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CYIAC Wins 2018 UN SDGs Action Award In Innovative Category

The Creative Youth Initiative Against Corruption (CYIAC) has emerged the winner of the Innovative Category of the first United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Action Awards.

Ms. Foluke Michael, the Project Director of CYIAC in a statement said the Innovative Category top award was presented to the group in Bonn, Germany by Mr. Markus Hipp, the Director, BMW Foundation

She said the campaign that led to the awards demonstrated the extraordinary momentum towards achieving the SDGs in different parts of the world.

At the event, the Global Director of the UN SDG Action Campaign, Mitchell Toomey disclosed that the Awards ceremony was held in tandem with the second edition of the Global Festival of Action for Sustainable Development in Bonn.

Toomey added that the awards ceremony honored initiatives in the categories of communicator, connector, includer, innovator, mobiliser, storyteller, and visualizer.

In the words of Mitchell Toomey:

“These are ‘Action’ Awards because we need more than words: our winners dared to believe and act for change.

They are perfect examples of the wonderful work that’s happening around the world led by thousands, if not millions, of people.”

The Awards span over private and public sectors, as well as civil society and grassroots movements.

The winning initiatives (CYIAC) included fighting corruption in Nigeria and mobilising Belgians to implement the SDGs in their daily lives. Others were empowering children through photography and digital skills in Bangladesh, promoting human rights education in Sri Lanka and much more.

Over 700 nominations from 125 countries in 7 continents were submitted.

An expert judging panel evaluated the submissions against the degree to which actions were deemed to be transformative, inclusive and impactful.

In addition, an open vote was held on the website of the UN SDG Action Campaign, where visitors could rate their favourite among the 38 finalists to win the People’s Choice Award.

Mitchell Toomey noted that:

“Great solutions for the world’s challenges can come from anywhere.

We hope everyone is inspired by these stories and consider submitting their nominations for future Awards.

These are the first winners of a community that will continue to grow”.

Footwear Academy Wins Proudly Made in Aba Hackathon Challenge [2018]

Footwear Academy, a footwear training firm has won the maiden edition of the Proudly Made in Aba Hackathon Challenge, designed to proffer solutions to challenges currently faced by Aba entrepreneurs, especially in the finished leather, garment and steel fabricating clusters.

Using modern equipment and technology, Footwear Academy won the challenge by providing a solution to upgrading the skills of Aba shoemakers, to enable them to improve the quality of their products.

The Co-founder, Footwear Academy, Bentley Chukwuemeka, stated that their plan was to introduce Aba shoemakers to modern technology, to enable them to speed up production.

Bentley Chukwuemeka said Footwear Academy also intended to reduce its period of apprenticeship from five years to six months.

The hackathon challenge had the Footwear Academy coming first position with $50,000; Clintonel Technology, which came second, received a cash prize of $30,000; and Ogwugo Technologies, coming third, got $20,000.

Clintonel Technology introduced a solution to digitalise and automate the metal fabrication process in Aba, through Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacturing, while Ogwugo technologies introduced an online marketing platform, designed to handle trade activities between buyers and sellers in broad categories.

The technology, according to the Co-Founder, Clintonel Technology, Tochukwu Chukwueke, will help shoe manufacturers and metal fabricators in Aba reduce production cost, increase production speed, multiply production volume, improve finishing and generate more revenue.

The Co-founder, Ogwogo.com, Chima Abafor, explained that the firm was offering a dynamic platform built from scratch to adapt to modern e-commerce technology, as well as e-commerce problems.

According to the Programme Manager, West African Office, Ford Foundation, Professor Paul Nwulu, the Proudly Made in Aba Hackathon Challenge was organised to find ways of using technology and innovative ideas to help influence the lives of shoemakers, fabricators and garment makers in Aba.

Professor Nwulu explained that they received 400 entries, out of which 10 best ideas were selected for the final, and from which the judges further picked the best three as winners.

Nigeria Awarded 2018 Green Bonds Award In New Countries Taking Green Bonds Global Category

Nigeria has been awarded the 2018 Green Bonds Award under the category of New Countries Taking Green Bonds Global at the Annual Green Bonds Conference in London, UK.

The 2018 Green Bonds award was received by Ambassador Kabiru Bala, Deputy High Commissioner/Head of Mission, Nigeria High Commission, London.

According to the Ambassador on country’s award in the New Countries Taking Green Bonds Global category:

“The issuance of a green bond by Nigeria delivers on Programme 47 of its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), in addition to meeting the expectations of Article 2 of the Paris Agreement.”

Green Bonds are like regular bonds, but with a slight difference – they can only be used to fund projects that have been identified to have environmental benefits, with their contribution to emissions reduction clearly articulated.

