Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Mr. Femi Adesina; Spokesperson of Department of State Security Service (DSS), Dr. Peter Afunanya and Media Aide to Justice Minister, Dr. Gwandu, were among the recipients celebrated at the annual ‘Security and Emergency Management Awards’ (SAEMA); and Spokespersons Communication Awards’ (SCA).

The dual events took place at the Nicon Luxury Hotel in Abuja.

Adesina who was Chairman of the Occasion was surprised when he was conferred with an award on Strategic Communication as a Distinguish Fellow of SCA.

President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, NIPR, Mallam Mukhtar Sirajo, in a keynote address, while decrying worsening insecurity in the country, highlighted the importance of strategic communication as a panacea for mitigating all kinds of socio-ethnic tensions.

Sirajo recalled how their Institute recently deployed strategic communication as a tool for enhancing national integration in the contemporary Nigerian State, which he said is divided.

The summit was held in various states of the federations on a regional basis.

The NIPR boss, observed that their ‘Citizens Summit on National Peace, Security and Integration, which was held across the six geo-political zones a few months ago, brought Nigerians from different works of life to harness their diversity for the collective good of all.

“What the SAEMA and SCA convener, Mal. Yushau Shuaib of PRNigeria is doing by annually organizing these auspicious events, is part of the strategic communication needed to re-set Nigeria,” said Sirajo.

In his remark, Adesina, Chairman of the Occasion, lauded Mal. Shuaib for consistently providing the general public with authoritative and factual information on security-related issues and matters.

“PRNigeria is my go-to on insurgency and banditry reports. It is one news medium which many people do not doubt its reportage on security issues,” said the presidential spokesman.

Adesina, while speaking further, lamented that majority of Nigerians prefer negative reports about setbacks suffered by military and security agencies against terrorists, bandits and other criminals.

He said: “You that spread the good news about the success story of our troops become the butt of their jokes and their enemy”.

The Director of Defence Information, Major General Jimmy Akpor commended the PRNigeria for hosting the annual awards on security and communication.

“In the military, we trust the credibility and the independent editorial of PRNigeria as it reports activities in the sectors with fairness, accuracy and facts that also protect our national security and interest,” Gen Akpor added.

While welcoming guests to the ceremony, Shuaib, who also is the Publisher of PRNigeria and Economic Confidential, said that their SAEMA has so much become a household name among security agencies, stakeholders and experts “that we received 145 entries this year, out of which we had to work round the clock to come up with two finalists for each of the categories.

He said: “Let me however at this point make it known that all the finalists are thoroughly deserving of not only the nomination but also the awards. It was therefore a lot of work, via a transparent process, before our team of unbiased experts and professionals could select the eventual winners who will go home with the award plaques”.

Like every year, he noted that, some winners of their last year SAEMA and SCA events also conquered Africa and the world.

“Three of our last year winners did not only win awards at the Africa Public Relations Association (APRA) ceremony in Tanzania but they also emerged finalists at the Golden World Award of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) scheduled to take place in Japan where the book “101 Fake News on EndSARS” emerged a winner.

“At the Digital Communication Awards (DCA) in Germany, NITDA was also shortlisted among the finalists with another award-winning book “Digital Innovation for Economic Prosperity.” All these came a year after IMPR was declared the most creative PR Agency in the world (2020),” said Shuaib.

The 2nd SAEMA and SCA events were hosted in collaboration with the Centre for Crisis Communication, CCC, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, the International Emergency Management Society, TIEMS, and The Media Today, TMT.

The SAEMA recognizes outstanding gallantry, and contributions to safety, security and Emergency Management in Nigeria, while the SCA recognizes the most outstanding public relations campaigns and communications strategies by professionals, groups and institutions.

Individuals honoured at the awards ceremony included Femi Babafemi of NDLEA as the Spokesperson of the Year; Dr. Umar Gwandu of Justice Ministry for Public Affairs; Dr. Peter Afunanya of the Department of State Services, DSS, for Crisis Communication; Lt. Col. Ishaya Aliyu for Gallantry; Air Comdr Edward Gabkwet for Crisis Management, Ismail Omipidan for Media Relations, ACP Daniel Amah as the Security Officer of the Year, and Mal. Ibrahim Salim Umar of Daily Trust as Humanitarian Journalist of the Year among others.

