Nigerian tech startup develops online meeting solution

Nigerian tech startup develops online meeting solution

A Nigerian tech startup company has developed a new application for video conferences and webinars known as Konn3ct.

The new solution is developed by Newwaves Ecosystems, led by former Chams Nigeria executive, Femi Williams.

Although there have been dozens of players in the business for some years, Chinese company, Zoom Video Communications, appeared to sprint ahead of the pack as a runaway market leader. Zoom’s most recent figures suggest the platform had 300 million daily meeting participants at the end of 2020, versus just 10 million in December 2019. This is in comparison to Google Meet’s 100 million participants for 2020.

Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and the other existing players, numbering over 140, have been splitting the market among themselves, with no competition from Africa, in a market estimated to be worth over $75 billion (N30 trillion) in the next nine years.

But these are about to change with the entry of Nigerian tech startup Konn3ct placing the country and Africa in prime position to play recognizable roles in the fourth industrial revolution as creators of technology rather than consumers.

Konn3ct, Leadership investigations reveal, is entering the market with more than 40 differentiating features that put the App in good stead to compete strongly with the leaders of this rapidly growing industry. For instance, it was learned the App effectively mirrored real-life conference experiences in its construction process, enabling participants in a large conference to go into breakout sessions. To make this experience all-encompassing, Konn3ct allows as many as eight breakout rooms within the same conference after which the participants are timed out for return into the main meeting.

Apart from the breakout session feature, this new App allows organisers of any meeting to record the proceedings for proper documentation and ease of future reference, doing the job of video cameras and rapporteurs at the same time. Another interesting feature is the one that enables the person hosting a session to play You Tube and other videos and still be able continue the presentation even while the video was still playing.

With a default high-definition audio and a video that allows for four quality bands, ranging from low to high definition, Konn3ct also has a virtual lobby where participants can see the meeting floor while waiting to input their access codes.

Leadership sought and spoke with Chief Executive Officer of the company, Femi Williams, who was upbeat about the capability of the indigenous application to hold its own against any other player in the industry.

Williams, who anchored his optimism on what he called superior meeting experience, said although there might be expected entry challenges, especially being a solution wholly developed in Africa by Africans, he was confident that the global community would opt for value against port of origin.

We are lucky that technology solutions, such as Konn3ct, are not sold with nationality stamps, same way you have your German machines and Japanese technology driving automobile sales. If this was so, a Chinese solution like Zoom would not be the leading meetings solution in both the United States and Europe. Technology thrives more on quality of user experience and problem-solving capabilities than nationality branding. This makes us believe that Konn3ct will compete quite well in the global market space, just to sound modest,” he stated in an exclusive interview with Leadership.

He said apart from the top-quality experience in Konn3ct, the solution also has strong security architecture that lends itself for classified meetings below the radar of open internet.

The Transport Layer Security built into the App provides privacy and data integrity between two or more communicating computer applications. We also have the Secure Socket Layer Encryption (SSL Encryption), which is a protocol to protect data during transfer and transmission by creating a channel, uniquely encrypted, so that the user and the server have a private communication link channel over the public Internet,” he explained, adding that Konn3ct, is capable of providing one of the largest meeting rooms in the market, with as many as 250 people in one room while an unlimited number can participate via livestreaming.

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1.1M Africans acquire digital skills during COVID-19

1.1M Africans acquire digital skills during COVID-19

Microsoft is announcing it has helped over 30 million people in 249 countries and territories acquire digital skills. Out of this, over one million learners across Africa participated in the Microsoft Global Skills program.

The global skills initiative offers free online courses across Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub learning platforms. It seeks to help people, mostly those affected by the pandemic gain in-demand skills to be employable.

Across the Middle East and Africa region, 2.1 million learners have participated in the program. With software development, customer service, project manager and data analysis being the popular learning paths among learners.

The top 10 countries with learners across Africa are South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Tunisia, Algeria, Ghana, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Comoros, Sao tome and Principe, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Seychelles and the Central African Republic are countries with less than 500 learners.

