Wednesday, 14 September 2022

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Good morning!

Dennis here,

The National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) has charted its plan for the future of electric vehicles in Nigeria.

If you've been following the news, it won't surprise you. The entire plan can be summed up as wait and see, everything will work out just fine.

In a new interview, see what NADDC's Director General, Jelani Aliyu said about the agency's plans: "Just like when the very first internal combustion engine vehicle was first introduced in Nigeria, there were no mechanics or petrol stations. Yet, because of the value the vehicle offered, the whole ecosystem sprang up to what we have today."

Below are the tech stories and news you need to know to start your day, carefully curated by Technext.

Summary of the news

In July, Nigeria saw 208m active lines, an all-time high
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket burst into flames during
NADDC charts path towards EVs future in Nigeria
Twitter execs prioritized ‘profit over security,’ whistleblower told American Congress

Nigeria hit all-time high telco subscribers in July

The number of active telecommunications subscribers services in Nigeria hit over 208 million in July, according to data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Technext reports.

The figure, a little higher than the country’s estimated 200 million population, no doubt, raises hopes that both broadband and internet penetration is on the rise in the country.

In 2015, the number of active telecommunication users in Nigeria stood at 145 million. This means that in 7 years, over 62 million telco users have been recorded. Of course, Nigeria’s population increase is largely responsible for this.

According to the recent numbers, Nigeria witnessed a surge in the number of active lines from 206.45 million in June 2022 to 208.97 million in July 2022, causing the teledensity to jump from 108.15% to 109.47%.

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Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket bursts into flames

A rocket launched by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin failed shortly after its launch, marking the first major incident for the billionaire’s space exploration group since opening up its service to the public, the Financial Times reports.

The New Shepard rocket, which took off from Blue Origin’s facility in west Texas on Monday morning, was not carrying any passengers. It was bringing up dozens of experimental items that were to be tested for a brief period in the weightless environment at the edge of space.

The failure is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration, with New Shepard grounded until the investigation is over. Describing the matter as a “mishap”, the FAA confirmed that there were no injuries or damage to public property.

“The anomaly that occurred triggered the capsule escape system,” the FAA said in a statement. “The capsule landed safely and the booster impacted within the designated hazard area.”

NADDC charts path towards EVs future in Nigeria

The National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) is optimistic about the future of electric vehicles in Nigeria. In an interview with Nairametrics, NADDC's Director General, Jelani Aliyu said that there is much work to be done for EVs to succeed in Nigeria. But he added that some of the concerns are no problem at all.

See an excerpt from the interview below:

Just like when the very first internal combustion engine vehicle was first introduced in Nigeria, there were no mechanics or petrol stations. Yet, because of the value the vehicle offered, the whole ecosystem sprang up to what we have today.

The NADDC has technicians who understand vehicles in general and hybrids. At NADDC, we have built 18 motor training centres across the country and we will be using these as platforms for technology transfer and to train technicians and mechanics on electric vehicles.

We are also putting together the National Occupational Standards (NOS) that will guide the training on electric vehicles. Aside from the electric drive itself, some of the components of EVs are similar to ICE vehicles, this helps in developing skills in EV maintenance.

When NADDC started promoting electric vehicles, we met some pushback due to power issues, so we started working on a 100% solar-powered, off-grid EV charging station. We built one in Sokoto, one in Lagos and another in Nsukka, Enugu.

Anyone can charge their electric vehicle at any of these stations. We are keeping track of data to gauge performance in different climatic conditions, to enable improvement on what we have already built.

Whistleblower testifies against Twitter

The former security chief at Twitter told Congress that the social media platform is plagued by weak cyber defences that make it vulnerable to exploitation by “teenagers, thieves and spies” and put the privacy of its users at risk, TechWire reports.

Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to lay out his allegations Tuesday.

“I am here today because Twitter leadership is misleading the public, lawmakers, regulators and even its own board of directors,” Zatko said as he began his sworn testimony.

“They don’t know what data they have, where it lives and where it came from and so, unsurprisingly, they can’t protect it,” Zatko said. “It doesn’t matter who has keys if there are no locks.”

Zatko said “Twitter leadership ignored its engineers,” in part because “their executive incentives led them to prioritize profit over security.”