In the words of the Environment Minister of State, Usman Jibril in Abuja:

“This further reinforces Nigeria’s re-emergence as a major player in the international climate regime and President Muhammadu Buhari’s strides in moving Nigeria to a low carbon economy.

Nigeria take pride in being the first African country to issue a Sovereign Green Bond and the fourth in the world. Today’s event marks a unique and historic day in the efforts of Nigeria in tackling climate change.”

Nigeria’s recent issuance of the Soveriegn Green Bond (or Climate Bond) apparently influenced its three-star rating in the monthly assessment of 20 countries (including the EU) with high emission levels.

In its Global Spotlight Project for March 2018, Climate Scorecard, a not-for-profit group, gave Nigeria a pass mark, saying that the West African nation was moving in the right direction towards the realisation of the Paris Agreement.

NIPOST Awarded 2018 WSIS Prize In E-Employment Category

The Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) has been awarded the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2018 Prize in the category of e-Employment for the NIPOST Address Verification System (NIPOST AVS).

Post Master General Bisi Adegbuyi received the Award at the WSIS Forum 2018 in Geneva, marking the 15th anniversary of the World Summit on the Information Society Forum.

Continue reading NIPOST Awarded 2018 WSIS Prize In E-Employment Category

Juleit Chioma Wins The Inaugural Chefs Taste Challenge

Juleit Chioma, of Le Petit Square restaurant, located in Grand Square, Abuja, has emerged winner of the first Chefs Taste Challenge, an initiative of the Embassy of France, in Nigeria.

The initiative is run under the ‘Good France programme’ by the Embassy to further create cultural fusion between the two countries.

Juleit Chioma who spoke on her winning dish, “Out of the Pot Chicken”, said:

“It is very rewarding for a chef to win in a contest of this nature.

I felt since this was the era where people want to eat good cuisine and still look good, I decided to prepared the ‘Out of the Pot Chicken’.

This is a meal that I created with natural ingredients produce in Nigeria, which you can find around your neighbourhood and gives you a natural taste.”

Juleit Chioma commended the embassy of France for creating the awareness, which would enable Nigerian chefs’ showcase their expertise globally.

Mr. Denys Gauer, French Ambassador to Nigeria, said the initiative was created five years ago to celebrate gastronomy as an art of cooking. He said that four restaurants were participating in the programme to showcase different varieties of cuisine of Nigeria and France.

According to the Ambassador:

“This is the first year we are organising a contest of this nature and I hope it increases as time goes by.

The embassy’s aim was to create awareness in the culinary world for both Nigeria and Europe to come together to promote culture through gastronomy.”

Highlight of the Chefs Taste Challenge include the presentation of certificate of participation to the chefs, drawn from various food companies and restaurants in Nigeria.

Each chef was rewarded with a ‘Relais Café’ prepared duck, bread and mango dressing for their presentation which lasted 15 minutes.

Salisu Ali & David Ntekim-Rex Emerge Regional Winners Of The 2018 Master The Mainframe Competition

Two Nigerian students, Salisu Ali of Bayero University Kano and David Ntekim-Rex of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), have emerged regional winners in the annual Master the Mainframe competition, organised by AngelHack and IBM Z Academic Initiative.

A statement by IBM said 21-year-old Salisu Ali, and 19-year-old David Ntekim-Rex, emerged in the first and second positions, respectively in the Middle East and Africa region, and were named among the top 12 finalists globally.

Both students’ entries, according to the judges, showcased innovation and their clear understanding of software security and utility principles, which are the two key attributes of mainframe systems.

The other 10 finalists were from Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Nepal and the United States of America, the organisers stated.

According to the organisers of the 2018 Master The Mainframe Competition:

“More than 17,000 young people from around the world participated in this year’s Master the Mainframe contest, an introduction to programming and application development competition designed to teach students how to code and build new innovations using the mainframe.

Eighty per cent of registrants were new. Students were introduced to the enterprise systems behind their smartphone apps and gained hands-on experience to inspire interest in pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers. By participating, students learnt, prepared for careers and could win prizes.”

According to the IBM Technical Solutions Manager, Brian Collins, and the General Manager, IBM Z Team, Ross Mauri, attracting participants from more than 120 countries across six continents, this year’s contest was truly a global contest and it drew the largest turnout since the contest began in 2005.

They observed that millennials were a perfect match for mainframes and that in a world where the focus often seemed on designing the latest app, these contestants entered the competition with the hope of getting jobs on the Mainframe, which was first introduced in the 1960s.

As part of the contest, IBM made all contestants to create their own applications that dealt with flour, oil and sugar with over 600 different companies worth of data that needed to be sorted and tracked.

Contestants needed to translate multiple flat files of data into dynamic applications that could run on the mainframe without error.