Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we bring you a summary of all the tech reviews and events that took place during the week. These range from the newly-launched Zone Tech Park for tech startups in Lagos to Nigerian commercial banks launching Banking services on Whatsapp and many more.
GT Bank and UBA Set to Launch Banking Services on Whatsapp Business
Facebook, which owns Whatsapp, recently announced a new feature called Whatsapp Business API. The API provides a new way for people to quickly start a WhatsApp conversation from an ad on Facebook. It’s a pretty interesting feature.
Nigerian banks are taking more leaps to make banking easier and accessible to people. Guaranty Trust Bank (GT Bank) and UBA Bank are pushing their banking services onto the Whats-app Business platform.
These banks should come together and integrate payments with Whatsapp not all these gimmicks. Nobody wants to chat with you bro | UBA, GTBank Take Banking Services to WhatsApp – THISDAYLIVE https://t.co/fBvDzIStWD
— tyro (@DoubleEph) August 2, 2018
Originally, it was targeted at small businesses, such that businesses can create profiles, and quickly interact with customers easily by using tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages.
Via this platform, GT Bank aims to avail its customers a new medium to make inquiries, service requests and access its other banking services. With this new frontier, the bank expects instant response and solutions to customer queries and issues.
Catching wind of the development, UBA is also determined to launch its own services on the Whatsapp Business platform. The bank announced that LEO, its banking chatbot, will soon be available on Whatsapp Business.
Leo continues to make giant leaps and strides and guess what’s up today!
You will now be able to access Leo on WhatsApp. The business is open and will be fully commercially available this September.
It’s such an exciting new development for us. See you soon on #WhatsApp 😉 pic.twitter.com/ny4aXqQ7s8
— UBA Group (@UBAGroup) August 1, 2018
According to the bank, Leo is already operational on Whatsapp but will become fully commercially available by September 2018.
With Whatsapp boasting of over 1.4 billion users, the feature could go a long way in improving business communication. And it could be important for getting users acquainted with new service offerings.
Apparently, both banks are prepping to take advantage of these new services.
Nigerian B2B Venture Builder, Zone Tech Park Launched in Lagos
Zone Tech Park, Nigeria’s largest tech hub and B2B venture builder for tech startups, was launched during the week, in Gbagada, Lagos. The media launch of the hub featured industry stakeholders, including thought leaders, business leaders, industry experts, and the media.
Zone Tech Park, Nigeria’s largest tech hub and B2B venture builder for tech startups was launched yesterday, 1st August 2018, in Gbagada, Lagos. @zonetechpark #ZoneTechParkMediaLaunch #ZoneTechPark https://t.co/32ccONM0Hi
— Technext (@technextdotng) August 2, 2018
Speaking at the media launch was the hub’s CEO, Toro Orero, who said that Zone Tech Park is not just a co-working space but a platform for building great companies.
https://twitter.com/zonetechpark/status/1024638342149951494
Although tech founders would make use of Zone Tech Park co-working space for free, there would be a thorough screening of these startups and their ideas before they are admitted.
Zone Tech Park would also generate its revenues from minority equity or minority share in returns of the startups via successful fundraises or corporate deals when the startups succeed and scale.
Questions and answers segments were conducted by the CEO and Founder respectively.
https://twitter.com/zonetechpark/status/1024650939842482182
It is interesting to see innovations like this coming up to foster the budding Nigerian startup scene, but more interesting would be to see really innovative ideas and startups coming out of the hub.
Kudos to the Zone Tech Park team for putting this together.
Nigeria Lost 347,604 GSM Internet Subscribers in June 2018
Over the week, Nigeria lost about 347,604 GSM internet subscribers. What could have been the cause? Could it be lack of electricity, or the Internet itself?
Honestly, if I have electricity and internet access 24/7 I’d be the most productive version of myself….that’s not too much to ask but in Nigeria that a very tall order 🙄
— Gentleman in Skirt (@bjspesh) July 28, 2018
Although a ready reason for this decline cannot be readily obtained, it is possible that a good number of users migrated to other services providers (especially the VOIP operators i.e. Smile, Swift, Ntel). This is because VOIP subscribers figure appreciated from 321,634 in May 2018 to 345,603 in June 2018.
📈 TOP 15 Countries with the Highest Number of Internet Users
🇨🇳China
🇮🇳India
🇺🇸United States
🇧🇷Brazil
🇮🇩Indonesia
🇯🇵Japan
🇷🇺Russia
🇳🇬Nigeria
🇲🇽Mexico
🇧🇩Bangladesh
🇩🇪Germany
🇵🇭Philippines
🇻🇳Vietnam
🇬🇧United Kingdom
🇫🇷France— Larry Kim (@larrykim) July 25, 2018
The announcement by Google of the plan to roll out about 200 Google Stations across five cities ( Lagos, Kaduna, PortHarcourt, Ibadan, and Abuja) in the country by 2019 offers a huge respite in the nearest future. This will provide coverage for over 10 million Nigerians across these locations. In itself, these may result in more losses for the Telco service providers.
Three Nigerian Students Win Gold at 2018 World Adolescent Robotics Competition
Team Nigeria shines at the World Adolescent Robotics Competition in China!
All glory be to God!😁😁😁 pic.twitter.com/KYbix5LXVB— RoboGen Nigeria (@robogennigeria) July 24, 2018
The team was sponsored by Aramex and Doculand Nigeria Limited and was the only other Africa country, besides Gabon, invited for the competition.
This is really a great start for our Nigerian students. congratulations to them.
MTN Nigeria to Commence Commercial Deployment of 5G Technology before 2020
Telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria has announced that it will begin to commercially deploy 5G technology in Nigeria before 2020. This will enable the company to provide better data services at a more affordable cost to its subscribers.
The panel for “Communication in a digital world” addressing the crowd at the #TechFest2018 day 2. #SparkYourCuriosity pic.twitter.com/rJbEUMJJlZ
— MTN Nigeria (@MTNNG) May 16, 2018
It is also expected that with adequate spectrum allocated to the 5G standard, the increased capacity would result in lower data cost to Nigerians. The company claims that the technology is at least 100 times faster than 4G. And now, the plan is to deploy the technology in Nigeria where the company currently has a 4G license.
Thank you for going through the weekly roundup with us. Have a great weekend!
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