP which went on to be awarded ISP of the year 2008, winning a World Bank Incubator SME program grant and successfully raising the finances required to open two additional cafe outlets serving an average of 1000 clients per day. In 2008, Estelle was awarded Top African ICT Business Woman by the ForgeAhead African ICT Achievers Award Program in South Africa.

A 2008 Class Fellow of the West African Leadership initiative (Aspen, Colorado), Estelle has a degree in Economics and Development Studies from the University of Sussex. Other work experience includes being the Conference and Banqueting Manager at La-Palm Royal Beach Hotel (Ghana’s only 5-star hotel) and Project Manager of the National Poverty Reduction Program at ProNet (local NGO partner to WaterAid UK). From her twelve years work experience in Ghana, Estelle has a broad understanding of local conditions, politics, social dynamics and the ICT community

Specialties: Being a woman, working with IT, loving Ghana, Africa

Anne Amuzu co-founded Nandimobile Ltd in 2010 and has been its Technical Development Lead since 2010. Ms. Amuzu has extensive knowledge and experience in software development, and in leading development teams. She holds a BSc in Computer Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

Amuzu along with two partners, Michael Dakwa and Edward Amartey-Tagoe, launched Nandi Mobile after competing together as part of The Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology entrepreneurship program for startups. For Amuzu and her team, their success building Nandi Mobile’s first application, Infoline, involved lots of listening and a willingness to embrace change.

Amuzu was also part of the #ILookLikeanEngineer campaign which has been trending on social media and helped to bring greater attention to gender disparity in the tech industry. Along with being Nandi Mobile’s CEO and promoting diversity in tech through social media, Amuzu also makes time to teach young Ghanaians how to write code. She said there is start-up potential in everyone.

Nandi Mobile – Infoline mobile services

Infoline service allows local hospitals, churches, NGOs and other businesses to track customer comments, send bulk messages to members using SMS or market specific elements of their organization to potential clients.

Farida obtained her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2005. She later acquired a certificate in Project Management in 2009 from Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in Ghana.

She has written a novel titled: Definition of a miracle. She has also created the gKudi micro-finance platform, a clouded banking system that allows small scale loans within Ghana.

Farida Bedwei. Farida, the Head of the Technical Department (CTO) of Logiciel is a Ghanaian software architect with over 15 years’ experience in the development and implementation of mobile and enterprise software. She has developed payroll, human resource and other information management systems for a number of clients within Ghana and the West African sub-region

Farida has an incredible story of overcoming cerebral palsy to become one of the top software engineers in Ghana. Cerebral palsy refers to a family of neurological disorders that appear in infancy or early childhood and permanently affect body movement, posture and muscle coordination.

click here to read full article

This is even as the Federal Government has declared a state of emergency on science and technology to boost technological acquisition for the industrial growth of the country.

FEC also approved tax rebate to attract foreign industries that should serve as an incentive for pioneer industries operating in Nigeria.

Briefing State House correspondents after weekly FEC meeting at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja, Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, said: “We agreed that from now on, any person who wants to practice any profession that has anything to do with science, engineering and technology, medical doctors, accountants, quantity surveyors just to mention but a few, must be certified by appropriate regulatory bodies in Nigeria.”

He said FEC approved policy that will help to change the direction of the country, with a view to looking inward to produce the things the country needs, instead of relying on imports.

He said: “Some of the highlights will involve where we have bulk purchases. Those who normally would have supplied from outside the country will now come to Nigeria and establish their factories to produce in Nigeria.

“By doing so, they will offer job opportunities to our people, tax will be paid to government, wealth will be created and most importantly, Nigeria will now acquire the necessary technology that will help us build capacity.”

Tax rebate for pioneer industries

Also briefing journalists, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelama, said government had approved tax rebate for pioneer industries to establish in the country, noting that the policy was to serve as an incentive to attract new investors.

He said:  “FEC approved a memorandum that was presented to amend the list of pioneer industries and products that will enjoy pioneer status going forward.