To get more Africans to acquire digital skills, Microsoft is also partnering with organizations and governments. Offering additional funding and services to make this possible where this is necessary.

Microsoft is extending the free LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft Learn courses and low-cost certifications that align to 10 of the most in-demand jobs offer through 2021.

Just seeing this opportunity, click to find out more and take advantage of the free courses from Microsoft.

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Kenya student team qualifies for Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship

Kenya student team qualifies for Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship

Four computer science final year students of the United States International University – Africa (USIS) in Kenya will represent the Europe Middle East and Africa region at the Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship.

The students are winners of the healthcare category and one of four teams advancing to the finals of this year’s Microsoft Imagine Cup competition. Where they get to compete with other teams from New Zealand, the United States, and Thailand for USD75,000 and mentorship with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella.

Imagine Cup World Championship Microsoft kenya

We have no words, it means a lot

The Team

Meet team REWEBA, made of four members; Khushi Gupta, Jeet Gohil, Dharmik Karania, and Abdihamid Ali. REWBA comes from their innovation name Remote Well Baby.

Team REWEBA entered into the competition under the healthcare category with an IoT-based early warning system for babies. Their innovation remotely monitors infant parameters during regular post-natal screening. It then sends measurements to doctors remotely, allowing for immediate interventions saving infants from fatal diseases, and reducing infant mortality rates.

The students from Kenya say we have no words, it means a lot after working hard to get to the Imagine Cup World Championship.

Their journey includes beating tens of thousands of students from 163 countries in the online semifinal round. Then selected as part of 40 teams to qualify for round one of the World Finals stage. Where two other student teams from Kenya; Cafrilearn and INTELLIVOLT qualified to compete.

They among 11 other teams from across the world qualified to present in round two of the World Finals. Advancing to the next stage of the competition means the team wins USD10,000 and Azure credits.

Imagine Cup World Championship

The four finalists present ideas that tackle local and global issues in one of each of the competition categories; healthcare, education, earth, and lifestyle. The three other teams are Team ProTag from New Zealand, Hand-On-Labs from the USA, and Threeotech from Thailand.

The world championship is taking place before the Microsoft Build 2021 Keynotes. Team REWEBA from Kenya will get the opportunity to be the first team from Africa to win the Microsoft Imagine Cup student competition.

UPDATE:

5/25/2021: Updated to include the date of finals.

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Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Portal Wireless Headphones for Xbox, price and specs

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Portal Wireless Headphones for Xbox, price and specs

Beoplay Portal xbox headset bang

The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Portal Wireless Headphones for Xbox is the first device of a new Xbox program dubbed the Designed for Xbox Limited Series program.

The program seeks to bring premium product quality and design as well as bespoke experiences to Xbox fans. It will also boast custom-made feature sets designed for Xbox, Microsoft says.

Devices produced for the program will be marked by a Designed for Xbox Limited Series badge on the lower right-hand corner of the packaging box.

Beoplay Portal headset specifications & price

The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Portal wireless headphones for Xbox will be available in black anthracite, grey mist and navy brass colours. It will retail for USD$499 with the black anthracite available immediately in select markets. You can pre-order the other colours and they will be available in May. For those in the UK, it will be available on the 29th of April at £449.

The headphone is designed by Jakob Wagner in partnership with Bang & Olufsen’s design team. It is said to be extremely light in weight at 282 grams. It sports lambskin ear cushions with built-in jaw support, calfskin leather on the exterior and aluminium earcups.

The earcups have capacitive touch controls for easy access to volume and game/chat balance. Swipe up or down on the back of the earcup to adjust volume on the right and game/chat balance on the left. A quick double-tap mutes your microphone, and another brings you back to chat. When using Bluetooth, a quick adjustment in the app allows the left ear cup to control ANC and own-voice balance.

The Beoplay Portal supports up to 12 hours of playtime with Xbox wireless, Bluetooth and active noise cancelling. However, it supports up to 24 hours of playtime with Bluetooth and active noise cancelling. It comes with a pre-activated Dolby Atmos for Headphones service. It is compatible with Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PC, and mobile devices.

