Category: Featured

  • Three apps for college students to improve writing skills

    Three apps for college students to improve writing skills

    Nowadays, the Internet offers a variety of tools, apps, or simply websites to improve one’s writing skills in terms of grammar structure, lexicon, and syntax. However, even though they may well be easy-to-use, a plethora of students do not benefit from them.

    Excellent writing abilities help to convey the message persuasively and indubitably to an audience, which will form an overall approach of the performer. Aside from that, some of the graduates don’t have time to complete a homework assignment because of job, sports activities, or whatsoever.

    As follows, they usually ask for help from services, specializing in writing. For instance, writingcheap.com, offering a significant correlation between price and quality, is considered to be a top-notch service. Notwithstanding, for college students who have burning ambitions to improve writing skills, the list of the most convenient apps has been designed.

    Grammarly

    This writing tool is suitable for Microsoft Word and Outlook. The aim of this tool is to detect grammatical errors and to provide suggestions for overused words by giving alternative vocabulary. Grammarly is suggested to be the best app for offering various edits, corrections to improve one’s writing skills, or simply to spot minor issues.

    The advantage of this app is that the most basic version one gets for free, yet it is limited in terms of mistakes it catches. The advanced one, however, costs approximately $30 a month. Being superior over the spelling checker by Microsoft, it has several features such as plagiarism checker, word choice suggestions, choosing the audience to adjust the overall readability of the text, and spell-check. This is an excellent app for people regardless of age who is willing to brush up writing skills.

    However, despite the fact that this resource is a superb one, whoever uses it should also think if any suggestions are relevant. It may sometimes happen that Grammarly might spot a mistake, which is considered to be a citation or a slang (that is obliged to be included in the text), that’s why one should keep an eye on showed mistakes.

    Thesaurus.com

    The next beneficial resource that stands after Grammarly is Thesaurus, which can unequivocally advance one’s writing.

    Everyone knows that the toughest part of writing text is finding words that will suit well the writing style as well as the topic. It is a great app that produces a myriad of different words for each option, which shows synonyms as well as antonyms so that one may well enhance writing exponentially. As a result, in order to eschew repetitive and undescriptive words, one should turn to Thesaurus for alternative words.

    Additionally, some thesaurus apps (thesaurus is considered to have a plethora of apps, not only for single word choices but also phrases) propose natural descriptive replacements so that the text can sound authentic and poetic.

    750 words

    As it was said, practice makes a man perfect; meaning that if one aspires to be writing-savvy, texts should be written on a daily basis.

    750 words is an app that helps a student to stay dedicated. Even though devoting each day to writing tends to be extremely hard, the more one writes, the faster one polishes writing skills.

    As follows, the aforementioned tool will help a graduate to achieve goals briskly. What is more, the app rewards its users with points for usual writing exercises, precisely when one meets deadlines and goals. Hence, 750 words resource is prone to be valuable for those who seek for improving writing abilities.

    The Bottom Line

    Suffice it to say writing is not always easy. Even though one might be a native of the English language and the text he/she wrote sounds natural, and everything in terms of grammar, word choice, etc. may be fine at first glance, there still may be mistakes to be corrected.

    As a result, the tools, as mentioned above, will help to improve one’s writing skills.

  • How to Make Money online In Ghana as a student

    How to Make Money online In Ghana as a student

    The internet is the ultimate place that every student can take the opportunity of and make some cash whiles on studies. Today, almost all business opportunities are online.

    Being a student in Ghana is not easy especially with the rise in the unemployment rate in the country which seems not to be curb anytime soon. Many successful online entrepreneurs in Ghana and the world at large started their journey during their university level. I can relate.

    Somewhere in 2014, when I was in university, I faced some challenges with regards to tuition and other expenses. During that time, I was not all that acquainted with the internet money making stuff. even though I was somehow good in the tech niche by then, but I didn’t know how to use these skills to make some cash.

    There comes someday when I happen to attend a seminar. This seminar was the first eye-opener to my online presence. during the seminar, I got to know there are many ways to make genuine money on the internet. After the seminar, I began to make more search and here I come today to show you some of the ways I use to make money online at that time.

    These ways have proven to be my best ways and I believe you will also end up loving them whiles making the cash. But wait. I must be honest with you, your journey to making money online as a student in Ghana will require putting in extra effort otherwise, forget. If you are not going to think beyond the box and put in some dedication to the things we are going to discuss here, then just close this page and go look for other things to do. So with that being said, below are some of the ways you can make money online as a student in Ghana.

