Open Government is a web community built to enable the Nigerian public know which representatives are in power and what their responsibilities are to citizens. It shows what resources are allocated to various government levels and helps to monitor how these resources are spent.

Being a community based service, Open Government puts users in contact with their representatives so they can share their views on project policies being implemented. Users can also discuss among the community, challenges and issues relating to governance.

The platform provides all the information needed about the government – from the president to a local government chairman – immediately the required information about a user is supplied. It also gives a place to supervise all past and present projects in a local government.

“The people in Nigeria currently need a platform to help them understand what the responsibilities of different government representatives are to them, as well as monitor the projects that they are implementing, thereby holding them accountable.

Over the last few years, people in the country have gotten tired of a government that is not responsible to the people; the people are not involved in activities, processes and laws that their representatives are making on their behalf. There is a high level of abuse of funds and resources allocated towards the development of infrastructure for the benefit of society.” – Ogochukwu Francis Osifo, lead programmer at Open Government

Open Government aims to drive a change by engaging individuals to first know about the people that represent them in government and their responsibilities, monitor what they are doing in office, rate them based on key infrastructures needed in the communities, contact them directly from the platform, and share this information with their friends.

Open Government is charting a new terrain towards accountability and transparency in government in Nigeria. Now you can know your local government chairman and even get in touch with him if you want. Visit Open Government to get started.

What this means: Live in the Blackbox Mansion for two weeks, all expenses paid. Meet key investors, get mentored by Valley veterans like Dave McLure and Tim Draper; collaborate with entrepreneurs from around the globe, all under the same roof, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

How to apply: Create a profile online at www.88mph.ac/signup and answer the questionnaire about your company. Mention Blackbox in the title and upload a 1-2 min. video about how you’ll take advantage of Blackbox.

All web/mobile start-ups, local and international, are welcome to apply. Watch the BBC clip to learn more.

1. What’s the iDEA Hub as you would tell a layman?

The iDEA centre is a place where people who are interested in starting or growing a business developing software applications or a business which uses software applications can come and get support. The centre provides a complete work environment, administrative and business support, business and technical skills, mentoring and access to finance.

2. What’s the point of having the iDEA Hub – to Nigeria, the tech ecosystem and other benefactors if any?

The Nigerian internet market is young and growing. There is a huge potential for software applications, particularly mobile applications (for the majority of Nigerians, mobile will be their first experience of the internet). The iDEA centres are part of a bigger scheme to encourage the development of a local software industry. Software production and development is recognized to contribute to structural transformation, learning and innovation, job creation and export revenues.

According to the GSMA Association, Nigeria is in the top 10 mobile markets in the world in terms of the number of subscribers, has a relatively low internet penetration rate, with people who are highly entrepreneurial. This presents a challenge but also a huge opportunity for software (mobile and desktop) based services and products which are adapted to our local context.

Nigerian developers need to rise up to this challenge and grab the opportunity it presents, not only by developing locally relevant applications, but also by developing applications which have global appeal. The iDEA centres are key to this effort. For technological innovation to be meaningful, it has to be driven locally. The centres will serve as hubs of innovation to spur innovation of products, services and business models. The centres will provide physical space, shared facilities, counseling, training and information specific to software development, with access to finance and technical support services in one integrated and affordable package. Such support will help strengthen business start-ups by reducing initial costs and delays, and reduce the chances of failure.

The programme will employ the use of software development platforms to grow content, services and applications. It will specifically seek to stimulate innovation in the area of Software Development with primary focus on:

• Linguistic Software

• Custom Programming

• Mobile Software/Application Development

• Business Intelligence

3. What does it take to be part of the iDEA Hub and what value proposition are there to different target groups?

Software Entrepreneurs have a wide variety of needs. A tiered membership scheme allows the centres to adopt service offerings for different segments. Members at different levels are selected through a competitive application and due diligence process.

Depending on the level of membership, potential members may be required to be interviewed in person. The interviews would be executed by the Advisory Board and Incubator Management.

