Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, last week repeated calls that the federal government should make the vandalisation of telecom infrastructure a capital offence to deter vandals from frustrating the efforts of telecom operators in Nigeria.

The Nigerian office of Research In Motion RIM makers of the Blackberry range of smartphones announced plans to launch five new BlackBerry smartphones based on the BlackBerry 7 Operating System.

While the IT community awaits the national software blueprint, it may not business as usual again for local and foreign software makers as the Director of National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA) has said that the policy, when fully implemented would set standards for software acquisition and importation in the Nigerian market which has so far remained the exclusive preserve of foreign vendors.

We are where we are because while we like ourselves, we just don’t like our country, as a result of which we labour all our lives but other nations enjoy the fruit of our labours.

Ten glorious years have rolled by in Nigeria’s telecommunications history. Nigeria’s leading telecommunications operator, MTN, recently jolted Nigerians to this reality when it rolled out a programme to celebrate the milestone.

In a bid to provide specific, relevant and tailored telecommunications solutions to empower Small and Medium Enterprises in Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria has announced the appointment of Rajiv Seghal as Vice President: Enterprise, SMEs and Postpaid.

Microsoft has announced the winners and finalists of the 2011 Microsoft Partner of the year awards and the Microsoft West, East and Central Africa (WECA) partner awards this was made known at the just concluded Microsoft worldwide partner conference 2011, the company’s premier annual event for industry partners held last month in Los Angeles, the United States of America.

Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and the director of marketing for the social network, is leaving to start her own company, Facebook said Wednesday.

OBAFEMI Giwa-Amu is a pioneer of sorts; he is one of the few Nigerians who started a service business whose operations reside strictly in the ICT domain. His firm, Trak-Tag Nigeria Ltd is at the forefront of the vehicle tracking business in Nigeria, having initially spent millions of dollars digitalizing Nigeria’s maps, which then became his business infrastructure.

In apparent response to the new spirit of the minister of education on entrepreneurship, world leading driving force in the global technology revolution, Intel Corporation last week in collaboration with the Lagos state government and the Rotary club of Ikeja, commissioned a model Intel Teach and 1:1 learning school in Ikeja High School, GRA Ikeja, Lagos.

In its quest to use quality technical and engineering education to build human capacity in the emerging Information and Communications Technology sector, Kits Technologies said it has started offering relevant ICT industry technology-focused technical trainings.

IT is heartwarming to note that while governments continue to fiddle about the application of ICT in security, individuals and institutions are forging ahead by adopting digital solutions to security.

The Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria, (ISPON) has endorsed Samsung Solar-Powered Netebook as a strategic instrument for developing the Nigerian knowledge economy.

While bowing out as President of the Nigerian Computer Society, (NCS) at its annual general meeting in Abuja last week, Professor Charles Uwadia has said that Vision 20-2020 imperatives may not be realised unless the youths were empowered with IT tools for challenges ahead.

Visafone Communications Limited recently got a major boost with the signing of sales promotion agreement with Panasonic.