    • Creating a YouTube channel
    • Starting a blog
    • Freelancing
    • Surveys
    • Crating a course/eBook

    Creating a YouTube channel

    I have always said this, YouTube is not only an entertainment site, neither is it only for information seeking. YouTube is also a money-making platform for video creators. If you should ask me today what’s my number one source of income online, I will tell you YouTube revenue. Somewhere last year, I’ve written a post on how to make money online by operating a YouTube channel. This post has gotten a lot of attention. Some of the readers do confess that they never knew one can make money on YouTube until the saw the article. You can check the article here, if you’ve not seen it before. To tell you what? YouTube was once the underrated money-making platform until recently. Many people consider the platform as their last resort. But those who already have the best idea of the platform took their chance and today they have become the top earners on YouTube.

    I started my channel during my second year at university. Way back 2014, I created my channel and never even uploaded a single video. I was busy looking for other ways of making money online and never consider YouTube. Somewhere 2016, I then decided to create a video about WordPress theme. These videos turn out to be something else. The video got close to 20k within two months.

    From this single video, I make the most money online. This money was what even helped me started my second source of income and that is starting a blog. So if you’re a student in the university, you can also start a channel today and who knows what the future hold for you. If you want to know more about the YouTube platform, then I recommend you to read this article.

    Starting a blog

    You have found yourself on this page, reading this article free of charge. But have you wondered how this information reaches you? or do you ask yourself why on earth will someone sit and write this whole article if that person will not gain from the write-up? This I think should draw your mind back to the fact that there is a monetary gain in writing. Blogging is a life-changing venture to many students in Ghana, myself included. Today, I eat from my blog, cloth and entertainment myself through blogging. Many students are good at writing and storytelling. This should be a perfect time they should start a blog. A blog is a webpage that an individual creates and write all his personal experience or story about something for people to read. Bloggers inform, educate and entertain their readers. As a student, you can start a blog on whatever passions you. There are a lot of things to blog on in Ghana.

    You can start a blog and add your voice to the already existing blogs. The only thing you must consider is the value. You must make sure you add more value to what is already out there. The good thing is that today with the availability of numerous blogging platform, anyone can start a blog within no time and begin to write on the topic of his choice. We will not look at how to create a blog here but will like to refer you to this article for that.

    Freelancing

    Freelancing is now the order of the day. Previously, people didn’t understand this type of online money making job until recently. As I said earlier, I got to know about online making opportunities after attending a seminar. In that same seminar, I had a fair idea of what freelancing was. If you’re here and don’t know what freelancing is then I will take this opportunity to explain to you what is freelancing.

    Freelancing has to do with doing someone’s job on his or her behalf for a reward. A freelancer is a person who does freelancing. For example, you can be a graphic designer who is been hired by a media house to design a program banner or flyer for them. A freelancer has no permeant employer. I have been doing the freelancing job for 5 years now and have gathered a lot of experience from this type of job. People all over the world contact me for the service I offer.

    Today there are quite a number of freelancing sites in Ghana and the world at large. All these sites are what helps many people to get involved in freelancing jobs. As a student, using your extra time on this website will be of help to you. Even though is now difficult to break through and win a gig on most of the freelancing sites, starting a freelancing business at the university level will prepare you to a future online job.

    Surveys

    Surveys have been an integral part of every organization. Companies pay people to give feedback on their products or other services they offer. Today, a lot of people earn some decent amount of money through an online survey. As a student, you can start making some cash online by taking simple surveys. There are many online surveys out there that you can sign up and start earning. we have gotten some concern from many people especially students that they have tried some of the sites and didn’t get lucky. That’s, either they reach the minimum withdrawal threshold and the providers failed to pay or they hit the threshold and they are required to do other tasks to complete the process. If you are one of those victims, then maybe the survey was never genuine from the onset. To get the best-paying survey, you can read this article.

    Create a course/eBook

    When you are a student, you are endowed with nice ideas and knowledge. Instead of you using all the idea for passing an exam, you can take part of your time to write a book or create a course for your fellow students to learn. I can remember when I used to create Microsoft access templates and sell them online using some third-party websites.

    Yeah, I used to be good in Microsoft access. I create database templates using this program and then sell it to final year computer students who are in need of templates to help save them time and money in creating the database a fresh. This helps me in my course of studies and you can also do that.