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30 million learners participate in the free Microsoft digital skills initiative

30 million learners participate in the free Microsoft digital skills initiative

Over 30.7 million people across the globe have participated in the free Microsoft global digital skills initiative. The company says this sharing an update on the initiative’s progress nine months on.

An increase from the 10 million reached in September last year and surpasses the planned target of 25 million. It also sees the number of participating countries increased from 231 countries and territories to 249.

The United States, India, Brazil, United Kingdom, Mexico, Poland, France, Germany, Canada and Spain account for the to 10 countries with learners.

Microsoft says it is ready to launch the next phase of the project after learning from it. The next phase will see Microsoft help 250,000 companies make a skills-based hire in 2021.

The company announced the Global Skills initiative program at a time when the world was grappling with a pandemic that saw millions of lives affected globally. Microsoft gave people the opportunity to acquire in-demand digital skills across Microsoft Learn, LinkedIn, and GitHub learning platforms.

Among learners, popular courses have been for roles in software development, customer service and data analysts according to Microsoft.

Microsoft is extending the free LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft Learn courses and low-cost certifications that align to 10 of the most in-demand jobs offer through 2021.

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Accelerex to launch RexPay and RexRetail in Q2 of 2021

Accelerex to launch RexPay and RexRetail in Q2 of 2021

Accelerex Ghana

Fintech company Accelerex is set to offer Ghanaian Customers more Digital Payment Options with the introduction of RexPay and RexRetail.

This comes after the company recently received an enhanced Payment Service Provider (PSP) licence from the Bank of Ghana (BoG). As well as the ISO 27001:2013 and PCI-DSS certifications. Enabling Accelerex Ghana to open the Ghanaian market to more electronic payment and transaction possibilities across different platforms and channels.

Buoyed by this milestone Accelerex Ghana is eyeing the retail segment with its new revolutionary products – RexPay and RexRetail, set to launch in Q2 of 2021. These products will help the company deepen its footprints in Ghana and cement its position as a leader in the e-payment space.

RexPay

RexPay is an online payment gateway that helps social media sellers and corporate organizations receive payments in a fast, convenient and secure manner, even without owning a website. Customers enjoy multiple payment options and can make payments seamlessly wherever they are. Sellers can sign up easily to the RexPay platform in less than five minutes, then begin to receive payments instantly.

RexRetail

RexRetail, an all-in-one solution for small and medium-sized retail shops, helps retailers automate their everyday operations. It is a superb tool for inventory management, customer relationship management and seamless accounting. More importantly, RexRetail supports business owners with a reporting and analytics tool that helps them keep track of the performance of their business.

Through our continuous product innovation and impeccable attention to customer needs, the company has gradually emerged as the financial technology company of choice for Ghanaian businesses”, notes Sebastian Yalley, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Accelerex Ghana

He further stated that “at Accelerex, standardization and compliance remain the bedrock of our operations across all subsidiaries in Africa. We believe that having this licence from the Bank of Ghana is a demonstration of our commitment to the Ghanaian market, and serves as the foundation for rolling out simple, secure, and convenient e-payment and digital transaction solutions for all customer segments. We intend to use this as leverage to deepen our existing relationships with our bank clients. In that same spirit of collaboration, we are open to working with other fintech companies to deliver superior value to customers.”

Accelerex

A member of the Accelerex Holdings Group, with footprints in Nigeria and Kenya, Accelerex Ghana commenced operations in the country in 2019 as a financial technology company offering offline and online payment services to its target markets. Its parent company, Accelerex Holdings, recently secured a US$20million investment from African Capital Alliance to drive new product development and expand to South Africa, Cote d’Ivoire and Tanzania.

Accelerex Ghana has a strong bias for innovation, world-class technology and excellent customer service. It intends to extend the availability of its products and services to different categories of businesses in Ghana with the aim of spreading accessibility of financial technology and digital payments. Visit www.GlobalAccelerex.com.gh for more information.

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