Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 35 | Page 22

LATEST REGIONAL PROJECT UPDATE SIERRA LEONE The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a US$773,476 grant to the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) in Sierra Leone to develop an Integrated GIS Portal that will utilise technology, software and devices to collect, label and model data to inform real-time government and development partner decision making. The grant will also seek to strengthen the local ecosystem around human capacity development. The Integrated Geographic Information System (iGIS) Portal is a cross-sectoral spatial data infrastructure and geodatabase and links diverse geographic information datasets from the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) and its partners. NIGERIA Nokia has announced that Spectranet, Nigeria’s largest Internet Service Provider, will bring high-speed access to customers in Lagos and Abuja by deploying its GPON solution as part of an extensive Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) rollout. The solution will enable Spectranet to provide new ultra-broadband services such as 4K HD video streaming and online gaming to residential and enterprise subscribers in the region. With Nokia’s FTTH technology, Spectranet will be able to address the evolving demands of its subscribers by providing high speed and stable Internet connectivity at affordable tariffs. The deployment supports the Nigerian Government’s Vision 20: 2020 to use technology for the economic growth of the country. 22 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com