Incubatees comprise the most elite level of membership. To be eligible for inclusion in this category, members must be pursuing a new business venture. Once offered status as an ‘Incubatee’, they will be included as participants in the incubation program. Incubatees can be selected from Residential and Affiliated members, following an application process.

Residential Members make up the second level of membership. Members included in this category may not yet be eligible for the incubation program, or they may not be interested in participating in the full extent of the formalized program. Instead, they are motivated by access to office space, value chain partners and networking opportunities. Being in-residence also allows access to certain other services, as determined by the centre management. Residential Members can be selected from the pool of Virtual Members.

Affiliates comprise the third membership tier. This category includes members who do not need access to office space (i.e. they are working remotely). Similar to Residential Members, they may not be interested in participating in the full extent of the formalized incubation program or they may not be eligible. Rather, they are primarily motivated by access to networking opportunities, either in-person or online, and by access to training. These members are also eligible to be hired to staff consulting projects and participate inearn your own seed capital type programs. Affiliated Members can also be selected from the pool of Virtual Members.

Virtual Members are the most broad-based tier of membership. Access to this tier can be provided at a modest membership fee. This category provides an initial point of entry for individuals interested in becoming affiliated with the Centre and requires minimal vetting by Centre management.

The Centres will target the following classes of people:

Students

Stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship must start at the early levels of society. The Programme will engage the student community as a primary target group. Students will benefit from getting involved in many activities organized by the Centres and should attend low or no cost technical training at the Centres.

Start Ups

The Centres should help address the typical barriers to success – the lack of access to funding; the costs associated with acquiring technology, knowledge and expertise; and the limited ability to obtain broad exposure for their creations and innovations. Likewise, start-ups will be a primary target group for the Programme – the core objective being to stimulate local industry growth and employment by helping accelerate the success of technology entrepreneurs and early stage start-ups.

Software Development Companies

The Centres will engage with established local software development companies to build new innovations or assist in bridging the gaps preventing the companies from fully exploiting and commercializing existing innovations

4. In the larger scheme of things, what are the plans of the iDEA Hub to accomplish its mission and get closer to its vision?

The fundamental driver of the programme is to act as an enabler towards creating a strong local software economy and to build growth oriented companies with impact on employment in the ICT sector.

The iDEA programme exists within a wider ecosystem and in order to achieve its objectives, the programme will look towards partnering with various stakeholders such as technology partners, public sector partners/policy makers, investors and training providers (including universities). For example, technology companies will play a significant role in the programme since they are among the major beneficiaries of the talent pool represented in the incubator. It is reasonable to expect the technology companies to provide support for these early stage companies in the form of training, channel distribution agreements, equipment and customer introductions and provide assets such as software and curriculum. We have a number of technology companies represented on the board and we expect them to actively contribute to strategy and execution and help generate a critical mass of activity at the centres.

iDEA is also discussing with a number of banks with the aim of collaborating to stimulate entrepreneurial activity by offering attractive financing schemes or leveraging existing offerings for start-ups.

The programme will seek to build relationships with key tertiary institutions and the NUC. The scope of such cooperation will be focused on ensuring that there is a pipeline for the centres and that students are fully engaged in the Programme through organisation of events and competitions on campus and, longer term, by embedding relevant content into the curriculum.

5. Who’s behind the iDEA Hub?

iDEA was funded by a grant from NITDA as a not–for–profit organization. It has a 10 member governing board chaired by Mr. Adedotun Sulaiman, with the vice-chair being Mr Pius Okigbo. iDEA is being supported by Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Blackberry, Intel, Main One and a number of other local and foreign companies.

Safe to say that’s all you really need to know about the iDEA Hub, but then again if you have any inquiry or want us to get clarification on anything, do feel to use the comment box below and we’d get right on it.

Opera has rethought, redesigned and rebuilt the browser experience into a thing of beauty. But what is beauty without brains? Opera for Android has something for both brain hemispheres.