“As many of you know the pioneer incentive scheme is governed by the Industrial Development Income Tax Relief Act and the whole purpose is to give tax holidays to industries we consider pioneer.

“Pioneer doesn’t mean that they are new, it only means that they are not yet mature.  We want those industries to grow. We want to attract investment in them and you will find that this covers a wide range of industries and those tax holidays range from three to five years.

“The pioneer list was last reviewed by the Federal Executive Council in 2006, so you can see that this was long overdue.”

“On doing the review, special attention was paid to the ERGP to capture the current realities that will help to implement the plan to make sure we attract the kind of investment, industries and players that will help to implement and realize our objectives in the ERGP.

“I should also point out that there was multi stakeholder engagement, private and public sector in arriving at the industries that will be included in the pioneer incentive scheme.

“In terms of the recommendations approved by FEC today: we have tried to remove all ambiguities in the definition of industries by reclassifying them according to the international standard in

industrial classification, which is the global standard.

“The other thing we also did is to agree that the pioneer list will be reviewed regularly every two years, biannually so that just that if things come up, we live in a fast changing world and we are being

responsive to our world. In the case of additions to the list they will be effected immediately, for deletion of industries that we consider mature there will be a three year window that will be allowed

for those that are already investing in that industry that were enjoying pioneer status to carry on till the end of that three year period.

“Against this backdrop, we then approved 27 industries that were recommended for addition to the pioneer list today.

“We also recommended and it was accepted by the Council that mineral oil prospecting which is governed by the Petroleum Profit Tax should not be part of the pioneer industries list which is really industries governed   by the Companies Income Tax Act.’’

Wiki loves earth now in Nigeria for the first time ever. for those of you wondering what exactly wiki commons is (also known as wiki loves earth).

Wiki loves earth is an international photographic contest that focus on natural heritage sites, and landscape. The contest is organized worldwide by Wikimedia affiliates and recognized Wikimedia User Groups. The public takes photos of heritage sites, upload those to Wikimedia Commons, and then they can be used on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

Now, a contest has started since the 10th of June and it ends on the 9th july , and all you got to do is grab a camera and take quality photos of the beautiful landscapes, mountains, rivers , lakes around you.

Conditions

How to participate

Sponsored Post

Power has been a major issue for decades in Nigeria and we are yet to get a solution. Before now, the general expectation was that the privatisation and deregulation of the power sector would usher in a lasting solution to the power outage. That is however not that case.

Currently in Nigeria, the power generation has dropped to 2,662 megawatts, which is far from what a single state in the United State generates. This is poor and the resulting damage has crippled businesses over time.

We are all aware of these problems, but instead of complaining, Obayagbona Emmanuel Imafidonan, an Electrical Engineering graduate from the Institute of Management and Technology in Enugu, has chosen to find a solution.

Obayagbona Emmanuel Imafidon developed a power-generating device that, according to him “can end blackout in Nigeria”. He plans to convert lightning to electricity.

How feasible is a lightning power generator?

“I have been researching on generating constant power from thunder lightning. That is using a strike of thunder lightning to generate power that can serve Nigeria and Africa for five years and 30 days. That means that whenever thunder strikes for once, we are sure of uninterrupted power for five years and thirty days.

“The conversion zone takes one mega-volt at a time, send signals to other sensory zones which shut down other sensory zones from discharging at the same time. Now the transmission zone of the power generating plant will step down the mega-volt to whatever Nigerians need
Nigeria is generating 330,000 volts, but my device generate 5 million volts, give Nigerians their 330 KV and still have about 4,670,000 volts left as reserve.”