    Look at what you are good at, draw a “To-do list”, then make some search on the idea to get more insight into what you are intending creating a course on. This I think will be a great start to you and if you take that seriously, you will end up being the ultimate winner.

    Wrapping up

    Making money online as a student today needs a lot for efforts and dedication. If you’re a student looking to make money online, then I hope this article will be of help. There are many other ways to make money online as a student in Ghana but what I used and will recommend for all are the above-listed points. I’m done.

    Now you have two choices, you can decide to take action by starting any of the above-listed points, or close the browser, fold your hands and wait for fortunes to locate you. The choice is yours. Thank you for your time and please help us share this article on all the social media platform you may find yourself. For further information concerning this article, contact the author on 0540589113. See you again.

  • Tips on Writing a Good Information Technology Research Proposal

    Tips on Writing a Good Information Technology Research Proposal

    IT is one of the fastest growing areas in the world. You need to remember that your contribution in this area can make significant changes that are needed in the modern world. With the help of our simple tips, you can easily cope with writing a research proposal for information technology.

    Think About the Topic

    To get started, you must select a topic for the research proposal. It should be well known and interesting to you, only then you can achieve really good results. Your academic contribution can lay the foundation for achievements in just a year or two, and not for a decade or more. That is why finding an IT topic for your research proposal is something that you should be excited to contribute to the world in which you live.

    Study the Materials

    IT is changing rapidly, so reliable and adequate, but outdated information can lead to erroneous decisions. When searching for information, use the latest literature, online resources. You can also conduct a survey among students, visit the exhibition of information technology, etc.

    Determine the Relevance

    The relevance of a research proposal is the degree of its importance at the moment and in a given situation for solving a particular problem, task or issue. The problem should be feasible, its solution should bring real benefits to the participants of the study. It is necessary to describe the problem, reveal the essence of the ideal to which you strive to come through the implementation of the project, and then offer real technologies and activities aimed at achieving the goal.

    Formulate the Purpose of the Work and Tasks

    The goal of the research work is the desired final result, which is planned to be achieved as a result of its research within the framework of the chosen project topic. For example, you are writing a paper on the topic “Information Technologies in Medicine”. Objective: to determine the level of application of information technology in medicine; show directions for innovation in the field of medicine. After the formulation of the project goal, we will indicate the specific tasks that you will have to solve during the research proposal. For example: to select and analyze material on the application of information technology in medicine; study the statistics of the level of informatization.

    Work Through the Main Part

    The main part of the research proposal provides an analysis of theoretical material obtained from literary sources. The methodology and technique of research are also considered in detail, the practical part is highlighted, the results are summarized. The content of the chapters of the main part must fully comply with the topic and fully disclose it. These chapters should show the ability of the researcher to succinctly, logically and convincingly express the material.

    Check Your Work

    Most of your work will entail editing. As you begin your research proposal, you will realize that the more work you do, the more difficult it is to return and view it. Remember that rewriting will take a huge amount of time, and this is normal, as it often happens with similar projects.

    Write a Conclusion

    Do not forget to draw conclusions in your research project. Indicate what results and in what time frame, its implementation will be achieved. It is important to consistently present the results and their relationship with the goals and objectives set out in the introductory part of the work. The conclusion assumes the presence of a generalized assessment of the work done. At the same time, it is important to indicate what its main meaning is, what important scientific results have been obtained, what new challenges arise. In some cases, it becomes necessary to indicate ways for further research, as well as specific tasks that will have to be addressed first.

    Make a Literature Review

    After the conclusion, it is customary to post a bibliographic list of references. Every literary source should be reflected in the work. A review of the literature reflects the independent creative work of its author and makes it possible to judge the degree of fundamental nature of the research conducted. If you feel that you cannot cope with your assignment, don’t hesitate to contact professional research proposal writing service to get your paper written by a team of PhD degree holders.

  • Meet Giftologi; West Africa’s first online gift registry

    Meet Giftologi; West Africa’s first online gift registry

    Ghana’s e-commerce industry is flourishing as the country continues to experience economic development and increased internet penetration.

    Online transactions have grown year over year as consumers have become more comfortable making purchases online.

    Millennials, who are often more tech-savvy, are reshaping how we do business and smart companies are springing up to serve unmet needs of this growing customer segment.

    One of such companies is Giftologi, which will be launching www.mygiftologi.com on May 1, 2019, as the first multi-purpose online gift registry in West Africa, possibly Africa, serving the Ghanaian market.

