PRESS RELEASE : CAN WE BUILD WEALTH IN AFRICA USING THE MOBILE PHONE? AN EDEL/USADF PROJECT

group of african american college students closeup

PRESS RELEASE

“CAN WE BUILD WEALTH IN AFRICA USING THE MOBILE PHONE?”

Creating employment and wealth by giving global business access to an on demand and scalable workforce in Africa via a mobile micro working platform named M-Ablode. A collaboration between EDEL Technology Consulting and United States African Development Fund

group of african american college students closeup

group of african american college students closeup

USADF as part of the YALI( Young African Leaders Initiative) provided grant funding for the development of the mobile based platform M-Ablodé . Ablodé  is an ewe word  spoken by the fon ewe people  originating from Ghana,Benin,Togo meaning Freedom or Independence

The problem: The African continent’s labour force will be 1 billion strong by 2040, making it the largest in the world, surpassing both China and India (McKinsey Global Institute, 2010). In Africa youth unemployment  occurs at a rate more than twice that for adults, Youth account for 60% of all African unemployed ( World Bank).

Solution: M-Ablodé is a Micro working platform that enables individuals and businesses globally to coordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are currently unable to do. The micro workers will be based in emerging markets specifically Africa.

The Customers (Requesters) will be able to post tasks, such as content creation, image identification,  acquiring information, data input, data verification, proof-reading, translation, copy-editing, graphic design, information gathering (e.g. GPS data, Sentiment Analysis).

Telecoms giant Ericsson expects mobile subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa will increase to 930 million by the end of 2019, making Africa the mobile first continent. This has led us to develop M-Ablodé .

M-Ablodé will be launched in June 2016. Sign up to be first to know

Site: http://mablode.edelitconsult.com

About USADF

The U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) is a small but effective tool in the U.S. Government’s Foreign Assistance toolkit.

USADF is on the frontier of development, working directly with Africans on the ground to combat some of Africa’s most difficult development and foreign policy challenges with programs to increase the U.S. diplomatic and development presence in the hardest to reach areas of extreme poverty.

USADF awards small grants (up to $250,000) for technical assistance and capacity building to grassroots organizations, cooperatives and community enterprises that strengthen local institutions and achieve lasting impact. The grants help organizations create tangible benefits such as increasing or sustaining the number of jobs in a community, improving income levels, and addressing social development needs.

 

About EDEL Technology Consulting

EDEL Technology is a leading digital products  consultancy. We deliver software and mobile development, consulting and training services.

We are passionate about solving our clients’ problems, and we bring a fierce focus so we get the job done right, every time. By sharing our knowledge and understanding our clients’ businesses, we deliver the right results for them. The company’s reputation is built upon solving complex business problems to provide reliable and scalable business solutions.

This we achieve through a combination of:
Modern project management techniques
Standard software engineering
Industrial strength architectures

The EDEL Technologies team has diverse experience in technology solutions delivery across the continent with projects delivered in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Gambia.

Specialties

Software Development, IT Consulting, Mobile Application Development, Social Media Strategy

 

How EDEL Technology Consulting practices Lean StartUp Methodology in Product Development

How EDEL Technology Consulting practices Lean StartUp Methodology in Product Development

Failed Requirements ?

Failed requirements are one of the most common reasons of failed projects.   In fact, the more of requirements are missed, the more expensive it is for organisations . EDEL Technology Consulting uses numerous methods to ensure that you as client never lose money because of incomplete requirements

The requirement gathering techniques may differ from one project to another. