Audrey Zibelman spent two years in the Peace Corps in the late 1970s, working in a village in Chad which had no electricity. She was struck by how the lack of power exacerbated poverty. “For these people I was living with, about 80 to 90 percent of their day was spent just on staying alive,” she recalls.

Today Zibelman, 54, heads a Philadelphia startup backed by $24 million in venture capital that she hopes will eventually help light up remote areas. For now, the 56 employees at Viridity Energy make software used by dozens of large facilities in the U.S., including commercial buildings and factories, to manage their energy, which is usually their second or third largest expense, according to Zibelman. She launched the company in 2008 after convincing Alain Steven, an expert in utility IT systems, to help build the software. While other power-saving technologies exist, she says Viridity is the first in the U.S. that also lets power guzzlers sell their energy back to the grid. That’s an important feature for institutions with on-site solar panels or generators.

Viridity installs software that works with a building’s energy systems to monitor and control heating and cooling, appliances, generators, and more. The software constantly checks the variables that affect how much a facility pays for energy. This includes the price of electricity, which for wholesale buyers like factories can change every few minutes. The software also takes into account weather forecasts, which could cause price spikes, and how much it costs a building to produce its own energy. Viridity then tweaks electricity use to minimize costs. At Drexel University in Philadelphia, a Viridity client, the software knows that certain rooms are better insulated than others. When electricity prices rise, it automatically reduces heat in the law library, where the books trap a lot of warmth. Drexel could make money during those hours by selling electricity from its diesel generators to the grid.

The software builds on Zibelman’s more than 25 years in the utility industry, including as general counsel to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission. Viridity doesn’t charge for its software; it takes a cut of any revenue its customers make by selling to the grid. Jeremy Rifkin, an adviser on energy policy to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European heads of state, notes that similar technology has helped over 1 million buildings in Germany sell their power to the grid over the past four years. “We’re beginning to democratize energy,” he says. “Within 25 years, everybody is going to be their own power plant.”

Zibelman expects Viridity’s software to be in hundreds of facilities and projects over $10 million in revenue by yearend, possibly bringing the startup into the black by next year. She hopes that the same software used by Drexel could one day help rural areas wring as much value as possible from small wind or solar farms. “Energy consumption, energy costs—it’s a big part of economic development,” she says.

Source:http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/audrey-zibelmans-energysaving-software-01192012.html

Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson, has identified software as a key area of focus for the development of the nation’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.

Mrs Johnson noted that to give verve to the drive for software development, the ministry had set up the Information Technology (IT) business incubation centres committee. This committee, she said, will develop a framework that will help incubate and develop IT companies that will contribute to national development.

According to Mrs Johnson, proliferation of mobile devices and a youth generation that is technology-savvy requires support for the ICT sector to nurture, develop and push out to the market, Nigerian software entrepreneurs “that will become the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of Nigeria and of the world.”

She said: “We have identified software as a key area of focus for Nigeria going forward for obvious reasons. There are 80 million or so mobile phones users in Nigeria today and they need software. We also have a youth population that embraces technology.

“I have met over 10 Nigerians who won competitions both in Nigeria and outside Nigeria practicing software. These are people who have gone to Geneva and all over the world participating and winning software competitions and doing Nigeria proud. And we hosted with the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), three Nigerian universities that emerged tops in software.

“So software development is going to be a priority for us going forward. We are going to use the IT incubation centres to nurture, develop and push out to the market, Nigerian software entrepreneurs that will become the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of Nigeria and of the world.”

She advocated professionalism in the ICT sector to drive the ministry’s vision of creating a sector that will act as catalyst for other sectors of the economy.

Mrs Johnson stressed the need for professionals in the industry to work together to reposition the sector to achieve results.

She disclosed that the ministry has concluded the harmonisation of the national ICT policy, adding that the policy will appear on the ministry’s Website, www.commtech.gov.ng on January 9th, 2012, for public consultation and input.

