Women in IT - Florence Seriki

Have you ever heard of Omatek Computers Limited? It is an indigenous Nigerian-based company, one of the first companies to locally assemble notebooks and laptops in Africa. It was founded by one of Africa's very own women, Engr. Mrs. Florence. O. Seriki in 1986 and she's our WCW in IT for today.

  Mrs. Seriki holds a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University and a Master's degree in Business Administration from Lagos Business School. Her foray into programming however began early in her career as a chemical engineer. As a result of obtaining poor results when running a set of simulations using old FORTRAN software, she was faced with the task of learning a new mathematical modelling language to complete the task which she did learn.

   During her NYSC service year, she created a demand for her computer training skills when she took up teaching some directors in the company where she worked how to use the computers that "just decorated their tables" and this lead her to set up a company to provide training on the use of computers to executives within the banking and oil sectors. That company branched out to supply of branded computers to banks and multinational companies and eventually it grew into a company that handled full assembly of computers and accessories.

   Today, 30 years later, Omatek is still a widely known indigenous brand holding an enviable market share in the production and assembly of computers as well as related accessories. In fact, Omatek is known to own the first completely knocked down computer factories in Nigeria and Ghana and has been recognized as the Best Systems Builder Partner by Microsoft for East, West and Central Africa.

   Mrs Seriki has received so many accolades for her innovation in the IT industry and her contributions towards the improvement of IT awareness in Nigeria. She is recognized today for seeing where a need was glaring and making moves to fill in that gap and for that reason we have made her a part of our list of women in IT and hope that the younger generations learn from her.

Tech Tip Tuesday - Using Less Data On Your Smartphone 2

   Last week, we started the using "less data on your smartphone" series. Did anyone try out that tip? Did it work for you? If it did then here's another tip for you and even if it didn't, you might find this new tip more useful.

TIP 2:

• Use a browser with data saving tools e.g Google Chrome.

Reason: Since you have likely moved all your social media activities to your web browser you need to keep check that those sites do not consume so much data. Using a data saver on your browser enables you to do just that. The changes in data usage might not seem significant over a short period of time but it's worthwhile the long run.

The only disadvantage is that pages accessed using private connection (HTTPS) or pages in Incognito tabs will not be optimized. Other than that, it's a pretty good feature to think about using.
Would you be trying out this tip? Let us know through the comment box. Till next week Tuesday. Have a nice week ahead.

More Privacy on Facebook - How?

   Privacy on Facebook has become a source of constant fear in this our era of ever revolving technology. So how do you prevent unwanted exposure of whatever stuff you post on your Facebook page? The answer is quite simple and within plain sight. It lies in the use of a key feature of Facebook, the Facebook Lists. With the Facebook lists you can choose what friends you want to keep close and those acquaintances you want to keep less close.

  Apart from being picky about who you chose to accept as a friend on Facebook, you also have the option of classifying friends as acquaintances. How do you access this feature? Whenever you open up a friends profile on the desktop web version, click on the "Friends" button in their header image. On the iOS and Android mobile app versions, tap the "Friends" button on their profile and then tap "Edit Friend List".

Source: Yahoo.com

Once you have done this it will be easier to leave those acquaintances out of some posts. You can do that by selecting who views what you post using the the "Who can view this?" button feature and selecting the "Friends except acquaintances" option.

Source: Yahoo.com

   In the mobile Android or iOS app you can do this by selecting "Friends except Acquaintances" from the "Audience Selector" menu below every update, then selecting Done and Post.

   Using this feature will enable you to control who sees what on your Facebook  page and as such you get more privacy.

 

Steve Jobs - 5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Him

   I-phone, I-pad, macbook, these are all devices we hear of and probably use. You are even likely to be accessing this web page on one of these devices. They are all produced under a company named Apple Incorporation founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Today though we are talking about Steve Jobs. Apart from being a co-founder of Apple Incorporation what else is there to know about this man who even in his death left a legacy behind?

• He was an adopted kid: His biological mother (Joanne Schieble Simpson) was pregnant with him for a man (Abdulfattah Jandali) who her parents refused to allow her have anything to do with him likely because of his Middle Eastern Heritage and thus she couldn't get married to him. So she had the baby(Steve) and put him up for adoption to a wealthy Catholic couple who later changed their mind. Eventually he got adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a blue collar couple who lived in the Bay Area.
• He dropped out of college: Unlike most other famous technopreneurs who dropped out of college as a result of not seeing the usefulness of spending more time there, Steve Jobs dropped out because he didn't want to waste his parents money and took an auditing and calligraphy classes which helped him later on in the development of the various typefaces that the Apple Macbook makes use of.
• He had other business ventures apart from Apple: After he resigned from Apple a first time because of internal political issues, he founded NeXt Incorporation which created the first interpersonal computer. They also released WebObjects, a framework for web application development. He was also a member on the board of Disney Pixar.
• He didn't ever code: When Apple is mentioned, Steve Jobs is usually thought of as an inventor but this was not the case as revealed by his co-founder Steve Wozniak who said, "Steve didn't ever code. He wasn't an engineer and didn't do any original design. In fact an employee noted that Wozniak was the innovator or inventor while Steve Jobs was the marketing person.
• He has been the subject of a number of films and books: The most popular of them all is the 2015 American biographical drama film, Steve Jobs, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin.

Then and Now - Telephones

Then

Then: Various Telephones
Photo Credit: Google Images.

Now:

Now: Mobile Telephones
Photo Credit: Google Images.

Women in IT - Laura Gomez

Who is she?
Laura Gomez is a Latina woman who is listed in Glamour's 35 women under 35 changing the Tech Industry for her outstanding performance in the tech industry. She worked at Twitter where she managed Twitter en Espanol and was a founding member of their international team. The team was responsible for managing the social network to 28 languages. She also worked at Jawbone where she played a similar role.

What has she done?
She now has her own company, named Vyv, which according to their AngelList profile "is a content discovery platform powered by user-centric technologies which validate the accuracy of breaking news, surface diverse and relevant perspectives from around the web and create a radical way for content creators to monetize their work". Users will publish content and get paid for it according to its popularity using Bitcoin, a virtual currency.

She's proud of being active and trying to make sure that the gap between technology and public policy is bridged.

Laura I Gomez.
Photo Credit: Google Images.

Tech Tip Tuesday- Using less data on your Smartphone 1

We all know that in Nigeria, purchasing data bundles on our phones is something we usually budget for. Even though the prices of purchasing data bundles are still dropping every day due to competition in the industry, it is still not as low as most of us will want.
So till it drops lower, how do we avoid spending a fortune on our data subscription service?

TIP 1:

• Instead of using the mobile apps like Facebook for example, opt for using the mobile websites.

Reason? Those mobile apps use a lot of data to update in the background.
Other benefits? It also ensures you can log in and log out whenever you need to use your account thus allowing you to have control over how much time you spend on your accounts.

Want to learn more tips like this on using less data on your smartphones? We'll be back next week Tuesday so till then apply this tip and tell us how well it works for you.