Telecoms

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,”.

MTN Ghana has rewarded winners in the company’s “Spin to Win Promo” for the months of January and February.

Five customers were awarded cash prizes ranging from GH¢1000 to GH¢ 2000 while two people were presented with 4G smart phones.

Mr Peter Tweneboah and Mr Benjamin Owusu won brand new Hyundai i10 salon cars while Mr Isaac Kyei and Mr Kofi Anokye won an all-expense-paid five-day trip to Dubai.

The Senior Specialist at the Consumer Segment of MTN Ghana, Mr Maxwell Arthur, speaking at the press presentation, said the promotion was to appreciate loyal MTN customers who subscribed to the MTN “Spin to Win Promo.”

A fight is raging between telecom operators on one side, and the Uganda Communications Commissions (UCC), the Uganda Police Force and State House, over moves to monitor the Shs44 trillion mobile money businesses.

At the heart of the fight is a push by President Yoweri Museveni to get full access of the telecom data systems through the multi-billion technology called Intelligence Network Monitoring System (INMS) that the government put in place last year.

While Uganda has multiple telecom companies, the fight to defend business secrecy appears to have been left to the two telecom giants. These telecoms are MTN Uganda, which says it controls 55 per cent of the telecom market share or about 11.2 million subscribers, and its main challenger, Airtel Uganda.

The Minister for Communications, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has called on the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) and the telecommunication providers to work together to fight the upsurge of cyber insecurity in the country.

According to her, cyber-attacks and frauds posed threats to individuals across the country which the authorities and stakeholders to have to consider.

She said this at the introduction of the new Managing Director of NITA, Mr David K. Gyewu on February 20, 2018.

Fintech is boosting financial inclusion across Africa, according to Ecobank. Although over 80 per cent of Africans have mobile phones, only around one quarter (28%) of them have a bank account. But mobile banking and e-wallets are helping to break the banking logjam, offering a range of alternative payment methods, as well as lending and savings services. This has boosted the overall financial inclusion rate to 34 per cent and it is growing each day.

However, there are many barriers to wider use of new technology where a step change is needed in attitudes and approaches towards innovation. Ecobank’s work with e-commerce, small business and consumers – through their mobile banking app and other e-products – is helping organisations and individuals to overcome these barriers and stimulate wider usage.

AirtelTigo, after the merger, now has a wider range of customers and the new company intends to drive accessibility and liquidity to ensure that it becomes a viable option in the mobile money landscape.

The Chief Executive Officer of AirtelTigo, Ms Roshi Motman, said a key piece of the company’s strategy was mobile money, and it was therefore strategising to ensure that it stayed on top of its game.