    The CEO, Elizabeth Tay, who is no newcomer to the media and tech industry, mentioned how “this innovation marries two burgeoning industries – event and e-commerce – and is set to change the face of both industries, simultaneously, by streamlining the gifting process.”

    “Event hosts will be satisfied with their gifts, guests will save time in finding gifts, vendors will make money by selling gifts. Everyone is happy!” she said, speaking on the benefits of the online gift registry.

    The gift registry allows you to create an account, set up a wish list, select items from the website to add to the wish list and then share your wish list with your event guests who can then purchase your gift items and have them wrapped and delivered either directly to you or to them with a customized note.

    It can be used for any events where gifting is appropriate.

    This covers birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, bridal parties, house warming parties and even funerals.

    In addition to carrying gift items, the website also features cash funds which can be created for event guests to contribute any amount.

    This is ideal for honeymoon funds, funeral donations and others.

    Gift registries essentially target event hosts who would like to communicate their gift wish list to their guests ahead of their event.

    This eliminates the occurrence of receiving unwanted gifts and/or having to return gifts, which is a problem in Ghana because most stores don’t accept returns.

    Event hosts have previously dealt with these problems by opting for cash gifts.

    However, with the launch of Giftologi, as a pioneer of the online gift registry business, event hosts can now widen their gift options to receive gift items they actually need.

    We expect to see more of such innovations enter the e-commerce industry as more companies seek to target the growing middle class and internet accessibility increases.

  • How to make money online in 2019 as a newbie In Ghana

    How to make money online in 2019 as a newbie In Ghana

    The internet is for us, you and them. No one is the monopoly of the internet opportunities. The internet offers equal opportunities to each and everyone regardless of where you reside.

    Today thousands if not more are living the internet life. They make six-figure incomes from the internet right in their home-based office.

    The one thing that makes me and most of the internet entrepreneurs like the internet is the fact that it does not matter where you are or which part of the world you find yourself.

    If someone from a small country like Ghana can sit in the corner of his room and get his message view/read in a developed country like US and UK then this should tell you that the internet is a powerful thing and one of the best place to market yourself and the brand.

    Unfortunately, most Ghanaians still don’t have the knowledge of the internet and the few who do still don’t trust the internet dealing.

    For the past years of being on the internet, I came across a lot of people who are willing to learn more about internet opportunities but was not willing to sacrifice.

    Most Ghanaians like free stuff and free stuff most of the time don’t add much value to your online presence.

    To succeed on the internet you will at least need to spend something small either your time or your money.

    The very time I started my internet career, I went through a lot trying to figure everything myself not knowing I was wasting a lot of money in the process because I wasted more time on free stuff.

    Those times I wasted I could have invested a small amount of cash and get all the knowledge from those who were already established in that file I have chosen to operate online.

    Today I have a lot of people asking me how I was able to succeed on the internet even though I have never attended any tech school.

    This question always, makes me feel unease since there are no any better explanations I can give to them because even If I tell them they will still not get it.

    Because I always get this kind of question I then deem it an honour to write this post and highlight the three things that anyone who is willing to succeed on the internet should do.

    I will try to make it simple and do my best to explain to you how I was able to break through and make some decent amount of cash on the internet today.  

    Below are the three things you should be willing to do if you want to succeed on the internet.

    1. Have Passion In What You Are Doing.
    2. Find A Mentor
    3. Take Courses On Your Choosing Niche.

    Have Passion In What You Are Doing

    For every successful individual that you see today started with something that he or she has a passion for. Passion drives a person to success. If you are into something you have no passion for, the chances of you succeeding with that thing is 0.5%.

    Yes, when you have a passion for your job, you have all the joys in doing the task involved. Even if people are not recognizing your work, because you have a passion for it yourself, you will not feel demotivated. Passion is always the first thing that every successful individual on the internet today started with.

    Before you start an online business, you will at least look at what you have passion in then you choose a sub-niche in that area then you begin to operate. With that, you have a 70% chance of being successful in the business.

    Find A Mentor

    Once you have a niche you want to operate and also have a passion for that niche, then the next thing I will recommend you to do as soon as possible is finding a mentor.

    A mentor is someone who you can easily rely on whenever you need help on your choosing niche of operation on the internet.

    A mentor can be anyone in your choosing niche. But from my experience, choosing a mentor sometimes can be a very tedious work today simply because there are a lot of individuals on the internet claiming superiority over others but in actual, since their claims cannot be verified.

