MTN Nigeria, a subsidiary of MTN Group Limited and Nigeria’s most prominent mobile telecommunications company with over 74 million subscribers, has joined the growing list of leading corporates supporting the Insurance Meets Tech (IMT2022) Conference, billed to hold on Thursday, September 29, 2022, in Lagos, Nigeria.

Themed “Leveraging Insurtech to disrupt the customer acquisition journey,” Insurance Meets Tech Conference (IMT2022), which holds at Ecobank’s pan-African Center in Lagos, on Thursday, September 29, 2022, will gather industry captains who will share insights and data on how the insurance sector players can leverage tech and digitalisation to deepen access and market penetration.

The leading ICT firm joins other organisations such as Ecobank, Microsoft Nigeria, aYo Holdings Ltd, Old Mutual, Curacel, Leadway Assurance, AXA Mansard, MediSmarts, ActivEdge, ETAP, MotoMarket, Paddy Cover and Interswitch Group, whose leaders will be speaking or making presentations to the delegates.

IMT 2022 will feature presentations from Microsoft Nigeria, MTN, Active Edge and MotoMarket, while the Group Chief Executive Officer, aYo Holdings Limited (South Africa), Marius Botha, whose organisation has a presence in five African countries, will share learnings on how tech has enabled their growth and adoption across the continent.

With MTN Nigeria confirming participation and providing full Internet Broadband for the industry discourse, the insurtech summit will become the first Nigerian event to stream on MTN’s newly launched 5G internet network.

IMT2022 Convener, Odion Aleobua, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Modion Communications, said; “We are poised to disrupt West Africa’s insurance and insurtech space, and it will be a thrilling experience for those who would participate in person for this era-defining discourse.

“The delegates who would join virtually on www.insurancemeetstech.com would be streaming via a first-of-its-kind 5G Internet Broadband at a connection speed of over 900 mbps. Interestingly, virtual conference organisers need about 100 mbps for a superior streaming experience, but with 900 mbps 5G internet broadband, we have an outstanding internet connection plan that will be the first to be put in place in Nigeria,” Aleobua said.”

L-R: Haruna Sani, Senior Special Assistant to Nasawara State Governor on Information and Communication Technology; Dr. Beluchi Nwanisobi, Head, Knowledge Management, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC); Sani Jibrin, President, Nasawara State Students Association; Saadatu Yahya, Executive Secretary, Nasawara State Scholarship Board (NSSB); Dr. Austine Nwaulune, Director, Digital Economy, NCC; Freda Bruce-Bennett, Head, Digital Services and Skills, NCC; Edoyemi Ogoh, Head, Quality of Service and Interconnect, NCC, during a courtesy visit of the NSSB to the Commission in Abuja.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has urged the Nasarawa State Scholarship Board (NSSB) to support the NCC in creating awareness about the intervention projects of the Commission concerning research and digital literacy in order to provide more opportunities for the citizenry.

Director of Digital Economy at the Commission, Dr. Augustine Nwaulune, who hosted a delegation of the Board, led by the Board’s Executive Secretary, Hajia Saadatu Yahya, on behalf of the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, recently, recalled that Nasarawa State is one of the beneficiaries of NCC’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) intervention projects such as the Digital Awareness Programme (DAP) for secondary schools, the Advanced Digital Appreciation Programme for Tertiary Institutions (ADAPTI), the Wireless Cloud, as well as the E-Health programme.

“While we don’t give scholarship to students, the NCC has continued to give research grants to lecturers and students in the universities, and provided additional opportunities including sponsoring competitions involving students, as well as endowing professorial chairs in universities across the country. In the last seven years, the financial value of the endowments and grants is more than N500 million.

“Therefore, I will appeal to NSSB to create awareness about these initiatives of the NCC among stakeholders in the academia, particularly the research grants to enable stakeholders to leverage such opportunities offered by the Commission to scholars interested in carrying out telecommunications-based research,” he said.

Nwaulune said the NCC has been upbeat in ensuring implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), 2020-2030, in which one of its eight pillars, rests on digital literacy, while the Digital Economy Department has been set up and equipped by the Commission with the human resources required to coordinate its programmes in concrete terms.

Yahya, whose delegation visited to discuss areas of collaboration for deepening digital/technical training and skills acquisition in Nasarawa State, commended the Commission for the central role it has played in promoting digital awareness and skills across the country, and pleaded that Nasarawa State should be given more opportunities to  benefit from NCC’s social investments and other digital economy-focused interventions, being the closest State to the Federal Capital Territory, the base of the Commission.

“The purpose of our visit is to seek collaboration with the NCC in whatever ways possible, especially in the areas of scholarship, and ICT skills and literacy for our people. The ICT is, today, the engine room of global economy and we do not want to lag in this new digital order, hence, our decision to seek collaboration with organisations in the ICT space such as yours to work which, especially because you are contiguous to our State,” Yahya, the NSSB Executive Secretary said.

