Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of ThisDay Newspapers, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena has been invited to this year’s G8 summit along with technology, internet and digital media leaders.

The event tagged “The Internet: Accelerating Growth” is scheduled to hold in Paris, France from May 24 to 25, 2011. According to the letter of invitation sent to Obaigbena, the e-G8 Forum’s Chairman, Maurice Lévy said:

“This will mark the very first time that information technology formally takes a place on the agenda of a summit of heads of state – a recognition of how critically important these sectors are to sustaining and accelerating global economic growth…This will be a unique gathering of the world’s top Internet and digital leaders, not only from across the G8 nations, but further afield. Through our debates and discussions at the e-G8, we can and we must bring our reflections, ideas and experiences directly to the G8 leaders.”

Lévy said Obaigbena was being invited to the historic event because “it is vitally important that your voice be heard during the Forum. Only a true diversity of opinion can guarantee a good outcome.”

Image courtesy of Daniel Rosenbaum/The New York Times

Sarah Lacy, one of TechCrunch’s senior editors is planning a visit to Nigeria in May 2011. She announced this recently on her Twitter page.

The internationally acclaimed technology entrepreneurship journalist and author travelled around emerging markets such as China, Isreal, Brazil, India, Rwanda and Indonesia looking for the best entrepreneurs that Silicon Valley (and perhaps the world) had never heard of and researching for her second book about tech entrepreneurship in the emerging world.

Last year, Lacy wrote a post likening emerging markets to dating, saying that she has “a raging crush on Kenya” and hoped to visit there early this year. I’m not sure if she has visited Kenya yet, but it seems Nigeria would be her third African visit to date.

While in Nigeria, Lacy would be attending the Tech Open Day with Sarah Lacy, an event that would provide an opportunity for Nigeria’s internet entrepreneurs to pitch their products and services to Lacy.

The event will hold at Quez’ ville, Eko Gym and Spa Complex, 9b Akarigbere Close, Off Idejo Street, Off Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island, Lagos on Thursday May 5, 2011 at 4pm.

It’ll be a great opportunity for her to meet with some of Nigeria’s tech entrepreneurs. And maybe she could discover a local product or service worth mentioning in her next book or even on TechCrunch.

Thanks to @OoTheNigerian for the tip.

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Today, Nigeria’s first-ever youth -focused, youth-driven presidential debate spotlighting priority issues for young Nigerians will hold at the Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre, Abuja.

The ‘WhatAboutUs?’ debate would be a direct conversation with the Nigerian youth, inviting presidential candidates to answer questions posed by young Nigerians, at home and abroad, via social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, SMS, email and video diaries.

It’s been said that young Nigerians represent 70% of Nigeria’s population, yet their concerns and issues are not present on the national agenda or current political campaigns.

Even last week’s presidential debate aired live on NN24 did little or nothing to address the most important concern of every young Nigerian – UNEMPLOYMENT.

At the moment, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu (ACN), Chief Dele Momodu (NCP), Professor Pat Utomi (SDMP), and Governor Ibrahim Shekarau (ANPP) have confirmed their participation, while Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (CPC), President Goodluck Jonathan (PDP), and Reverend Chris Okotie (FDP) have declined the invitation to attend the youth-focused debate.

The debate will be simulcast live at 7pm on local television station, Channels TV and also online on Youtube.

In addition, viewers everywhere will be asked to chime in using #whataboutus on Google Moderator, a unique platform which empowers communities to connect and share comments, questions, and analysis.

The debate will also be rebroadcast on the WhatAboutUs website following the event.

The “What About Us?” Campaign is a collaborative effort from Enough is Enough Nigeria, Vote or Quench, Sleeves Up, StandUP Naija and several other youth advocacy groups and activists.

Who in your opinion will win the WhatAboutUs debate?

Tolulope Iroye, emerged winner of the ‘Best Use of Technology’ at the Future Awards 2011 ceremony held yesterday at the Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island.

Tolu, 27, is a young Nigerian involved in the design and construction of electronic gadgets, hardware designs, alternative energy solutions, security systems and control system.

He also writes programs for microcontrollers which can be used for any purpose (mini computer), design and construction of solar systems, inverters, automatic change over, voltage stabilizers, intelligent traffic controller, intelligent car park system, intelligent phase selector/change over, power surge protector.

I interviewed Tolu after he received the award for Best Use of Technology at the Future Awards 2011.

In the interview, Tolu shared his passion for technology and for using it to make life easy for people.

He started developing technology solutions as an experiment at a very young age because of how fascinating they were.