    When I was ready to start my online store in the year 2017, I made some search on some of the people who are already into e-commerce business so I can take one as a mentor which I can always fall on when I need help.

    I came across a lot of videos on YouTube in which most of the creators show fake results of their online store in other to prove they are already killing it in the e-commerce sphere.

    How to find a reliable mentor?

    Finding a mentor today is possible only when you are able to figure out what you want from this mentor. Let’s say you choose to start a blogging career on the internet, the first thing you need to do is make a Google search using the hashtag blogging site.

    Once you type this phrase in Google, you will be listed with a lot of websites talks talk about blogging tips and then makes sure you go through the first 10 sites to see which one among the sites is well written and also simple to comprehend.

    You can also make some search in some of the popular forum like Quora and then see which of the bloggers that people are talking about in the forum and then read more on that. This will help you find the best mentor for your online business.

    Take Courses On Your Choosing Niche

    Having a mentor alone will not help you to easily find your way to the online success unless you take some course from this mentor or other influencers being recommended by your mentor and other people who are already established in your choosing niche. Your mentor shares free information based on his personal experience on the topics he or she covers on his blog. Most mentors don’t give out all secrete on their blog page. They create some mini-courses and in this course is where they try to unveil all their success steps.

    When you take a course, you have the chance to join some of the mastermind class in which you can learn a lot from other great minds in online spaces.

    You can also have the chance to get a one on one chat with your mentor and discuss more things on your choosing niche. When you find a good mentor, you can easily succeed with you.

    Wrapping up

    The internet is the best place that you can use to better your life as a student or a graduate from Ghana and Africa today.

    With the scarcity of jobs in the country, one is not guaranteed a stable job even if he or she is gainfully employed. In other to be on the safest side, it’s good to have some side gig and this side gig can be done through the internet.

    So if you really want to succeed online, then you should be willing and ready to do the above highlighted in this post. Thanks for reading please if you find this post helpful consider sharing on the entire social media platform you find yourself on. 

  • Parental Control using a simple phone tracker

    Parental Control using a simple phone tracker

    Why we need parental control in the modern world

    Parental control refers to the monitoring of a child’s activities on technological devices like phones, laptops and computers. It also includes limiting the content they view on other media devices like television and radio. Parental control is important for several reasons.

    First, it allows parents to limit the content that children consume on the internet, especially because these items are readily available indiscriminately. It also prevents children from being duped into making online payments for false or shady deals. Otherwise, this would cost the family money.

    Third, parents who observe their children’s activities are able to detect when the child is experiencing stress or even trouble in school based on their online activities or internet searches. Lastly, it allows parents to filter out content with viruses and such that would otherwise affect the family devices.

    What is Hoverwatch?

    Hoverwatch is an application that allows parents to monitor the content on their children’s devices. It uses phone trackers alongside Global Positioning Satellite data and Wi-Fi to observe any data being sent and received by the user of the phone. This way, a parent can control what the child consumes and detect any problems or use of prohibited sites.

    What one can parent control using Hoverwatch

    With this application, parents can monitor data on these apps:

    • Skype
    • Whatsapp
    • Facebook
    • Snapchat
    • Instagram
    • Telegram

    In addition, parents will be able to see incoming SMS, MMS, and the replies to these messages. For MMS, this includes viewing the images sent back and forth from the device being monitored. It is a very effective monitoring app.

    For incoming and outgoing calls, parents can view caller identification, and listen to recordings of the conversations. Hoverwatch also allows access to internet activity, as well as any notes or events added to the calendar. Lastly, one can also see the entire contact list.

    How to install the parental control app

    Anyone interested in getting this application will start with a visit to the Hoverwatch website. The first step is to sign up on the website, which is free. The signup process requires one’s email address as well as a password which will be used in logging into the Hoverwatch account.

    For security purposes, it is always wise to use a password of considerable length, preferably between 8 to 16 characters. The password should not contain one’s username because this way, it will be easier to crack. Next, the password should have a mixture of characters to include symbols, numbers, and letters in different cases.

    After signing up on the website, the user then gets to download the application from the account into their preferred device of choice. Once the app is downloaded, the next step is to agree to the terms and conditions of use then install it on the mobile device. The app needs to be paid for in advance before one can begin using it.