The institutional award recipients included the Kaduna NIPR Chapter for Event Management; Lagos NIPR Chapter for Best Chapter of the Year; Nigeria Police Public Relations School for Knowledge Hub; NITDA for Social Media; NIMC for Corporate Reputation Management; EFCC for Cybercrime Prevention; ICPS for Public Information; DIA for Intelligence and Safety, NCS for Training, NSCDC for Emergency Management, NCoS for Community Service, CISA for Volunteers among others.

Other recipients included Nigerian Immigration Service, Nigerian Navy, Reignite Public Affairs, NCC, CAC, Central Bank of Nigeria, Samuel Adeyemi of NIPR Lagos, Uba Misili of Gombe State and Prof Emmanuel Dandaura.

Meanwhile, a group of students from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria were honoured with the Young Communicators Awards.

Other dignitaries at the occasion included Major General Chris Olukolade as Military Spokesperson, Brig Gen Sanu Usman Kukasheka as Army Spokesperson, Air Comdr Anas Yusuf Retired of Centre for Crisis Communication, Dr Sule Yau Sule Chairman of the Jury Panel, Mal Ismail Sani of Wonderland Television among others

By PRNigeria

The post SAEMA-SCA 2022: Presidential Spokesperson, NITDA, NCC, NIMC Bag Security and Communications Awards appeared first on Tech Digest News.

Waste management is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. Humans produce millions of tons of waste, which is, increasingly, becoming a major global problem.
By 2050, global waste is expected to reach four billion metric tons. According to Statista, worldwide municipal solid waste generation is projected to have increased by roughly 70 per cent to 3.4 billion metric tons within the same period.

This upsurge in global waste is attributed to several factors, including population growth, urbanisation, economic progress, as well as the rise in consumer culture or consumer shopping habits.

The annual global cost of necessary solid waste management is predicted to rise from the current $205 billion to $375 billion, with the cost increasing most severely for those cities in low-income countries, according to the World Bank.

With such massive volumes of waste arising and the attendant cost of managing these, the need for reliable waste collection, treatment, and disposal services has become more important.

As waste generation continues to increase massively around the world, it is creating serious health, safety, and environmental consequences.

To reduce the effect of this burden on the environment and climate challenge, communities are turning to smart waste management technologies and solutions.

Every day, new technology is emerging to change the way we do things. These advances in technology are also bringing many new ways of innovating the waste management sector.
Considering that the smart waste management market is expected to be worth $3.14 billion by 2023, technology and innovative solutions are converting “one man’s trash into another’s treasure.”

Smart waste management refers to any system that uses technology to make trash collection and disposal more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly. It is an important aspect of smart city development.

Technology is innovating the waste management industry in many ways. It is turning waste into energy, creating new ways to recycle precious metals, spurring advances in route efficiency, as well as the evolution of new collection and disposal technologies.
OkwuEco, Waste Bazaar, GIVO, Recyclepoints, Scrapays, Pakam Nigeria, Wecyclers, and Chanja Datti are some of the Nigerian companies tackling waste management using digital technology.

Innovative technologies used in waste management include smart waste bins, waste level sensors, AI recycling/waste sorting robots, garbage truck weighing mechanisms, solar-powered trash compactors, and pneumatic waste pipes.

Others are e-waste kiosks, recycling apps, smart fleets, and modern landfills powered by technologies that ensure environmental safety and sustainability.

Most of these systems are equipped with the Internet of Things (IoT), a monitoring technology that collects and tracks real-time data to help optimise waste collection and disposal.

Smart waste bins use artificial intelligence-based object recognition to automatically sort recyclables into separate compartments. The process reduces human error and helps to lower waste management costs, while also improving employee efficiency.

Waste level sensors installed in bins or dumpsters of any size collect and store data on fill levels and help prevent public containers from overflowing and littering the surrounding environment.

