Adenuga, Ovia top list of Legends @ Titans of Tech

Chairman of the Second National Operator (SNO), Globacom, Dr. Mike Adenuga and his counterpart at Visafone Communications Limited, Mr. Jim Ovia, have been touted to be among the four Legends of Technology icons to be unveiled at the forthcoming Titans of Tech in Lagos.

Also listed for the Legends of Technology are Chief Executive officer, Chams Plc, Mr. Demola Aladekomo and his counterpart in Omatek Ventures Plc, Mrs. Florence Seriki.

Organisers of Titans of Tech, informed weekend that these personalities will be inducted into the ICT hall of fame at a gala night slated for April 9, 2009 at Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos where they will be presented with their medals.

Managing Consultant, Titans of Tech, Don Pedro Aganbi, said in Lagos that the award is designed to celebrate hi-tech revolutionaries, trail-blazers, pioneers, men and women of entrepreneurial integrity who are behind the technological wind of change that is blowing across our nation, Nigeria.

“Nigerians remember Adenuga fondly for his timely intervention in the telecommunications arena, where he appears to hold the aces that determine the pace of play. It would be recalled that Globacom’s historic introduction of Per Second Billing and subsequent crashing of SIM price did not only skew the GSM equation in its favour but has continued to hold a lot of implications for the fledgling Nigerian telecommunications sector,” he said.

Noting that today, Globacom has been adjudged the fastest-growing telecoms operations in Africa and the third fastest in the world, with an active subscriber base currently in excess of 20 million, just as the company has operations in Benin Republic and Ghana and is known to be exploring other opportunities across the African continent and beyond.

According to him, Demola Aladekomo is a highly experienced IT practitioner with some of the landmark achievements in the industry associated to him, arising from his visionary capacity in IT. Aladekomo was responsible for the establishment of the first wide area networking on PC in Nigeria.

Additionally, Chams under his leadership was the first company to venture into card technologies in Nigeria and the applauded success story of Valucard is his brainchild.

Under his leadership, Chams, today, has six thriving subsidiaries. With ChamsCity holding the world record for the largest number of PCs in one digital mall at a time and has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records. ChamsCity offers 1000 fully networked PCs in one location that enables processing and activation of a wide range of transactions simultaneously. It is a world class Digital Mall that facilitates transactions in payment, identification, pleasure and large-scale data management. It provides a cashless, innovative and pioneering environment for digital transactions.

On the founder of Visafone, Mr. Jim Ovia, the company that lately revolutionised the face of mobile telephony in Nigeria, connecting 2.5 million subscribers in its first year of operation

Also a co-founder and pioneer Managing Director/CEO, Zenith Bank Plc, Ovia, he said, has been in the vanguard of promotion and propagation of Information and Communication Technology in the country. He is the Chairman of the Nigeria Software Development Initiative (NSDI) and also Chairman, National Information Technology Advisory Committee [NITAC]. He is the proprietor of the proposed University of
Information and Communication Technology, Agbor, Delta State, among others.

For Mrs. Florence Seriki, the organisers said she started out in 1986 as a youth corper with the NNPC, by teaching the Who-is-Who in the financial and oil industry how to type with the computer when it was only the big companies that could acquire it. “She is today the only female among the managing directors of the four companies making Nigeria proud in the area of locally made PCs.

Omatek, which she manages, is the first computer factory in Africa to locally produce completely knocked down casings, completely knocked down speakers and to locally produce home entertainment speakers, ranging from two-in-one speakers to five-in-one With a very large factory at Ojota, Lagos from where she manufactures her products, she has touched every sector for the economy in addition to sharpening the skills of students of tertiary institutions who come for industrial attachments.

The Legends of Tech recognition is an initiative Technology Africa a media firm in 1997 to report issues, trend, innovations and developments in ICT the world over with special focus on Nigeria and the African continent. The Titans of Tech annual lecture/expo, FinanceIT Summit (FITS) and National IT Youth Rally and the ICT merit awards are some of its flagship events.

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