Magic Box

Last year, he developed the ‘Magic Box’, a device built to allow you control your electronic gadgets, for example, your TV from anywhere with your mobile phone.

The ‘Magic Box’ also allows one to control electricity or mobilize/immobilize cars from anywhere in the world with the use of a mobile phone.

I asked Tolu if I can control my home electronics from say, Kenya, and he said yes. According to him, as long as I can use my SIM card from anywhere in the world, I can simply send a signal to the box to control my TV, for instance.

No wonder he called it ‘Magic Box’.

When asked if his work has received any external funding, he said that he built the Magic Box with personal funds.

Apparently, Tolu is involved in building solar panels and other electronic gadgets, where he makes money from and funds his other projects like the Magic Box.

Tolu initially developed the first version of the Magic Box in 2002 and since then, the device has gone through several iterations.

Tolu explained that his technology sends signals through the mobile phone to the box using your SIM card.

He showed me a first-hand video of how the Magic Box works. The video demonstrates how a TV can be controlled (turned off and turned on) using a mobile phone that sends signals to the magic box.

My thoughts

It was great seeing how the stuff actually works. Yea, the Magic Box is real.

I think the product can be very useful to our daily lives, especially since we forget to switch off our home and office appliances.

With Magic Box, you can simply send a signal from your mobile phone and it remotely turns off the electricity or your electronics.

This saves energy and averts damage of appliances from power surges.

It’ll be interesting to see if the magic box would be become a commercial success.

Will you buy or use the Magic Box?

Yesterday, I sat down for a cup of tea at the cafe by the swimming pool at Eko Hotels with Matthew Dawes, the conference organizer of the best mobile web event ever in Africa.

I’ve known Matt since 2009 (well, digitally) when he organized the first Mobile Web Africa conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Since then, we’ve been ‘digital friends’ and have even talked about having a beer or two together (I owe you one, Matt).

Within the past 18 months, Matt has successfully organized a series of mobile web events in Kenya and South Africa.

But Matt has always been keen on bringing the event to West Africa, particularly Nigeria and because of my keen interest in building a tech and mobile eco-system in Nigeria, I agreed to partner with him in bringing the first ever mobile web event to Nigeria this year.

So I finally caught up with Matt face-to-face and he shared his passion for organizing these events in Africa, his experiences so far, and his high hopes for mobile web growth in Africa.

“I set up All Amber (in June 2009)…to organise events in Africa as opposed to more profitable ones in Europe because I’m a massive believer in the potential of the mobile web/apps in Africa (and I like to travel a bit as well)”, says Matthew.

Matt also shared how the drive for the Mobile Web event series was kick-started after a chat he had with Vincent Maher, co-founder of MoTribe and The Grid, on the huge potentials and opportunities around the mobile web in Africa.

Today, his mobile web event series has attracted a lot of encouraging testimonials such as that of Brett St. Clair, Admob’s Country Manager in South Africa, quoted here:

“My first experience of an all amber event was very, very positive – great turnout, great interaction and great format. I’ve been to a few conferences and simply put this was the best.”

Matt is also thrilled to see Samsung, Nokia and BlackBerry join the event sponsors list as well as speakers from Google, Goal.com, Glo Mobile, RIM and MIH, amongst others.

In the past, Matthew ran the Commonwealth and Telecommunications Organization (CTO) events, and is bringing a lot of experience as a renowned conference organizer to this year’s event.

You can even feel his positive energy and enthusiasm about this year’s event from his remarks below:

“Everything is in place for this to be a truly stand-out event. Everyone I have spoken to has been very positive about this event coming to Nigeria, Africa’s biggest mobile market. All the ingredients are there for Mobile Web West Africa to seriously contribute to both the future direction of data usage and services and the expansion of the mobile ecosystem. I have no doubt that this is exactly the right time and place for this event.”

Matthew is such a great guy and someone I’d love to work with in organizing future conferences in Africa.

At Mobile Web West Africa, I’m hoping to catch Matt on the lens, so if you have any questions for him, please drop in your comments, @TechLoy, @loyokezie or send a DM:)

I’ll also be speaking on the second day of the event and will be on a panel session too.

If you haven’t yet registered for the event, here’s your chance to contribute to the mobile web eco-system in Nigeria!

See you there!

Makinde Adeagbo is one of Facebook’s software engineers who has worked at various parts of the Facebook stack on projects including search, new user orientation, photos, performance, events, and client software.

At 25, Makinde is famous for being part of the team that reduced Facebook’s over 1 MB of Javascript to only 2 KB. He now focuses on Facebook’s front-end performance and works at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto.