The reality

The Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria( FUTA), and it Scientific and Technological Prowess gets much bigger today at 9:55 GMT (10:55pm Nigerian Time), when the SPACEX falcon9 Rocket launches BIRD 1 satelites, comprising 5 CubeSats belonging to Japan, Ghana, Bangladesh , Mongolia ,Nigeria into space from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. The Nigerian CubeSat, code name NigeriaEdusat-1, is designed, built, and owned by the Nigerian Federal University of Technology , Akure (FUTA) in collaboration with the National Space research and Development Agency (NASDRA) Abuja, Nigeria and kyushu Institute of Technology(kyutech), japan. Mr Ibukun Adebolu of FUTA's Department of Mechanical Engineering is the representative of Nigeria on the project. Adebolu, who is involved in the Structure Configuration Design, Birds Project gives details of his role on the project,

"My role in the Birds' Project is Structure Design. Drawing on my background in Mechanical Engineering, i am saddled with the task of ensuring that our satellites have sufficient strength and rigidity to survive the rigorous launch and space environment. In other to achieve this, i have to ensure that all payload and bus System are properly accommodated within the 10 cubic centimeter structure. I find this very challenging, because it involves a lot of optimization and tradeoffs. In the future, i hope to work more on other aspects of satellite design" 

It is the first ever university satellite to be launched in Nigeria. The CubeSats will be launched and docked to the International Space Station where the satellites will be deployed into lower orbit later today.

the launch procedures can be watched at 9:55 GMT, below.

All this is probably very exciting right? The big question is what would Nigerians Gain from This?

interest is adding another ad to its array of products, now allowing advertisers to publish video advertising that will automatically play in the home feed and search, as it continues to bulk up and woo advertisers with a different pitch from Facebook and Google.

Pinterest has had to make the argument to advertisers that its 175 million users behave differently on Pinterest when compared to Facebook and Google, or even Twitter and Snap. Pinterest users come to the site and dig through products and recipes, among other things, for ideas. They then search deeper into topics, save them, and then eventually in theory acting on them later — either by cooking the dish or buying a product. Pinterest’s pitch is that unlike Facebook and Google, which can offer a compelling ad product for one point of that part of a customer’s buying life, it can offer products across the whole timeline.

The ability to catch those possible customers early on and follow them all the way to the final buying process is something that might entice advertisers, but it still has to ensure it has the advertising products to back it up. Today’s announcement, which opens up autoplay video ads to all partners, gives it yet another argument that it can offer something competitive to Facebook — which has shown that video can have greater engagement and offers a potentially lucrative new source of customers.

“The main difference we notice is that some users watch more content direct in their feed,” Pinterest product lead Mike Bidgoli said. “Previously they’d see the preview, and now they’ll take that action. In general, video is a little higher up the funnel [generating brand awareness] activity. We’re trying to bend the curve between that discovery to [taking an action] on our platform.”

Pinterest may indeed have an additional edge in its pitch given that Facebook has had some problems in reporting its numbers. As newer ad products emerge it’s critical to build up that trust with advertisers in addition to showing that the ads can be effective. Pinterest is partnering with Nielsen and Moat to give its advertisers accurate measurements on their ads and the results that they can deliver. That’s going to be important as Pinterest tries to show advertisers that it can tap into multiple different kinds of user behavior on its service, like search.

“That’s a place where people have a lot of intent [to act],” Bidgoli said. “We think we have a shot bringing people both to top of funnel as well as bottom. That would allow us to play with some performance advertisers. They can pair a video with a set of pins that they want Pinner to take action on. That’s still a big part of it. The “do” component, people are on Pinterest to get inspired and then they do that.”

In general, autoplay is the direction that mobile video is headed as a default — and that will extend to advertisers as well. There’s the question around data consumption, but Bidgoli said even though the company obsessed about it initially but found through testing that it “wouldn’t rip any alarms.” Users will still have the option to turn autoplay off in settings if they see fit.

Video offers a new kind of engaging content that users can find when casually browsing around the app, but beyond that Pinterest is trying to diversify its range of products to tie the experience of Pinterest closer and closer to the real world. That might look like its Lens product, which allows a user to point their camera at a product to execute a search, to watching a video for how to cook a dish. But either way, the sum of all these products is an advertising pitch that is an effort to move the company away from those experimental advertisement budgets to a mainstay ad purchase with bigger brands.

