Friday, November 22African Digital Business Magazine

Tag: Challenges

African News, South Africa News

Never leave customer experience to chance – CEM Africa Summit kicks off next week in the Mother City!

  Never leave customer experience to chance - CEM Africa Summit (Microsoft Word) The anticipated Customer Experience Management Africa Summit will be held in Cape Town from 2 to 3 August 2012. The event will bring together Africa’s industry leaders, and provide a unique platform to build relationships, share ideas and most importantly, to do business. The summit is produced by international business-to-business conferencing company, Kinetic Events. As contact centres have become more complex and customers more demanding, your customer-facing employees, regardless of experience or knowledge, are expected to deliver personalised, positive experiences in every customer interaction. Yet complex processes, silos of knowledge, multiple communication channels and a host of disparate, di...
African News

IBM To Boost Technical Skills In Mauritius

  New programs to help develop technical talent in the Indian Ocean Island Region PORT LOUIS, Mauritius, July 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced a collaboration agreement with the University of Mauritius to help meet the demand for Computer Science skills in the Indian Ocean island region. The joint academic initiative will provide technology and training resources while boosting support for computer science professionals at the University. In tandem, IBM also launched a Mauritian technical skills training pilot initiative for IT specialists, which will be rolled out to nine other African countries. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO) As part of the agreement with the University of Mauritius, IBM will provide access to the latest open...
Science

New Study Finds Greatly Elevated HIV Infection Rates Among Young Black Gay and Bisexual Men in the U.S.

  RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., July 23, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Study results released today by the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) show disturbing  rates of new HIV infections occurring among black gay and bisexual men in the U.S. (also known as men who have sex with men, or MSM), particularly young black MSM. The HPTN 061 study showed that the overall rate of new HIV infection among black MSM in this study was 2.8% per year, a rate that is nearly 50% higher than in white MSM in the U.S. Even more alarming, HPTN 061 found that young black MSM—those 30 years of age and younger—acquired HIV infection at a rate of 5.9% per year, three times the rate among U.S. white MSM. The overall infection rate among black MSM in this U.S study is comparable to the rate seen in the gen...
African News, Nigeria News

Kola Aluko Hails $4.5 Billion Deal for New Refineries

  LONDON, July 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Nigerian government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with US firm Vulcan Petroleum Resources and Nigeria's Petroleum Refining and Strategic Reserve to build six new oil refineries in a deal worth $4.5 billion. Two of the plants, each of which will have a capacity of 30,000 barrels per day, are set to be operational within a year. Nigeria - Africa's top oil producer - has been held back by its lack of refining capacity, which has made it a net importer of processed crude and subject to global price fluctuations. Until recently, a generous fuel subsidy protected consumers from high import prices. Though not yet lifted entirely, six months ago President Goodluck Jonathan announced that this support was no longer affordable. Fund...
Science

75% of People Have Received an Email or Had Information Sent to Them by Mistake Says Independent Data and Information Security Survey

  SC Magazine’s latest survey produced in partnership with Egress Software Technologies raises major concerns about how organisations are sharing sensitive information. London, United Kingdom, July 19, 2012 --(PR.com)-- A recent survey carried out by SC Magazine and Egress Software Technologies designed to look at the challenges surrounding the security used by organisations to share sensitive information with third parties has uncovered some startling results. At a time when fines from the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) for data breaches are on the increase (http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/latest_news/2012.aspx), the correct systems simply aren't in place to ensure security standards are met. The survey showed that; 94.5% of those surveyed thought that data security system...
African News, Algeria News, Egypt News, Ethiopia News, Mauritius News, Nigeria News, South Africa News, Zambia News

Africa to gear up for more meaningful engagement with China

  The partnership with China should aim to boost Africa's overall capacity, competitiveness and trade in a way that supports African development. African nations must use the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to complement the continent's regional institutions and policy agenda. This is according to a report by Standard Bank Group economists Jeremy Stevens and Simon Freemantle ahead of the fifth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, China, that starts on 19 July 2012. Jeremy Stevens, Standard Bank Group's Beijing-based economist, says that the summit comes at a time when China is distracted by domestic economic challenges and political matters. Meanwhile Africa is now even more reliant on China, in particular Chinese demand for African commodity exports, but even ...
Republic of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

World Cocoa Foundation and First Lady of Cote d’Ivoire Partner to Improve Cocoa Communities

  Agreement Provides for Social and Economic Support [19-July-2012] WASHINGTON, July 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — The World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and the office of Dominique Ouattara, first lady of Cote d’Ivoire, announced today an agreement to develop and implement educational and vocational training programs to benefit cocoa farmers and their families in Cote d’Ivoire. The three-year agreement is valued at $3.6 million and will benefit more than 12,000 Ivorians through successful WCF educational programs that are active in the country and in other West African countries. The agreement was signed in a ceremony today in Washington by First Lady Dominique Ouattara and Bill Guyton, president of the World Cocoa Foundation. The collaboration expands access to quality universal basic e...
African News

IN CHINA, AFRICA, UNITED NATIONS WILL CONNECT THOSE WHO FACE CHALLENGES WITH THOSE WHO HAVE SOLUTIONS, SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS AT BEIJING FORUM

  NEW YORK, July 20, 2012/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, in Beijing, 19 July: It is a great honour for me to participate on behalf of the United Nations at this important Forum on China-Africa cooperation. I thank the Government of China and the people for their kind invitation and warm hospitality. I commend the leadership of President Hu Jintao in organizing this forum at this very important time in Beijing. I also thank the Government of Egypt for their contribution and leadership and for co-chairing this Forum during the last several years. As the largest developing country, and as the region with the largest number of developing countrie...
African News

Instant Asset Tracking for Enhanced Security Heightens RFID Usage in Data Centers, Observes Frost & Sullivan

Corporate accountability regulations compel data centers to invest in RFID to maintain and manage their IT assets MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., July 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The growing requirement for faster and more accurate tracking and tracing of IT assets in data centers is prompting data center operators and hosting service providers to increasingly adopt radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. This technology can rapidly locate, identify, and track assets without needing a clear line of sight, thereby reducing manual labor and errors. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.autoid.frost.com), Analysis of RFID in the Data Center Market, finds that the market earned revenues of $96.3 million in 2011 and estimates this to reach $952.6 million in 2017, with the widespread...
African News

Global Investment Management Industry Continues To Face A Regulatory Avalanche Of Disparate Rules: KPMG Report

Progress is Slow, But Moving toward More Consistent Rules across Every Region NEW YORK, July 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- In its fourth annual analysis of global financial regulations, KPMG, the audit, tax and advisory firm, says investment managers continue to face daunting challenges brought on by a changing global regulatory environment, which is fraught with unanswered questions and an array of differing rules in each region. Observers, however, are beginning to see some consistency regarding the implementation of new regulations across the globe, with the U.S. and Europe setting the bar and Asia catching up. "We are beginning to see progress toward more consistency with regard to global regulations but there still remains disparity in the regulatory requirements across the regions," said ...