In this interview, Makinde believes that mobile is the “next big thing”, but gives no indications whatsoever whether Facebook has specific products planned for the African mobile market.

Loy Okezie: First, a little bit about you and your background?

Makinde Adeagbo: As my profile and website suggest, I was born in Nigeria and moved to the states as a child.  Engineering was always an interest, and I settled on Computer Science in college.  I received a BS from MIT in the fall of ’07 and started at Facebook shortly thereafter.

Loy Okezie: Why do you work at Facebook? What’s your proudest moment at Facebook?

Makinde Adeagbo: I mainly work within the product team at Facebook, and over the years, I have touched almost all of our user facing products (Photos, Events, Groups, User Profiles …).  My proudest moment came near the end of 2009.  The 6-member site speed team (of which I was a member) announced that we had reached our year end goal of making the site load twice as fast worldwide.  We reached the goal with about 8 days to spare in December, so it was really close.  A lot of hard work from a lot of teams came together to make it happen.

Loy Okezie: What difference have you made as one out of over 1,700 Facebook employees?

Makinde Adeagbo: In my first week, my manager told me that an aspect of profile rendering was too slow. If we didn’t improve the speed, the site would go down within the next week. He asked me to fix it.  There are many items like that one, where there was a pressing challenge of vital importance.

Loy Okezie: What particular product insights have you gained from your experience at Facebook?

Makinde Adeagbo: People will use your product in ways you can’t imagine.  Many users change their phone number and invite all their friends to an event titled, “My new number is (502) XXX-XXXX.”  Despite many warnings we have added against this, users continue to do it.  It is important to take note of these use cases, as users are showing you a real need that they have … and you can probably address it.

Loy Okezie: From my investigations, there are close to 20 million Africans on Facebook. Does Facebook have any specific planned products for Africa?

Makinde Adeagbo: I am not aware of any.  The company’s approach thus far has been to translate the site into the languages of the world.  To this point we have not done much true localization, customizing the size for particular regions.

Loy Okezie: Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan joined Facebook in June this year and is currently the most popular African leader on Facebook. What are your thoughts?

Makinde Adeagbo: Nigeria is the 8th most populous nation in the world

Loy Okezie: Are you planning on returning to Nigeria? What could motivate you to work for a Nigerian company?

Makinde Adeagbo: I don’t have any plans at this time, but I wouldn’t rule it out.  I do have relatives in Nigeria who are very much into web development.

There is certainly going to be a huge market in Nigeria, as internet access reaches more and more people.

Loy Okezie: What do you see as the “next big thing” – a technology or trend – that will change the web?

Makinde Adeagbo: Mobile.  While the approach to this in the United States is perhaps different from emerging countries, mobile will transform the ways that many things are done.  Low cost, connected devices will provide a base for a lot of innovation.

Loy Okezie: Who are your role models?

Makinde Adeagbo: There were a few teachers in high school that always encouraged me to reach as high as I could.  At some point in school I assumed that I had no chance of getting into MIT.  Those teachers saw potential and got me to give anything a shot.  That’s when I learned that you should never limit yourself.  If a school or job wants to reject you, let them do it.  No need to limit yourself beforehand.

Loy Okezie: Any final thoughts?

Makinde Adeagbo: Working on consumer internet products for the last few years has really been a special experience.  We are in the midst of a significant change in how people interact with the web and one another.  I’m humbled by the chance to be a tiny part of that.

Dayo had very interesting questions about the state of the technology, startups and blogging scene in Nigeria, and my thoughts on how the emerging industry can grow to compete within the African and Global space.

Here are excerpts…

Having followed the global technology scene for some years and watching trends in the African tech and startup scene, I became obsessed with the idea of tracking local technology, startup and social media news from Nigeria and Africa…

We’ve seen some startups fail particularly because they didn’t have clear focus and strategy. Some other startups copy Facebook or from their friend’s book. Now I’m talking to those social networking sites out there…

Last year, I recommended that some social network owners collaborate with others to create robust platforms and applications that would get the attention of huge companies and attract the attention of global media sites…

Personally, I’m yet to see a startup with ground-breaking technology that can compete with global startups. I think what Nigerian technopreneurs lack is the ability and know-how to create solutions to the problems and needs of a massive audience…

Until web entrepreneurs identify solutions to the local problems, and start creating applications or providing a service that meets these needs, then we can start seeing innovative startups that could get the world talking…

First, we need a community that would foster healthy discussions on the emerging web, mobile and startups industry. Second, we need to collaborate with other entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Africa. Third, we need to build credibility as it is the most important quality investors are looking for.

You can visit Dayo’s blog to read the full interview here. Enjoy!