Other members of the delegation, including Senior Special Assistant to Nasarawa State Governor on Information and Communication Technology, Haruna Sani; and the President, Nasarawa State Students Association, Sani Jibrin, spoke in favour of a greater collaboration with the NCC which would add the needed impetus to the current efforts by the state government to leverage ICT for economic development.

L-R: JohnMichaels Mbanefo, Head, Media and Publicity, National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD); Soji Adewale, Director, Planning, Research and Statistics, NCPWD; Usman Malah, Director, Human Capital and Administration, NCC; James Lalu, Executive Secretary, NCPWD; Hafsat Lawal, Head, Human Capital, NCC and Mohammed Baba, Director, Accessibility, NCPWD during a courtesy visit by the NCPWD Management to NCC in Abuja recently.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has deployed 84 assistive Information Technology projects at different locations in Nigeria to support people with special needs while supporting policies that enable disadvantaged members of the society to live a more qualitative life.

“The E-Accessibility project seeks to meet the ICT needs of persons living with disabilities in Nigeria by providing ICT tools, assistive technologies, training, and Internet provision in the identified locations. Between 2012 to 2020, the NCC has deployed the E-Accessibility Projects in, at least, 84 locations nationwide.”

The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, disclosed this during a courtesy visit by a delegation from National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) to the NCC over the weekend in Abuja, where the EVC also restated NCC’s commitment to continually support people with special needs across the country.

Danbatta, while receiving the NCPWD team led by its Executive Secretary, James Lalu, said the telecom regulator has always implemented initiatives aimed at ensuring digital inclusivity for all Nigerians regardless of their circumstances.

Represented by the Director, Human Capital and Administration at NCC, Usman Malah, the EVC said telecoms sector has become the backbone of the national economy and has recorded tremendous growth from 400,000 telephone lines on the eve of sectoral deregulation in 2000 to over 208 million active telephone lines now, just as active Internet subscription rose to 156 million in the last two decades.

The EVC stated that the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Industry’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) currently stands at 18.44 per cent, going by the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) as at the second quarter of 2022. Additionally, Danbatta said that NCC has continue to ensure quality of service delivery to the consumers and digital inclusion for all.

Accordingly, Danbatta said the NCC recognises and aligns with the noble objectives behind the establishment of NCPWD as enabled by the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act of 2018.

The NCC Chief Executive stated that in addition to implementing the five per cent inclusiveness of persons with disabilities in NCC’s staffing efforts in accordance with the law, the telecom regulator, through the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), has executed many projects within the framework of its E-Accessibility Programme in last 10 years that targets the challenged members of the society.

“In other words, the project provides ICT tools and Assistive Technologies (ATs) to the blind, the deaf, dumb, crippled, cognitively impaired, and other categories of people living with disabilities. As disadvantaged members of society, the project is designed to assist in improving the quality of life of people living with disability,” he said.

In his remarks, the NCPWD’s Executive Secretary, Lalu, said the purpose of the agency’s visit was to keep the NCC management abreast of its mandates and activities, and to seek greater collaborations with NCC for the benefits of estimated 35.5 million persons with disabilities in Nigeria.

He commended the NCC for the “wonderful work it has been doing through various projects in support of people with disabilities in the country.” Lalu slso appealed to the NCC to help in creating awareness among telecoms service providers to comply with the legal requirement to dedicate five per cent of their employment quota to persons with disabilities. He said this category of Nigerians are ‘smart, professional and intelligent’ and can make significant contribution to the growth of the respective organizations employing them, despite their disabilities.

“What we want to achieve is to make Nigeria a country that is comfortable for PLWD by ending discrimination and providing adequate reporting system and we have seen NCC as a strategic and important partner in this journey,” Lalu said.

The NCPWD was established, pursuant to section 31 of the Discrimination Against Persons with Disability (Prohibition) Act 2018, to promote, protect and prioritise the rights of persons with disabilities, and to further enhance their productivity through education, health, and other socio-economic activities and programmes.

L-R: Mr. Rasaaq Salami, Deputy Director at the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) presenting the NCC Award to Mrs. Nnenna Ukoha of NCC at the Business Journal Newspaper Public Presentation ceremony in Lagos recently. Salami represented the CFI/CEO of NAICOM while Ukoha represented the EVC/CEO of NCC at the event.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Professor Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice-Chairman/CEO of NCC were honoured with awards at the recent public presentation of Business Journal Newspaper in Lagos.

While the NCC received the award of ‘The Most Media-Friendly Regulator of the Decade’ in appreciation of its legendary support for the media in Nigeria, Danbatta was honoured as the ‘Telecom Development Man of the Decade’ as a recognition of his giant strides in telecom development in the country.

Commenting on the development, Prince Cookey, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Business Journal said:

“The NCC remains one of the most media-friendly regulators in Nigeria today. Over the years, the Commission has impacted positively on media professionals in terms of recognition, business support and capacity building. More importantly, the Commission recognises the key importance of the media in all of its programmes and strives as much as possible to carry members of the media along. We remain indebted to the Management of NCC for such deep support running from one administration to another.”