By Olabisi Olaleye

The adoption of smart city will ensure adequate security and also be an accelerator for a significant economic growth by improving city management, creating new revenue opportunities, and driving efficiencies that result in cost savings through modern technology, especially in Nigeria.
This has become necessary because of the high rate of migration to the world’s urban areas. Cities around the globe are now looking for ways to transform their increasingly congested landscapes into safer, smarter, and healthier environments that better serve their residents.
To this end, experts optimistic that Nigeria smart city would come on board in the next three years if all plans fall through, as the world population shifting focus towards smart, connected cities where secure networks link everything from office buildings to transportation infrastructures, and intelligent data-management foundations are buoyed by the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities offering untold benefits for governments and citizens around service provision, quality of life, security and sustainability in an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world.
Nigeria has already started working on its smart city, as contractors have been mobilized to get things done on the land mapped out for the projects.
Speaking at the 2016 TECH+ Conference and Expo in Lagos, the Chairman Smart City Resource Pls, Ademola Aladekomo said: “Nigeria would achieve smart city. We have already started it. The land is there and the contractors have been mobilized now towards getting it done. We have various mechanism as strategy for building it. We strongly believe that in another three years, it is going to be a reality.”
He said by the design of smart cities engender peaceful living by ensuring that environments are well panned, cleaned sustainable, and well gated. Saying that every single building is monitored by sensors, camera and people and nobody can come into smart city without the control room known or recognised the identify of such person.
On his part, the United States Chief Information Officer (CIO), Mr. Tony Scott, said with the good example seen all over the world, it was government and private sector financing smart city, which Nigeria was expected to replicate.
When prodded how US can help Nigeria to achieve smart city? he said, one of the best ways was to change ways of learning, change ideas on the challenges facing Nigeria and Lagos.
“ When I return home, I will to tell my people about what I observed here. I am hopeful, some of those challenges, our people would have good ideas in solving them. Share ideas over things they have done over the years. When we exchange ideas, come together to study what is on ground, we can make progress.”
Meanwhile, the former Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigeria Communications Commission, Mr Ernest Ndukwe, said that in the next 15 years, six out of  50 people would be living in the city, which he hoped that those cities become smart cities. Noting that the whole of Lagos should also become smart city, as the technology has a role to play in socio-economic challenges.
He added that smart city would enhanced connectivity growth in anywhere in the world. Adding that what would enhance it more was to make connectivity more affordable to ordinary people who has connection gets it at a good price.
He hinted that effective broadband must be a universal reality to support smart cities. He said that in abroad, superfast broadband has become fundamental human right of the people.
“Just as the digital age has transformed business and consumer lifestyles, smart cities promise to dramatically alter how public services such as education, health care, and entertainment are delivered, enhancing residents’ quality of life and supporting sustainable urbanization. Forward-thinking communities worldwide are already sketching out their smart-city blueprints and putting pilot projects into play.
“If cities are to address the gap between needs and resources, both public- and private-sector institutions must collaborate to develop creative solutions that leverage the speed and reach of an integrated digital network to capture and share important data and deliver urban services more efficiently”.
According to a U.N. State of World Cities report, more than 60 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050, which translates into two percent of available land being occupied by people consuming nearly three-quarters of global resources.
In addition, at least 100 new cities would become home to more than one million residents by 2050. This massive wave of urbanization is expected to take a heavy environmental toll; research shows that cities consume 75 percent of the world’s energy and are responsible for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Undeniably, smart cities are the wave of the future, providing one of the most intriguing and innovative applications for the internet of things (IoT), and offering untold benefits for governments and citizens around service provision, quality of life, security and sustainability in an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world.
Base Tranceiver’s developers agree that superfast broadband must be a universal reality to support smart cities and that smart city technology has a role to play in socio-economic challenges.


Konga to lay off staff

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Nigeria’s online mall, Konga.com, will lay off some of its employees soon.
According to the company, its business development strategy is to review staff strength every six  months. “Konga has been doing this consistently over the last two years and usually let go of staff that still go on and do great things elsewhere”.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Konga, Shola Adekoya says, “The restructuring entails workforce reduction is a prudent and necessary step for the long term success of the company. The reorganizing will also impact the business model as we continue to do retail but only focus on the products that customers really like with high throughput in the warehouse and that will leave other products to strategic merchants that will take over some of the products in a marketplace fashion. By this, Konga will optimize its warehouse and from September will allow merchants to begin to store items in the Konga warehouse, which guarantees quality and ensures quicker shipping times for customers.” Adding that this restructuring is focused on reconfiguration and reallocating resources to focus on areas that offer the highest growth opportunities and alignment with Konga’s strategic objectives is absolutely necessary for Konga in becoming the engine of commerce and trade in Africa.


Nigerians  to enjoy dividend of 4G voice over wifi at lower rates

With technology demolishing every strong holds, Smile Communications Nigeria Limited, a  broadband service provider, has offered the lowest call tariff that allows its customers to make calls at 8 kobo per second to any network from within and outside the country at the same rate, using SmileVoice App.
According to the company, while introducing its new Managing Director to the media, Mr Godfrey Efeurhobo ,SmileVoice allows thousands of Nigerians to enjoy seamless, superclear voice and video calls to their loved ones to and from anywhere in the world.
The MD says, “I am proud to announce the lowest call rate in Nigeria, using the very latest 4G LTE technology. Yes Nigeria! It is true. You can make calls at 8kobo per second to any network in Nigeria. You can also make and receive calls at the same rate from any country in the world.”
He further explained that the app is structured to function exactly like SIM card in a mobile phone. “Having the SmileVoice app on your mobile is like having a second SIM card in your phone.  There is no need for the recipient to also have SmileVoice”.
He maintained that the new app would  wipe the era of “Roaming Bill Shock” that hitherto makes it impossible for Nigerians to make calls with their local numbers abroad. What that means is that registered subscribers on the choice network can now make undisrupted calls anywhere in the world at the unprecedented rate of about N5 per minute. He however, pledged that Smile would latch on 5G when available for better connection and expansion.
On reliability, he  said :”It has network capacity to ensure quality and reliable service and almost no failed connections or dropped calls on Smile’s network with less dropped calls when calling other networks from Smile’s network”.