The interface of Opera has been redesigned, with a lighter color scheme, and made super intuitive to use. Opera for Android brings a new perspective of the web to your smartphone, ready to go after a quick and free install from the Google Play store. It’s our Discover feature, and you’re going to call it the best thing to happen to a browser since the back button.

With Discover, finding new and inspiring articles is just a quick swipe to the right from your home screen. It’s like having an itsy-bitsy personal assistant in the browser, scouting out the hottest news and feeding it to people as they like. Pick your interests from categories such as Arts, News, Technology and more, and get back to discovering the internet all over again. It’s all automatic, already installed in your Opera browser for Android.

“Most people just see a fraction of what the web has to offer,” says Rikard Gillemyr, EVP of Consumer Products at Opera Software. “We check out the same sites every day, and you can get through with the latest news after just a short bus ride. We wanted to give people a relaxed way of discovering interesting articles and checking them out without any extra effort.”

Goin’ all-terrain

That maxed out, top-tier, faster-than-greased-lightning data plan is great, sure. But there are still times when even the best data connection just does not cut it: the moment at the stadium after your home team wins and everyone gets on Facebook, the bad coverage at the beach, or that ridiculously expensive search for a restaurant when traveling abroad and roaming.

Meet our Off-Road feature, which will get you out of even the most sluggish networks, all over the world.

The Off-Road feature offers data compression, which reduces the amount of data traffic while browsing on your Android phone. Just flick a switch and Opera for Android starts saving you time on bad connections and money when roaming during traveling.

Beauty and the browser

Beauty is more than skin deep in Opera for Android. Sure, there’s a sleek, easy-to-use interface and elegant Speed Dial that can now hold all your bookmarks in an easier way than before.

In Opera for Android, beauty is expressed in functions such as text reflow that lets people view web text at any zoom level without scrolling sideways. There’s elegance in the revamped and combined address and search field for super easy access. Switching between several open webpages is easy as a swipe of the finger in a visual overview of the open pages, and everything is built on a new foundation based on Chromium to ensure better compatibility with websites. All things that make you go “Huh. That’s clever.”

Download the free Opera for Android from Google Play Store or m.opera.com for any mobile phone running Android 2.3 or above, and get the best web experience on your Android phone.

About Opera Software ASA

The worldwide World Wide Web — any device, any platform, any bandwidth, absolutely anywhere in the world. Opera Software was founded in 1994, based on the idea that access to the web should be a universal right. 300 million people (and counting) use the Opera web browsers for computers, mobile phones, TVs and other connected devices. Learn more about Opera at opera.com.

Facebook, the social network giant, has lost more than 1 million (24%) Nigerian users between January and April 2013, according to data from social media monitoring firm, SocialBakers.

Facebook monthly active users (MAU) in Nigeria peaked at 6.5 million and by end of April they were down to 5.2 million but this does not mean that users have left Facebook altogether.

This means that over one million people have not logged into Facebook between January and April 2013. Nigeria is ranked 35 on the list of countries with most Facebook users.

Facebook , once the top social network in Nigeria, is now losing steam to mobile chat (messaging) and flirting platforms like 2go, Whatsapp, Badoo, Eskimi and other social networks like Twitter .

What can be attributed to this trend?

With my knowledge and insight on the mobile landscape and ecosystem in Africa and especially Nigeria, I have identified the factors behind this trend which can be attributed mostly to social behaviors and platform influence.

The factors are as follows:

1. Facebook is still the platform of choice to make new friends or meeting people for the first time due to its large user base but once the friendships have been cultivated and cemented,Facebook loses its novelty in taking these friendships or relationships to the next level of socialization which requires real-time interactions like Whatsapp, 2go, Twitter .

2. Facebook will continue to grow in registered users but the Generation ‘Z’  and the earliest registered users seemed not to be too excited about using Facebook always.