Recently, Google opened applications for the fourth edition of its Launchpad Accelerator to startups in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Startups which emerged successful are to work closely with Google for 6 months, get equity-free support and marketing spotlight opportunities. In addition, successful startups will get a 2-week all-expense-paid training at Google Headquarters, where they get access to Google engineers, resources, and mentors. Exposure to VCs and top technology companies in the silicon valley are also an added advantage.

Google recently released the list of 33 successful startups. Among them are 4 Nigerian startups.

They Nigerian startups who made the Launchpad Accelerator list are:

Delivery Science: A platform that provides large organisations with a mobile driven platform to manage and monitor their distribution assets – involving people, products, customers — to build smarter logistics.

Gidi Mobile Limited: mobile learning and personal advancement platform that uses Mastery learning algorithm to enable users easily cover any designated content in a fun and gamified way.

Flutterwave: a payment gateway technology that provides infrastructure for digital commerce across Africa starting with the mobile app that accepts cards, bank account payments across 4 African countries.

Paystack: a FinTech platform that accepts ePayments from customers on behalf of businesses in Africa.

Notably, startups selected from Nigeria are the highest amongst African counterparts, with one startup representing Kenya (Twiga Foods Ltd) and South Africa (JUMO Marketplace) each.

You can visit the Launchpad Accelerator page to view the full list.

Humans must leave Earth within 100 years if we want to survive, Professor Stephen Hawking has warned.

The renowned theoretical physicist believes that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as asteroid strikes, epidemics, over-population and climate change.

As our world becomes less suitable for life over the next century, Professor Hawking will warn in a new documentary that future generations must forge a new existence in space, according to the Daily Mail.

As part of a new documentary, Expedition New Earth, which is part of BBC's Tomorrow's World starting in June, Professor Hawking will travel around the world to find out how we might exist in outer space.

In the documentary, airing on BBC 2, he will claim that time is running out for human existence on Earth and we must carve our future elsewhere.

The season will also try to find Britain's best invention, by asking the public to vote on the innovation which has been the most influential in their lives.

gravitational waves to look back into the heart of the Big Bang.

"Most recent advances in cosmology have been achieved from space where there are uninterrupted views of our Universe but we must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity.

"I don't think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet."

Hawking, who has said he wanted to go into space on Virgin boss Richard Branson's Ride Virgin Atlantic spaceship, continued: "I therefore want to encourage public interest in space, and I have been getting my training in early."

Professor Hawking added: 'It has been a glorious time to be alive and doing research in theoretical physics.

"Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years and I am happy if I have made a small contribution.

"The fact that we humans who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature have been able to come so close to understanding the laws that are governing us and our universe is a great achievement."

Professor Hawking has previously described his views on the future of space travel, in the afterword of the book, How to Make a Spaceship.

He said: "I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as a sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers," he said.

"I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go to space."

Making a poignant plea to his young audience of students from the University of Oxford, where he himself did his undergraduate degree, he said: 'Remember to look up to the stars and not down at your feet.

"Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.

"Be curious and however life may seem there's always something you can do and succeed at - it matters that you don't just give up.'

He explained in his talk, titled The Origin of the Universe, how he was currently working to prove how the origin of the universe did obey the laws of physics as was understood what modern physicists called M-theory.

The conglomerate of theories incorporated Einstein's General Relativity which combined space and time to allowed him to predict the existence of a black hole - an area of space where gravity is so strong not even light can escape it - and Quantum Theory, which predicted the physics of subatomic particles that were being tested in the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

"It is the only unified theories that has all the properties that we think the final theory ought to have," said the professor.

Hawking said he and fellow scientist James Hartle believed that the Big Bang and start of time could be thought of as the South Pole on the globe, where latitudinal lines were akin to an expanding universe, but with every point, including the South Pole, obeying the same laws of nature.

He told of how earlier civilisations had believed the Earth was flat and said: "If our proposal is correct, it would get rid of time having a beginning, in a similar way that we get rid of the problem of the edge of the Earth (in a flat planet)."