Telecoms

THE Director of the Vobiss Solutions, Mr Usen Antia, has called for collaboration between the government and telecommunication companies to meet the global technological communication standards.

That, he said, would bring an improvement in technology, thereby speeding the advancement of communication in the various sectors of the economy.

He added that although some telecommunication network providers were making progress in services, there were little interventions in the form of policy implementation which enabled telcos and investors to operate in the country.

Mr Antia said this at the 2018 Furukawa Broadband Systems training and showcase of products to the Ghanaian market which was held on July 6, 2018.

Recounting similar instances in some European countries, he said there were a lot of governmental support for broadband investment since technology was the future for education, governance, as well as huge investment into the future.

The Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Logiciel Ghana Limited, a software company developing banking systems for microfinance industry, Ms Farida Nana Efua Bedwei, has urged young entrepreneurs, especially those in the application design and development industry, to focus on the problems their products can solve.

Entrepreneurs, she said, should not look out for the returns their applications could bring because once the applications were able to solve a problem, the money would follow.

“Being in a country and continent full of problems means we all have the potential to be multi-millionaires one day if we are able to understand and solve problems holistically,” she stated.

That, she noted, would mean that entrepreneurs would come to understand problems in the context of the social and cultural setting and come up with realistic solutions which would be accepted by their targeted market.

MTN, a mobile telecommunications company, has taken the awareness campaign of the company’s Initial Public Offer (IPO) launched a couple of weeks ago to the Eastern Region.

The move forms part of its efforts to allow people in the sixth-largest region in the country to own shares in the company.

Apart from Accra, where the IPO was launched, awareness of the shares has taken the company to Kumasi, Sunyani,  Takoradi and Wa.

The public share offer of MTN Ghana began last Tuesday, May 29, 2018, and will end on July 31, 2018 at 5 p.m. The entire offer is for two months after which the allotment will begin.

THE Bank of Ghana (BoG) has allayed fears of the market on the impact of MTN’s initial public offer (IPO) on the cedi.

Through the IPO on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), MTN intends to cede 35 per cent of its ownership to Ghanaians for an amount of GH¢3.48 billion, prompting some market participants to be concerned about the impact of the potential externalisation of the cedis raised on the local currency, a situation the central bank believes has contributed to some initial reactions, which is affecting the cedi.

Speaking in an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS, the Director, Financial Markets Department of the BoG, Mr Steve Opata, said MTN had, however, assured the treasury managers in banks that they had no immediate plans to externalise these payments.

“This assurance should, therefore, mute that aspect of the market sentiments,” he stated.

The strident opposition to the government’s decision to contract Global Voice Group (GVG) to monitor the inbound international traffic represents the unwillingness of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to allow the government to have full visibility of their actual traffic volumes, the Minister of Communication, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has said.

She said the continuous resistance had prevented the government form determining the real taxes payable on the revenue earned by MNOs in the country.

The minister said this when she appeared before Parliament to answer questions on the GVG deal.

Under the partnership of MTN Ghana Foundation and 3 Foundation, an amount of 200,000 has been earmarked to support the surgeries, admissions and medication for children with hole-in-heart conditions in the country each year.

 Fifty thousand cedis will be disbursed quarterly to support two children each quarter to undergo surgery at the Korle-bu and Komfo Anokye hospitals.

The stipulated amount will also be subjected to review each year to ensure that the needed impact in the lives of the children are met.

The Acting Corporate Service Executive of MTN, Mr Samuel Koranteng, revealed this at the launch of the ‘Think Heart, Save a Child Project’, an initiative that seeks to help save the lives of Ghanaian children with hole-in-heart conditions.The launch took place at the Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital on May 9.

TO mark this year’s international Girls in Information Communication Technology (ICT) day, the MTN Ghana Foundation has organised a workshop to train 50 selected girls from the La Baweleshi Presbyterian School in Accra to build Android Apps using the MIT App Inventor.

The workshop, hosted by the Soronko Academy on its premises at East Legon on April 26, was aimed at propping up the interest of the girls to fully participate in ICT related careers.

At the launch of the workshop, a Senior Manager in charge of Corporate Communications, Corporate Services Division at MTN, Mrs Georgina Asare Fiagbenu, said MTN had a vision to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world and had taken advantage of the celebration of Girls in ICT day to partner with Soronko Academy, an organisation on the forefront of empowering girls, to train and mentor girls to pursue technology related careers.

 MTN Ghana and Business World magazine have announced a global Tech Entrepreneur and Founder of HopStop, Mr Chinedu Echeruo, as the keynote speaker for the 22nd MTN Business World Executive Breakfast Meeting.

A statement issued in Accra by Mrs Georgina Fiagbenu, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, MTN, said the much anticipated event was scheduled to take place on April 12, 2018 at the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City in Accra on the theme: “Leadership and Entrepreneurship in a fast-paced Tech World”.

It said Mr Echeruo, an innovative businessman, broke ground in the technology industry when he founded HotStop.com - a travel app - and Tripology.com (a lead-generation and travel referral business for the travel industry), for which he raised nearly $8 million from private investors.

The statement said HopStop grew exponentially from $574,268 in 2007 to $5 million in 2012, while he served as its Chief Executive Officer and Chairman.

Apple’s App Store lost five per cent of its apps in 2017. The figure dropped from 2.2 million at the start of the year to 2.1 million by the end of the same year under review. This makes it the first time the App Store has dropped.

The figures were published by Appfigures, which noted “the decline is a result of stricter enforcement of Apple’s review guidelines, as well as a technical change that eliminated many old apps that were not updated to support 64-bit architecture.”

Apple had said in 2016 it would clean up the App Store by removing outdated and abandoned apps, and in 2017 wanted to get rid of clones and spam apps.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana, Ms Yolanda Cuba, has expressed Vodafone’s commitment to connect Ghana’s upcoming youthful generation to the new world of work, using the Vodafone Digital Skill portal.

According to her, the newly launched Vodafone Digital Skills portal was a tool to equip the youth with the necessary skills and know-how to embrace the increasing demands of the world of work.

In a statement issued in Accra after the unveiling of one of it world’s largest Digital Jobs programme ‘The Vodafone Digital Skill Portal’ Ms Cuba noted that, “Over time, every workplace will go digital, creating accelerating demand for a wide range of specialist technology skills. We want to help connect the new generation to the new world of work,”.