3. Facebook , with its huge digital assets and properties and the large business (advertising) content, is best experienced with smartphones. There are only 4 million smartphones out of the 100+ million phones in Nigeria. Facebook app is not efficient with data in a country where internet access and electricity has made browsing the web in a smartphone an expensive luxury.

4. The majority of Facebook users, who are on feature phones are not having the same experience with that of smartphone users so they switch to other platforms where they can easily communicate with their friends singly or in group conversations and easily share photos and videos in real-time on feature phones with less keypad clicks practically for free.Facebook is simply too complex for these tasks.

5. The likes of 2go, Whatsapp allows you to communicate with those you already have a relationship with, so most likely people are spending more time with those they know very well and they are not more than 10 meters away from their phone

6. Whatsapp and 2go are known to perform well at low bandwidth connections and consume less data.

7. The likes of Whatsapp and 2go are serving as a cheaper replacement for SMS among the youth (65% of Nigerians are youths).

The Shift

The shift towards real-time platforms is not only happening in Nigeria but in other African countries like South Africa and also in Asia like in Japan and Korea.

Just like in #Africa, Mobile #chat apps have overtaken Twitter and Facebook in Japan and Korea textually.org/textually/arch… cc @dstorey

— Emeka Azuka Okoye (@EmekaOkoye) April 29, 2013

In Nigeria, Twitter is gaining from the drop in Facebook active users. It is important to understand that emerging markets consume digital media in a different way to developed markets.

Also note that recently we’ve seen a lot of posts and news articles that analysts have predicted about the potential for chat apps to take over the role of SMS.

In Nigeria, 2go has 13+ million users, whatsapp has an estimated 6 million users, Eskimi has more than 5 million users and Twitter has more than 3.5 million users.

In conclusion, Facebook has not delivered a simple, real-time and cost efficient experience to meet the needs of most of their users in Nigeria.

First published on Emeka Okoye’s Google+ Page.

In the face of the new reality that the Nigerian technology ecosystem is fast coming of age, someone had better tell our tech entrepreneurs to wake up and smell the coffee. We have gone beyond the days when wearing glasses, putting on earphones and coding away in a little corner was enough. Now, if you want to build something lasting, you have to learn the business side. This means you must understand the kind of market you are building solutions for and have a plan to convince the market that your solutions are not only worth using, but also worth paying for.

Yes, everybody wants to build that next big thing, but do we ever stop to ask questions like ‘How do I intend to make money from this?’ ‘Is there a model approach to my execution?’ or ‘Do I even have a plan at all.’ Because business works differently from coding, geeks must begin to study business models, read business case studies and, if possible, get some sort of business degree (if they can fit it into their schedules). We need to observe brands that have made it in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, start by studying models such as 2go, M-pesa, Eskimi, Saya and find out what they are doing right.

As someone with a tech background who runs a business, I have come to realize that you cannot run away from acquiring the right business sense. You must learn things such as equity, premium, business development, branding and getting products to market in a timely fashion. There is a reason why it is called entrepreneurship in the first place. It won’t hurt to reach out to the community to find out what problems they want solved and would readily pay for. I hear somebody ask ‘how could I possibly combine all of these with coding?’ Well, there is always your spare time.

The right perspective would be to see business management sense as a necessary evil. It is this kind of sense that tells you to get your solutions to market quickly, upgrades can come later. We have heard of great products that were wack at first, but improved drastically with subsequent upgrades. They had built a user base with their first offerings. The idea is to put in your best, but do not tarry by waiting for perfection before you introduce to market. Timely introduction could attract valuable goodwill in the market base. It also offers an efficient leverage to build on with your upgrades. Ask the guys at Maliyo Games who understood that game development through Flash could be quicker to get to market once the concept was right. They developed something that simply took on a life of its own and for such, it cannot be hard to attract funding. Some would say their team lead has got a business degree; maybe that is not far from my point.

It is easy to say that there are not enough angel investors or venture capitalists willing to fund ideas in this clime and as true as that is, we should put ourselves in their shoes. Who will want to throw money into a venture that does not have the slightest idea how it intends to make profit?

