TECHDIGEST – THE UNICCON Group of Companies has launched its first blockchain technology ‘SmartAfri Labs’, to drive the inclusion of Africans and adopt a specialised technology in the region.

The launch held at Uniccon’s Headquarters on Friday in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that SmartAfri Labs is the brain-child of Uniccon Group of Companies; founded in 2018 and developed under the STEM arm of the organisation.

Speaking during the launch, the Chairman of UNICCON Group, Dr Chuks Ekwueme, shared insightful statistics to illustrate the poor inclusion and adoption of the blockchain ecosystem in Africa.

According to him, Africa has less than a 5 per cent stake in the projected $1.1 trillion the industry promises.

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Ekwueme said: “We have created technology and platforms to drive inclusion by up to 25 per cent by the year 2025.

“Our Virtual Reality (VR) headsets for example are more affordable, and will not exclude poor Africans from using the technology. This is inclusion.”

Ekwueme said that blockchain should not be viewed as crypto, adding that the notion should be vacated.

“It is erroneous to view blockchain technology as being crypto. It is much more than that, and that notion should be vacated.

“We have built this platform, which is a fusion of Web 2.0 and 3.0 and we are keen on being key participants in the 4th Idustrial Revolution (4G).

“There is a huge market in our Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace as Nigerians and Africans from the creative and other industries can tap into it to generate wealth and add to the GDP,” he said.

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The General Manager of Uniccon, Mr Kehinde Ake, said that SmartAfri Labs offered exceptional levels of security, transparency, and efficiency.

Ake said that the blockchain would grant users the ability to transfer assets, save data, and carry out smart contracts in a decentralised and fraud-proof network.

“We have created this technology to allow Africans to stand tall, raise their heads, spread their shoulders, and take giant strides in an ecosystem that was once alien to them,” he said.

Mr John Nwobodo, an industry investment analyst spoke about the monumental impact of blockchain technology in a wide variety of industries.

Nwobodo quoted the 2021 World Bank report as saying: “66 per cent of Nigerians are unbanked and the banked are being recycled by existing financial service providers.

“The cost of cross-border remittance is very high and using blockchain can help reduce these numbers, making cross-border remittances cheaper and defying geographical barriers.”

The company’s Chief Technology Officer, Eval Esege, in his presentation ‘SmartAfri Labs’, took the audience on an experiential journey of what it does, how it works, and its many bundled benefit the users.

“SmartAfri Labs was borne out of the need to create a blockchain ecosystem that represents African values and culture.

“We have set up a partnership opportunity available from today to allow those who resonate with our vision to join us on this journey,” he said.

The launch had in attendance representatives from the National Information Technology and Development Agency (NITDA), the Nigerian Computing Society (NCS),the blockchain community and the private sector.

Mr Ekwueme also stated that the novel product, which is the first African blockchain technology consists of SmartAfri Chain (blockchain node), NFT Marketplace (Create and sell NFTs), SmartAfri Verse (Metaverse),

Others are: SmartAfri eMarket (fusion of 2.0 and 3.0) and UNICCON VR(locally made and subsidized headsets).

The project seeks to increase stakes for Africans, encourage more developers to get into the niche and overall, to drive massive inclusion. (NAN) 

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TECHDIGEST – Omeife is a female-looking humanoid robot being developed by the Uniccon Group of Companies programmed to speak Pidgin, Yoruba, English, French, Arabic, Kiswahili, Hausa, Igbo and Afrikaans and the first African humanoid robot.

Omeife was first unveiled on 10 October 2022 at the GITEX technology event at the Dubai World Trade Centre, UAE.

Africa’s first humanoid robot, ‘Omeife’ has been built by a two-year-old Nigerian technology company called Uniccon Group in Abuja, Nigeria.

The 6-feet tall bilingual or can we call it a multi-lingual robot named ‘Omeife’ is a female Igbo figure/character that provides language as a service for businesses needing to integrate native African audiences.

She is also a multipurpose and assistance robot. She speaks African languages and is programmed to have a deep understanding of African culture and behavioural patterns. Took two years to create and actually capable of speaking and understanding eight different languages.

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Omeife also has terrain intelligence, knowing the ground and having stability on the floor, which helps it navigate on non-flat surfaces and maintain good balance. It also has GPS for location and state-management for knowing whether the system is standing, walking, talking and so on as well as Advanced Gestures. It expresses while talking, gives hand illustrations, smiles and makes other bodily gestures.

Boasting a good grip, it has the ability to understand shape and how to hold things with its hand. Conversation wise, it has realtime understanding, can actively listen and focus on a specific conversation thread as it’s happening.

It has the ability to switch languages and interact with specific gestures and possesses native accent, complete with pitch and vocabulary detailed pronunciations of words, sentences and even phrases.

Omeife can also identify and tag humans through face and facial expressions; pay attention to a specific item when required; identify objects and knows their characteristics as well as calculate positions and distance of objects it sees.

The group added that it was built with top social interactive skills as it can pay attention to a specific person to keep conversations alive, is polite, careful and aware of words, phrases, sentences and expressions that are not polite in African cultures; safe for kids and not reactive; knowledgeable in various fields and always teachable as it has a learning pipeline to always improve and understand new things from conversations and has the ability to recall, understand old concepts better with new information.

Speaking on the Omeife project, Chuks Ekwueme, CEO, Uniccon Group of Companies, said, “Africa is fast being recognized for its contribution to the global tech ecosystem.

“Through Omeife and other projects, we’re happy to play a part in helping businesses and people all over Africa achieve their fullest potential by providing access to the most innovative technologies for efficiency.”

‘Omeife’ is an Igbo word which translates in English to mean ‘doer of things’.

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