She said: “The ICT policy will be the overarching guide of what we will do in the industry. I really believe that with the new policy we will be well on the way to making the ICT industry what it should be in a country as large, as diverse and as important as Nigeria.”

Mrs Johnson acknowledged the challenges the sector is confronted with, assuring that the ministry and relevant stakeholders will not relent in pursuing lasting solutions for the benefit of Nigerians.

“There are many challenges that we have ahead of us and we know that the one that people are most conversant with both within and without the ICT industry is the quality of service of telecom business. I will say it is bad, we all know that it is bad and the operators know that it is bad. And I will just like to say here that we are working with the NCC to ensure that this issue is no longer a problem.

“There are many issues the operators are facing including number of base stations and infrastructure that we have, but we are working hard to ensure that Quality of Service is an issue of the past.

“NCC has published Quality of Service indicators and they are enforcing them vigorously and holding the operators responsible. I have met with a number of those operators and I can assure you that they are doing all they can to improve service delivery in the sector.”

Source:http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/business/infotech/31390-ministry-to-focus-on-software-development.html

Norb Software Development, Inc. (NSD) today released the Antietam Battle Pack for Scourge of War – Gettysburg.

Antietam is the second expansion pack for Scourge of War – Gettysburg. Featuring the battles of Antietam and South Mountain, Antietam includes 28 new single player and 2 multi-player historical scenarios depicting a highly realistic battlefield experience. Antietam is played on four new meticulously researched and accurate maps, delivering the ultimate Civil War playing experience for both casual and hard core gamers.

The Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, was the bloodiest single day in American history, with an estimated 23,000 casualties. The battle was fought on September 17th, 1862 along the Antietam Creek, near the small farming community of Sharpsburg, Maryland. It was part of General Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign and was the first major battle of the American Civil War to take place in Union territory. NSD’s Antietam faithfully recreates the experiences, leadership decision-making, and topographical elements of this historic event.

Source:http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/81477/Norb_Software_Development_Inc_AnnouncesnbspScourge_of_War_Antietam.php

Worried by the almost 100 per cent dependence on imported technology for Nigeria’s developmental needs, the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) organised a two-day workshop on Software Licensing and Development in Nigeria recently.

In a chat with Vanguard at the workshop held in Lagos on November 29 and 30, the Director-General of the agency, Dr. Umar Bindir said that the agency, through its activities in the ICT Sector realised that “so many financial and telecommunications institutions go abroad to sign technology transfer agreements which they use in Nigeria to give us telecommunications and banking services.

The resultant effect of this development is that a lot of money is being remitted to foreign software licensors and there is little local value addition to the foreign software used in Nigeria.”

Dr. Bindir believes that without Nigeria evolving her own indigenous technology, it will be almost impossible for her to compete favourably with other nations.

He noted that between 2008 and 2009 alone, “we have remitted over N20 billion so we decided to invite the companies that are throwing their technology at us, the vendors in Nigeria who are taking the technology and giving to end-users, to the workshop.

Managing directors of banks, big-time communications companies, computer service providers and foreigners working with companies like Oracle, are all here. The question we are asking them is this: Should Nigeria continue doing this forever?

Why can’t we strategize to also develop the capacity and the software? Everybody must be involved. So don’t just do business, there must be a strategy to transfer technology. There must be a strategy to develop technology. There must be fairness in the charges. There should also be good deals when you give,” he said.

Dr. Umar Bindir presented a paper titled: Critical issues emanating from ICT and software licensing while the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Prof. Cleopas Angaye presented a paper titled: Challenges and strategies for ICT and software development and domestication in Nigeria.

The workshop examined the current trends in software solutions in the country; the effectiveness of existing policy on ATS payment to local vendors in the country and assessed the indigenous software development capabilities in Nigeria; and considered different policy options with regards to software development/licensing in Nigeria.

Source:http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/12/stakeholders-call-for-indigenous-software-and-capacity-development/