Our hubs are doing a great job of creating enabling environments for developers, but they need to do more in selling the business aspect of developing products. Kudos to innovative conceptions such as the Nokia Growth Academy for a comprehensive deal, that includes both apps development and the business side of getting products to market.  It is nice to see Google, Microsoft and Research In Motion organize three day programs, boot camps and others – investing in homegrown technology for their platforms – but they need to start making geeks understand there is the business side to the deal. Yes we know the hubs want to be business consultants to developers while they concentrate on the coding, but we must realize there are some decisions that would eventually be left to them to make.

Here are some quick tips to get you started on learning the business side of geek:

1. Read widely, know a bit about everything. Create time to read books by tech entrepreneurs you admire. Business at the speed of thought by Bill Gates is a good start.

2. Partner and leverage on team abilities. Get a PR/social media guy, a business development guy, a branding guy and other initiatives, so that you can sell a well thought out idea.

3. Work out how to make profit; how much equity you might be ready to yield in the event of an investment opportunity.

4. Think business. Learn something about intellectual property, follow Forbes, Harvard business review and such on twitter for links to helpful articles.

I look forward to a day when Nigerian startups get the basics of business such that they get enough investments to move out of hubs to their own place. Right now, there are a few who don’t even need funding; they have the potential to make money eventually, if only they can work out that great business model quite meticulously.

With Email Connect you can easily:

• Create tasks and assign them to project members via email
• Update a task status, add notes to a task, or upload a file to the project via email

To create tasks and assign them to project members via email

Send an email to Prowork with the Project ID of the project you want to post in. The Project ID is the first number set in the URL when you are in a project.

Send the email to the address task+PROJECTID@prowork.me, replace PROJECTID with the number from the URL. The email subject will be the task title. You can assign the task to one or more project members by including them in the “CC” field of the email. Any email body text included will be added as a note to the task.

To update the task status, add notes or upload a file to the project via email

Reply any task email notification from Prowork with a response starting with ‘done’ and the task will be updated to done. Any other response will be added as a note to the task.

To upload a file to the project, send it as an email attachment.

So you have:

• Email recipient = task+PROJECTID@prowork.me
• Email subject = Task title
• CC recipients = Task assignees
• Email body = Task note
• Email attachments = Project Files

As seen on Prowork Blog

BlackBerry is kicking off a fresh series of BlackBerry Jam Sessions for developers in Africa that aim to provide new skills, support the development of locally, relevant content and give budding entrepreneurs more opportunities to reach BlackBerry customers around the world. The events will provide attendees with the latest resources, training and best practices for creating BlackBerry® 10 apps.

In March and April this year, successful BlackBerry Jam sessions in Botswana and South Africa drew over 260 passionate developers to learn all about creating apps for BlackBerry 10. Soon, the BlackBerry Jam series will follow in Tunisia (14 June), Egypt (18 and 19 June), Kenya (21 June), Ghana (1 July), Nigeria (3 July), and again in South Africa (15, 16 and 18 July).

Robert Bose, regional managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa at BlackBerry says, “BlackBerry understands that access to education and skills creates opportunities, so we’re pleased to announce more BlackBerry Jam events for budding entrepreneurs across the region. This is especially true in Africa, one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world. We’re excited to already see such a healthy ecosystem of BlackBerry 10 apps in Africa and the Middle East, and we look forward to seeing developers learn how to create even more compelling BlackBerry experiences in the months to come.”

This announcement follows a series of successful BlackBerry Jam sessions and Hackathons held last year in Africa, with over 300 developers attending events in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

BlackBerry Jam sessions are open to all developers, but are also designed for people who are new to the BlackBerry 10 platform, or want to learn the basics about app development. The sessions provide practical advice and great tips that help developers get the most of the BlackBerry 10 development environment.