    Some extra parental control features

    Aside from monitoring what the child is sending, receiving, and searching, Hoverwatch comes with additional features to increase how much content a user can view. First, the app does not appear on the start menu. This way, it cannot be accessed by other people. Also, Hoverwatch collects data on other phones very discreetly without being detected whatsoever. Otherwise, it would beat its whole purpose.

    Hoverwatch also gives the user access to all keylogs used on laptops and similar devices. It records keystrokes for the user to know what is being typed onto the computer.

    Another additional feature is that the application gives a person access to the webcam of both Windows and Mac computers. This way, a person can see whoever is using that computer at the time. The app also records these images for later viewing. In addition to parental control, this can be used by users who want to keep their devices safe from use by other people.

    Lastly, Hoverwatch also gives access to all internet activity. This includes search history, the clipboard, visited addresses, as well as cookies and saved pages.

    How to use Hoverwatch

    After installing the app, one can then click on open, and begin to access other devices. The app will always require login credentials every time it is opened. This keeps all the monitored data safe and prevents other people from viewing this content. This way, one can also monitor without being detected.

    Next, one can look at the settings to see all the data they can access depending on what they paid for. It is also here where the user gets to add all the devices being monitored so that the app can collect data from them. After that, the user can visit the home page where data is stored according to the device, then in sub-categories like:

    • Visited Websites
    • SMS
    • MMS
    • Camera shots
    • Unlock selfies
    • Screenshots

    The user then clicks on their category of choice. In settings, the app can be adjusted in terms of what it records, according to a person’s preferences.

    Hoverwatch pricing policy

    Paying for the application can be done at once every month, or using packages depending on what one chooses. The monthly payment is good for non-committal use and allows a person to stop using the app whenever they want. This is the best option for users who want temporary device access as opposed to continuous monitoring.

    On the other hand, there are packages available for those who want to invest in long-term use. These packages also cater to multiple devices and are best for parents looking into more than one device. The packages are priced as follows:

    1. $ 3.33 per device per month – best for temporary use on more than one gadget.
    2. $ 49.95 per month – up to 5 devices
    3. $ 99.95 for three months – up to 5 devices
    4. $ 199.95 for twelve months – up to 5 devices
    5. $ 8.33 per month for one device (personal use)
    6. $ 24.95 for 1 month (personal use)
    7. $ 59.95 for three months (personal use)
    8. $ 99.95 for 12 months (personal use)

    Conclusion

    This Hoverwatch phone tracker makes content monitoring easy and straightforward, and also allows access to a lot of content that would normally be hard to get to. It allows parental control to be undetectable, but very effective.

  • Ghana & Africa Need To Get Into The Artificial Intelligence Race

    Ghana & Africa Need To Get Into The Artificial Intelligence Race

    Several nations have already drawn their plans and reports on Artificial Intelligence(AI), Canada first published its AI plan in March 2017. China later published its detailed AI plan, A Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan in July 2017 where they outlined initiatives and goals to become equal to other AI powerhouses by 2020, lead the world in some aspects of AI by 2025 and entirely dominate as the primary centre for AI innovation by 2030.

    Other nations and bodies have reacted by drawing theirs since then, among them are France, UAE, South Korea, India, EU, Germany, Mexico, Australia and the USA. In just 17 months, at least 23 nations and bodies have published some form of plan for AI development. Kenya and Tunisia are the only nations from Africa among them with any attempt towards developing an AI plan.

    List of nations with outlined plans for Artificial Intelligence, from March 2017 till date.

    The importance of such AI plans lies in the power that AI currently has and would have on the future. AI would add $15.7 trillion to the Global Economy by 2030 and potentially increase labour productivity by up to 40% by 2035. AI also has the potential to double the economy of a nation like the USA (GDP: 18.57 trillion) in just 20 years. This has led to the AI Race among nations. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin recently said “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind, It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”

    It’s important for Africa to start planning now towards an AI future. Developing Economies like ours are the most threatened by such developments when not addressed properly. For example, a report recently showed automation technologies could perform 65% of the jobs in Nigeria, 67% of the jobs in South Africa and 85% of the jobs in Ethiopia by 2030, compared to 35% and 47% of the UK and USA, respectively.

    Even if we fail to locally develop AI systems, just like Africa consumes software and services from America like Facebook or Google, institutions in Africa would end up as consumers for foreign AI systems and we would all just be data points. In the long run, when the world starts approaching the Post-Work era due to high levels of automation and many countries begin implementing systems such as Universal Basic Income (UBI) by heavily taxing AI and Automation companies, we would likely be left even poorer and incapable of implementing such social safety nets since there aren’t enough local AI companies to tax.

