Africa Business, Author at AfricaBusiness.com

19Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Burkina Faso: World Bank grant to support regional “center of excellence” serving engineering students from 36 countries

The World Bank’s Board has approved a grant of US$10 million to improve existing training facilities and house more students at the International Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering (2iE) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. As many as 2,500 students will now be enrolled at 2iE by 2015, up from just 650 in 2009. The institute serves as a regional “center of excellence” for students from 36 countries, helping to meet Africa’s need for more engineers in water, energy, environment, and infrastructure. .Notably, 93 percent of new 2iE graduates are employed within six months, showing that their skills are highly in demand and closely matched to market needs. The World Bank, which supports greater competitiveness and employment in African economies, is helping 2iE to become f...

19Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News, Energy, Green Energy

Africa’s Energy Challenge: World Bank Africa Vice President Makhtar Diop

Remarks at the IMF/World Bank 2012 Annual Meetings Event: The Energy Challenge of Africa Good afternoon everybody. I’m very grateful and thankful to the Japanese authorities for organizing this event jointly with the World Bank and for extending their hospitality to all of us here. I would like, in particular, to thank Minister Gemba, who took time out of his very busy schedule to come and open this event. I would like to thank Mayor Hayashi for her presence here, and I look forward to visiting her in Yokohama. I would like to thank JICA―the Japan International Cooperation Agency― the Ministry of Finance and the Minster of Foreign Affairs for organizing this event. I have some remarks, but I just want to, before I go on to my remarks, comment a little bit and react a littl...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News

Dolat Ventures to Target Resource Expansion on Diamond and New Gold Projects in Sierra Leone

NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Dolat Ventures Inc. (OTC: DOLV) a diamond development company focused on West Africa, is pleased to announce its plans to initiate its diamond mining and has its target on new gold resource as part of its diamond project in Sierra Leone. Following new in soil surveys of new targets which comprised hundreds of over soil samples, an area has been identified returning elevated gold values with a potential kilo output of up to 7 kilos of gold in a target area which is 10 kilometers from the diamond mining operation. The Company's focus is set to coincide with the best months of the mining season, December through July, in Sierra Leone. For the diamond operation the Company intends to complete building its 100 ton/hour wash plant and acquire...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News

Easymeeting.net Reports Solid Global Growth & Useage For Its Video Conferencing Services

Easymeeting.net reports a 57% increase in video conferencing participation in the 3rd quarter and 9000 video conferencing calls in September alone for its video conferencing services. OSLO, Norway and MYSTIC, Conn., Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Easymeeting.net reports a 57% increase in video conferencing participation via traditional video conferencing hardware systems during the third quarter of 2012. Easymeeting.net also reports a 37% increase in the number of video meetings via the easymeeting.net cloud service easyConference. Easymeeting.net also noted increases in the number of searchable video conferencing systems in the easymeeting.net catalog and easyNumbers during the 3rd quarter alone. In September the easymeeting.net EMEA platform registered more than ...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News, South Africa News

New Hedge Fund Software Expands into the South African Market

TORONTO, Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Canadian software vendor SGGG Portfolio Systems, SynOps Investment Operations and Deutsche Securities Johannesburg today announced the successful implementation of the SGGG Portfolio System across Deutsche's hedge fund client base in South Africa. Graeme Lappin Director of SynOps commented, "The SGGG system is ideal for the South African hedge fund industry. It is a front office portfolio management tool that integrates the trading, operations and management functions across the company, simply yet extremely effectively. The software has been designed specifically for hedge funds and small to medium sized asset managers, and is available with a highly attractive pricing and licensing structure. SGGG Portfolio Systems and SynOps have a partner...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News

Noble Energy Announces Trema Exploration Results Offshore Cameroon

HOUSTON, Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NBL) today announced that the Trema exploration well in the Tilapia license offshore Cameroon reached its target objective and encountered reservoir-quality sandstones that were water-bearing. The well is currently being plugged and abandoned. The Company's total cost of the Trema well is estimated at $35 million of which $20 million will be expensed in the third quarter of 2012 and the remainder in the fourth quarter. Noble Energy operated the well with a 50 percent participation interest in the license. Noble Energy is a leading independent energy company engaged in worldwide oil and gas exploration and production. The Company has core operations onshore in the U.S., primarily in the DJ Basin and Marcellus ...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News, South Sudan

TPRF Grant to Bring New Water Sources in South Sudan

Wells to end long treks for often contaminated supplies LOS ANGELES, Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A grant of US$10,000 from The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) will help build new wells for up to 250 families in the Equatorial and Bahral Ghazal areas of South Sudan, Africa. The donation goes to Water for South Sudan, Inc. (WFSS) to help construct wells during the approaching dry season in highly populated areas associated with government-sponsored repatriation settlements south and southeast of the city of Wau. These are the areas where Sudanese returning to their homeland after fleeing conflict are temporarily housed. "For their very survival, many South Sudanese have had to drink unsanitary water that they had to walk hours to acquire," says Linda Pascotto, TPRF pres...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News

Emerging Oil & Gas Exploration Markets in Africa, 2012 – Industry Analysis, Latest Developments and Competitive Landscape

NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue: Emerging Oil & Gas Exploration Markets in Africa, 2012 - Industry Analysis, Latest Developments and Competitive Landscape http://www.reportlinker.com/p01012974/Emerging-Oil--Gas-Exploration-Markets-in-Africa-2012---Industry-Analysis-Latest-Developments-and-Competitive-Landscape.html#utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=Oil_and_Gas_energy Emerging Oil & Gas Exploration Markets in Africa, 2012 - Industry Analysis, Latest Developments and Competitive Landscape Summary "Emerging Oil & Gas Exploration Markets in Africa, 2012 - Industry Analysis, Latest Developments and Competitive Landscape", is the latest report from Gl...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Energy, Green Energy

Neptune Wave Power Gets Positive Results Testing Latest Buoy

Tests Reveal Consistent and Verifiable Power Generation Portsmouth, NH, October 18, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Neptune Wave Power, LLC has been running tests on Model 3.1 of their Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) device within the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Ocean Renewable Energy (‘CORE’) – with great results. The tests have proven the viability of Neptune’s technology in a repeatable manner – for the first time. “Our goal is to deliver energy by creating the most robust, maintainable, and economic system possible,” said Steve Hench, Chief Scientist at Neptune Wave Power. “We are optimizing energy extraction from ocean waves through a tunable system that reacts to a wide range of sea states. The tests have been very positive.” Model 3.1 has definitively proven that Neptune’s tec...

18Oct

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News

“The Small Cells Market to Reach $233.7m in 2012” Says Visiongain Report

Visiongain’s analysis indicates that the total value of the global small cells market will reach $233.7 million in 2012, with an ever increasing proliferation of mobile broadband, the small cells market is poised for growth for vendors and solution providers as there is a huge uptake both from the consumer market, enterprise sector and the mobile operators, driven by limited spectrum and capacity constraints. London, United Kingdom, October 18, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Following the widespread growth of smartphones and other portable connected devices in recent years, there has been a huge expansion in mobile data consumption. One of the key issues for MNO’s has been to address this increasing data traffic demand with sufficient capacity at high speeds. Due to limited spectrum availa...