The problem of a dwindling workforce as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is being addressed with the use of AI recycling robots. These robots accurately identify and sort recyclable materials and reduce the need for human workers.

Cities can use the garbage truck weighing technology installed in garbage trucks to accurately predict fill levels and cut down collection trips. Through this mechanism, cities and companies would know how often they need to send their trucks to evacuate trash.
Solar-powered trash compactors are employed to increase bin capacity, collection efficiency and reduce trips to the dump. These machines compress trash as it accumulates, thereby holding up to five times more than traditional trash bins.

Recycling applications/platforms and e-waste kiosks are other innovations that technology has increased their efficiencies, reduced their costs, and created new opportunities for in the waste management industry.

Fascinate Technologies was among the nine Nigerian startups that the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) unveiled at the GITEX 2021 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The startup plans to introduce smart waste bins to solve environmental pollution and prevent the spread of diseases in the communities.

Another startup, Trashpays serves as an online trash trading and recycling market hub, where trash collectors, trash recyclers, and manufacturing industries cohabit in an online market to trade in trash and recycled products.

The need to build technological solutions to transform waste deposits into a profitable resource cannot be over-stressed.

Indeed, an enabling environment for digital innovation to thrive in the waste management sector would strengthen engagement among entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, government authorities to improve the system.

Stakeholders in the extractive, manufacturing, and fast-moving consumer goods industries need to create more waste-to-wealth initiatives to convert landfill waste into limitless resources.

Inyene Ibanga is Managing Editor, TechDigest and writes from Wuye District, Abuja; email: inyeneibanga@yahoo.com

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A Nigerian Robotic Engineer, Dr. Olusola Ayoola has developed a Carbon Emission Tracker (CET) Drone for aerial surveillance in detecting hideouts of criminals within caves and forest areas.

in an exclusive interview with the TechDigest.ng, Dr. Ayoola who is the founder of Robotic and Artificial Intelligence Nigeria (RAIN), an indigenous Artificial Intelligence firm based in Ibadan, Oyo State revealed that criminal elements hiding in caves and forested areas cannot escape the innovative capability of drone surveillance offered by the Carbon Emission Tracker Drone (CETD).

Excerpts:
TechDigest: Can you give us your brief profile?
Dr. Ayoola: I studied in Nigeria at the University of Ibadan, gained a first-class in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. I was granted a scholarship by the Nigerian Government to the UK where I achieved a distinction in my Master’s degree. I also gained another scholarship by the UK government to bag a doctorate degree in Robotics for Extreme Environments at the University of Manchester. I returned to Nigeria after working with a Robotics firm to address some of UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning challenges. My mission was to set up the first-of-a-kind robotics and artificial intelligence facility in Nigeria that provides structured learning, certifications, research, and product development for various sectors. And we are doing just that. The facility has grown very well with private funding. A lot more can be achieved if supported. But with what we have put on the ground, we are fast-breaking barriers.

TechDigest: Give us details about the Carbon Emission Tracker Drone you have invented?
Dr. Ayoola: The carbon emission tracker drone is a trailblazer in the sense that it beats several challenges faced in the concept of drone surveillance. First of all, we must agree that there is a great challenge of security in our part of the world. This insecurity has been narrowed down to the difficulty in detecting or accessing hideouts of criminal elements. With the use of drone-based aerial surveillance, one could attempt to obtain video feeds from the skies which help track the movement or activities of criminals in game reserves. How about when these footpaths lead into a cave, or a forested canopy, or an underground tunnel? What can a military-grade drone-based camera see? There goes the challenge of geospatial intelligence gathering. Also, note the challenge of military-grade cameras. They take ages to import. They weigh a lot on the drone and subsequently tell on the flight time. After being challenged by the Minister of Youths and Sports who visited RAIN in 2020, researchers began to look into how to beat these limitations. We discovered the Carbon Emission Detection Based Aerial Surveillance which allows a drone to sniff out hideouts through the carbon their activities emit. As long as human life exists in a forested location, there must be carbon emission, be it under a cave, under a canopy or inside a bunker.