    The recent most complete GDP of the whole Africa (excluding Eritrea and Western Sahara) was $2.74 trillion which was less than that of France in that same year, 2014, which was $2.83 trillion. We could end up with an even larger economic gap when compared to Western and some Eastern nations, too large to ever be realistically closed if we don’t plan towards the 4th Industrial Revolution.

    Street in Accra. Credit: ANONYMOUS233

    AI, especially Deep Learning has the potential to solve a broad array of problems, which is why a large portion of Industry, Academia and Governments around the world are already investing so much into it. Africa has some of the worst and largest problems in the world. 501 million people, 47 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lived on $1.90 a day or less in 2012 and 233 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were hungry/undernourished in 2014-6. In 2015, 9.2 million deaths were recorded in Africa, majority being caused by communicable and non-communicable diseases, whilst some places like Ghana have close to 11,000 people to 1 doctor ratio and Malawi has close to 60,000 people to 1 doctor ratio.

    We therefore potentially can benefit the most by focusing on and investing in Artificial Intelligence and its many applications. As my team and I at minoHealth are focusing on, we can solve our lack of Quality and Accessible Healthcare issue with AI and Deep Learning. We can also solve poor Food Production and Distribution issues plaguing us and someday solve our transportation issues and high records of road accidents with Autonomous Vehicles.

    There are several things that Ghana and Africa as a whole needs to start doing in order to get into the AI Race. We need to start getting the general public informed about AI and how they can use it to improve their labour productivity and value today in an Augmented Intelligence approach. This is applicable to all Africans, be they small scale farmers using AI apps to ensure their crops are healthy, marketers using predictive models for Market Forecasting or medical doctors using AI to improve their Healthcare Delivery.

    Additionally, we need to galvanize existing African AI talents into planning towards AI for Africa and deploying AI in Africa. My team and I at minoHealth develop and research AI systems mainly for healthcare in Africa in order to ensure we enjoy some of the benefits of AI.

    We have also started conversations about AI in the forms of seminars, lectures and interviews in order to get the Ghanaian and African public informed about AI and get the attention of the government so we can start developing national plans. We have to start planning towards developing the right infrastructures and frameworks in Africa in order to enjoy great national and continental developments from AI and curb possible repercussions.


    Written by Darlington Ahiale Akogo
    Founder, Director of Artificial Intelligence
    minoHealth, minoHealth AI Labs

    Darlington Ahiale Akogo is a Deep Learning/Machine Learning Engineer & Researcher who founded minoHealth in order to democratise Quality Healthcare in Africa. With minoHealth, he and his team develop Artificial Intelligence systems for medical diagnoses and prognoses. They also use Data Science and Cloud Computing to collect, analyse and visualize health data.

  • GHS 8000 Cash to be won by Completing this Survey Online

    GHS 8000 Cash to be won by Completing this Survey Online

    Update: An earlier version of this post erroneously stated that the total  Cash price to be won was GHS 1280. This has been resolved.

    I am Senyo Agbeblewu and I invite you to participate in my survey on crowdsourcing.

    What is Crowdsourcing?

    Crowdsourcing simply refers to a process of seeking IDEAS and SOLUTIONS from a group of unknown persons, called the ‘CROWD’. The crowd refers to registered members on specialized websites, called crowdsourcing PLATFORMS.

    Firms and individuals, called ‘solution seekers’ therefore advertise their challenges on these websites for crowd members to solve, usually for a financial reward. Depending on the type of task, the financial reward may be given to the solver with the best solution or simply shared among members, according to their contribution to the final solution.

    On other crowdsourcing platforms, crowd members can bid to solve advertised tasks/jobs. In such cases, solution seekers will select the solver with the best bid to do the job.

    The purpose of my survey is to understand the factors that motivate crowd members to participate in this such activities.

    To make the survey interesting and increase participation, I am planning on running the survey as a crowdsourcing with numerous CASH PRIZES for RANDOMLY selected participants on each platform.

    How to Participate (Read carefully)

    If you are already registered on any of the crowdsourcing platforms listed below or any other platform, simply send: REGISTERED to [email protected] and you will receive an invitation email from [email protected] with the link to the survey. Click on the link and complete the survey. Please remember to provide the name of the crowdsourcing platform and your username/ID in the spaces allocated.
     