BlackBerry technical experts are on hand at all sessions to answer developer questions and provide them with the latest best practice from BlackBerry. At each session, developers experience hands-on training focusing on the BlackBerry Cascades™ software development kit and the WebWorks HTML5 development tools. The Cascade framework empowers developers to develop visually engaging native applications for BlackBerry 10, while WebWorks makes it simple to take advantage of standard web technologies like CSS, HTML5, and JavaScript to build apps.

Great prizes are up for grabs at each session. In addition, at the end of the tour, judges from BlackBerry will award the developer with the best app a USD $10,000 prize.

BlackBerry has an extensive developer programme in Africa. Initiatives include:

Established two BlackBerry apps labs in South Africa in 2012, one at the University of Pretoria and another at Bandwidth Barn in Cape Town. The labs provide local developers, including students, start-ups, entrepreneurs and others, with access to resources in development, marketing, sales and training to help them expand their ideas and business opportunities.

BlackBerry plans to open more BlackBerry apps labs in Africa in 2013. BlackBerry and the Lagos State Innovation Advisory Council have plans to build a BlackBerry apps lab in Lagos, Nigeria.

In addition, BlackBerry has been working with over 80 universities, colleagues and schools across Africa through the BlackBerry Academic Programme, which provides materials to help teach students with mobile application development.

Other ways BlackBerry works with the developer community include partnerships with industry groups like Mobile Mondays, M-Labs and Garage 48; BlackBerry developer days; and the annual BlackBerry Experience Forum, where developers come to share ideas with business innovators, technology leaders and BlackBerry customers.

For more information on the BlackBerry Jam sessions, visit:  blackberrydeveloperevents.com

Of the €85m, €35m will be invested in Africa. It is in addition to recent investments from J.P. Morgan and Summit Partners.  Three recently-launched and highly promising ventures will also benefit from Millicom’s new investment: Kaymu.com, a marketplace to help small merchants reach new customers, Hellofood.com, a food delivery service already present in over ten and Vamido.com, a real estate classified website.

Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, Jumia.com’s Co-founders and CEOs: “This investment confirms Millicom’s trust in our ability to become the leading e-commerce group in Africa. It will give us the financial power to increase even more our leadership position in fast growing markets such as Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Kenya and to expand to new countries fast. Our goal is clear: We want to create the best shopping experience in Africa, offering the widest assortment and state-of-the-art delivery service.”

Hans-Holger Albrecht, Millicom’s President and CEO, commented: “Sooner than we thought, our joint ventures in Africa have achieved leading positions in key segments of the growing online market. The opportunities look even greater than when we first decided to invest in them. In Africa, e-commerce could hasten the evolution of the established retail sector as consumers increasingly adopt the digital lifestyle. That is why such timely investment is of essence. We are pleased today to give our partners our reiterated financial and operational support to allow proper planning and execution. Online is emerging as one of the four pillars of Millicom’s strategy to transform into a digital lifestyle leader.”

Konga.com came out tops with 41.96% – 94 of the total of 224 votes, followed by Jumia with 30.8% translating to 69 votes. These are two biggest players in the space, so no surprise that the others we put up including buynownow.com, taafoo.com, and smartbuy.com.ng came in with a low 9, 7, and 6 votes respectively.

We could not add all the e-commerce site in Nigeria, so participants in the polls had the chance to make entries, and it was interesting to see sites like the new buyam.com.ng, bringitbay.com, alutamart.com, daily deal site – dealdey.com, pickclicknpay.com, fashion store – kamdora.com, 1500naira.com, sunglasses.com.ng, topdowndeals.com and ngpricehunter.com. Even classified like OLX and Kaymu.com were made as entries.

While the focus was on Nigeria, craiglist.com and amazon.com found their way into the polls, not to talk unrelated entries like BudgIT. So there you have it, favorite e-commerce platforms in Nigeria with Konga taking the lead. What ever happened to Asos though?

Next up are is a poll on the finalist from the OTEKBITS branding competition. Vote here.