TechDigest: Have you or your firm participated in Innovation Challenges?
Dr. Ayoola: We are a very focused research organization solving real problems. We do not seek to compete just for the sake of showcasing capabilities, gaining medals, and financial prizes. However, we will not discourage our trainees from doing so. Yes, some have participated and won severally in their individual capacity. We have methods we adopt to validating our solutions prior to patenting. So we have to be very careful in this regard.

TechDigest: What are the unique/major features of your invention – Carbon Emission Detection Tracker Drone? How long can it stay in the air? What’s the battery lifespan?
Dr Ayoola: Unfortunately, I will not be able to divulge technical details of the capability of the solution we have developed. As you will agree, security is a major challenge here and all the advantage we can render to the architecture we will, including the confidentiality of Technical Intelligence (Techint). Once we begin to disclose, this becomes a weakness. However, the assurance I can give is that whatever solution we provide will be complementary to the existing capacity of any end-user.

TechDigest: How will the Carbon Emission Tracker Drone benefit Nigerians, especially the security agencies?
Dr. Ayoola: The benefit is huge. Take for example the issue of kidnappings. There has to be a solution in sight. This novel solution comes with a barrage of many other possibilities and insights into how we can bring back security to our dear nation and other countries in Africa. We cannot overemphasize the role of geospatial intelligence. I have always maintained that wherever government cannot be physically present, the government’s intelligence must always be. We have huge game reserves all scattered across the nation. Even Sambisa forest used to be one. With this new technology, we can quickly scan the entirety of our game reserves to generate a real map of which spots of these hitherto assumed uninhabited forests have suddenly spiked up in human activities. If this is an indication of a criminal enclave rapidly developing across the country, then it helps us nip the growth in the bud before it becomes another combative force.

TechDigest: Has your Carbon Emission Tracker Drone been assessed by any Nigeria by regulatory agencies, particularly NITDA?
Dr. Ayoola: There hasn’t been any contact from NITDA regarding this solution. However, the awareness of this solution has been passed across to all relevant national agencies. Some have made enquiries and are studying this technology already.

TechDigest: Have you made efforts to reach out to any security agency for testing and deployment or are you having any difficulty?
Dr. Ayoola: I do not think there is any difficulty in that regard. To the best of my knowledge, the current crop of leaders at the helm of affairs of our national security agencies have put all cards on the table and are open to all possible solutions.

TechDigest: Please explain the kind of support you need from the federal government?
Dr. Ayoola: I will need the federal government to weigh in on the capability of RAIN, I mean Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Nigeria. We need to expand physically, financially and technically. We do not have all the resources which our counterparts in the USA and China have. If the government decide to fund RAIN I do not see how Nigeria won’t overtake many countries. Sometimes all you need is willing followership, for good leaders to thrive. At RAIN we have the best crop of youths who have dedicated themselves and their talents to finding solutions to national problems.

TechDigest: Can you mention some of your inventions?
Dr. Ayoola: We have invented solutions for the management of the energy sector. We have developed a modular traffic light system, that meaning that for the first time in our country, we can have traffic lights for road users that are manageable and can work. We have invented artificial vision for the blind. We have also developed for personal security, a wireless perimeter fencing for private homes and for soldiers at the war front to save them from ambush. These are to mention a few of what RAIN brings to the table. The least we expect from government is direct funding through grants, not loans. It is possible. We can get there if we reach the right office.

TechDigest: Some people are saying that partnerships with indigenous technology firms would be beneficial. What do you think about that suggestion?
Dr. Ayoola: Partnerships are always great. But collaboration is greater. There is a thin line between the two and we must be fully aware of the distinction. Away from the semantics, for RAIN, considering the many sectors we provide solutions for, we are better poised to interface with other indigenous firms that have a focus on each of these areas. This we can achieve through collaboration.

Source: Techdigest.ng

The post We Developed CET Drone to Detect Kidnappers, Terrorists’ Hide-Outs- Nigerian Robotic Engineer appeared first on Tech Digest News.