Inq. Digital, the leading Pan-African Cloud and Digital solutions provider, has been adjudged the best in three different categories at the recently concluded 5^th edition of the Nigeria Tech Innovation and Telecoms Awards (NTITA) 2021.

 “The emergence of Inq. Digital as the Unified Communications Provider of the year, IoT Solutions Provider of the year and the Digital Services provider of the year was an attestation to the efforts of the company in advancing technology in the ICT and Telecom Industry”, said the organizers of the awards.

The award ceremony, which was organized by InstinctWave, an ISO certified company in partnership with the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) and the Africa Digital Economy Forum, has grown to be the “Oscars” of the ICT/Telecom industry, and is widely known as the most celebrated ICT and Telecoms awards in the country.

Akin Naphtal, Chief Executive Officer of InstinctWave, noted that “inq. Digital’s footprints within the year in review showed tremendous development and positive contributions to businesses in three clear categories. The three categories are very distinct and interwoven, yet members of the public carefully spotted and appreciated the hard work of inq. Digital in the ICT and Telecom Industry through their votes.”

He further said, “We commend the inq. Digital team for such a bold contribution to the industry even as they just transitioned from Vodacom Business Nigeria, which is a statement of a successful journey from one great brand to another emerging great brand within the technology space”.

Commenting on the awards, Valentine Chime, Managing Director of inq. Digital, thanked the organizers, the public and the stakeholders for recognizing the work of inq. Digital within the period under review.

He, also, thanked the regulators, particularly the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Nigerian Communications Commission, for consistently providing the enabling environment for the industry to make progress amidst all the challenges.

As an organization that understands the indispensable role of customers, Chime emphasized that the digital brand heritage has enabled it to define its path of excellence in various products’ developments, in line with the needs of the clients and markets.  “Our products are evolving along the lines of the market need; thus, we have pledged to continue to innovate as captured in our business philosophy of enabling our customers to reimagine a better future”, he added.

inq. Digital is a brand that creates digital solutions to solve complex challenges and assist multinationals in key sectors of African commerce such as banking and finance, oil and gas, mining and construction, retail and distribution, education, agriculture, and tourism; helping them in their Digital Transformation journey.

 Google Cloud and Ericsson has announced a partnership to jointly develop 5G and edge cloud solutions to help communications service providers (CSPs) digitally transform and to unlock new enterprise and consumer use cases.

Globally, industries with edge presences – including communication service providers, retailers, manufacturers, transport businesses, healthcare and media/entertainment providers – face pressures to build more digitized businesses and new digital experiences for their customers.

To help businesses address this shift, Google Cloud and Ericsson are working together to develop new solutions at Ericsson’s Silicon Valley D-15 Labs, a state-of-the-art innovation center where advanced solutions and technologies can be developed and tested on a live, multi-layers 5G platform.

Ericsson and Google Cloud have already completed functional onboarding of Ericsson 5G on Anthos to enable telco edge and on-premise use cases for CSPs and enterprises.

As part of the partnership, Google Cloud and Ericsson are also piloting enterprise applications at the edge on a live network with TIM. The project, which will automate the functions of TIM’s core 5G network and cloud-based applications, will use TIM’s Telco Cloud infrastructure, Google Cloud solutions and Ericsson’s 5G core network and orchestration technologies.

The joint offerings will help enterprises in the automotive, transportation, manufacturing and other sectors improve efficiencies and lower latency by bringing connectivity close to companies’ physical locations.

Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, says: “Organizations have a tremendous opportunity to digitally transform their businesses with 5G and cloud capabilities like artificial intelligence and machine learning at the edge. We are proud to partner with Ericsson to help build a foundation for communications service providers and enterprises alike to take advantage of cloud technology and cloud-native services, from telecom network core to the  edge and enterprise premises.”

Niklas Heuveldop, President and Head of Ericsson North America, says: “5G is a powerful innovation platform. Combined with edge cloud capabilities, 5G has the potential to accelerate the digital transformation of virtually any sector of industry or society. We are excited about our partnership with Google Cloud as we engage with our customers to leverage our combined capabilities to solve real-world business challenges for the benefit of consumers, enterprises and society at large.”

Ericsson and Google previously formed a services partnership to enable the digital transformation of operator networks and application migration through cloud-native, container-based solutions.

Under the terms of the agreement, NCR will expand cloud availability of its Digital Banking software portfolio, including NCR Channel Services for retail banking as well as its card and payments processing platform NCR Authentic.

“This initiative expands the cloud deployment options for NCR’s customers, making it easier and faster for financial institutions to bring new digital banking services to market and accelerate digital transformations with confidence,” said Frank Hauck, President and General Manager of NCR Banking. “Financial institutions will benefit from NCR’s depth of banking industry experience along with the trusted, secure cloud platform provided by Google Cloud.”

NCR and Google Cloud will collaborate on product development and innovation to further enhance the suite of cloud-based solutions and analytics available to banking customers on Google Cloud. Google Cloud is a leading infrastructure, platform and industry solutions provider, helping businesses solve their most critical problems across 200 countries. With the ubiquitous Google Cloud, NCR’s customers will gain a leading solution for powerful computing, data storage and powerful analytics, and business insight.

“We’re partnering with NCR to help accelerate the digital transformation of financial services organizations,” said Derek White, vice president, Global Financial Services at Google Cloud. “Bringing NCR’s widely adopted digital banking software onto Google Cloud means financial institutions can leverage scalable, secure cloud infrastructure, with the flexibility to deploy new, cloud-native solutions across on-premises, hybrid cloud, and as-a-service models, enabling them to deliver exceptional customer experiences.”