    For you, who may not yet be a member of a crowdsourcing platform, you can still participate and win cash prizes by following these simple steps:

    How the Competition Works

    1. REGISTER to be a member of ANY of the following crowdsourcing platforms: (Search for the names from Google; visit the site and sign up)
    2. You will be required to provide the name of the platform and your membership username/ID in the survey.
    3. After registering, please send: ‘REGISTERED’ to [email protected]
    4. You will receive an invitation email from [email protected] with a link to the survey.
    5. Click on the link and complete the survey
    6. Keep your fingers crossed. You will be contacted if you are one of the RANDOMLY selected winners and your cash prize will be paid to you.

    Prizes

    If you followed the above process to participate in the contest, you could win any of the following CASH PRIZES:
    • GHS 320 each for TWO 1st Prize Winners
    • GHS 160 each for TWO 2nd Prize winners
    • GHS 96 each for TWO 3rd Prize Winners
    • GHS 64 each for TWO 4th Prize Winners
    In addition, if you agree and are selected as one of 36 participants for the follow-up telephone interview, you will receive GHS 80 after the interview.
     
    Kindly invite your colleagues to participate, as the PRIZES will INCREASE with the number of participants.
     
    If you have any questions or need further clarification, please feel free to contact Senyo via Whatsapp on 0061415744001 or send an email to [email protected]
  • Radio Masts and Towers: You should know these about them

    Radio Masts and Towers: You should know these about them

    Over the years, there has been a litany of concerns about the threats radioactive towers pose to our health. Some laboratory research has highly exhausted their control experiments in condemning or supporting its impact, one way or the other.

    Some aspects say the radiation radio masts and towers emit is cancerous and comes along with many health orders. Meanwhile, the environmental protection agency’s stance on the matter is unstable in Ghana.

    In 2013, the American cancer society issued press releases to enable curb people’s perception against radioactive towers, their stance on the matter proved unstable as well.

    This is because, the two reports had in them, highly contradictory statements “Radioactive towers are not cancerous” and “stay away from radioactive towers to avoid cancer”, these statements got me laughing and crying sometimes.

    Well, there are a variety of towers with respect to the desired purpose.

    Types of Towers

    1. Self-supporting tower

    This type of tower is freestanding and do not require external support.

    1. Angular tower

    These type of towers is precisely 4 legged but outstanding for its angular element design on a square base pattern.

    1. Guyed Tower

    The guyed tower is normally preferred in cities, no need for huge concrete foundation. Such cost saving. It has an ordinary look, slim and most preferred for cellular sites, Television and FM stations.

    Why do we need these towers?

    1. Quality Call reception

    In the case of quality calls, networking companies depend on towers in trapping radioactive wave for its telecommunication purposes.

    1. Astronomical increase of phones

    The number of mobile users in the country is outweighing and causing traffic on towers. Efforts to remedy this situation, causes networking companies to increase towers to match its mobile users.

    1. Speedy Internet connection

    In the previous year’s quick internet connectivity was known to be found in solely regional capitals. Gracious me, you can now access and browse smoothly regardless of your location.

    1. Access to Networking Packages

    Last year, Customers of Airtel Ghana were complaining about Airtal Sika Kokoo, as a result of some section of some regions of not been able to subscribe to the package. The company blamed it on its coverage failure. Early this year (2017) over 100 new towers were added, the new sika Kokoo can be accessed by all!

    Precautions with relation to Radio Masts and Towers

    1. Avoid building churches, houses and schools close to towers, it can go a long way of causing diverse health hazards.
    2. Avoid coming in contact with the radioactive tower, most especially cautious kids not to play closer to towers, they carry charges too strong for kid’s cell to battle.
    3. Radioactive waves travel far with the same wavelength, walking close or sitting close to radioactive wave doesn’t add up to its smooth connectivity. It rather poses threat to your health.

    Let’s be cautious as well as smart while we enjoy good and quality calls and speedy internet connections.

    Enjoy this feature? Let us know what you think in the comment sections below.

  • My Special One

    My Special One

    Some say its meaning is greatly misinterpreted,
    But I would like to suggest otherwise,
    Because it is this feeling that keeps me excited,
    And it remains why there are always glitters in my eyes.

    —-
    The simple four letter word is love,
    And the much expected season is Valentine.
    Go grab your partner and keep her close,
    For this season is a special one.

    —-
    The simple four letter word is love,
    And am fueling mine up with turpentine.
    Anyone who comes between us will receive some “blows”,
    For this love is reserved for you, my special one.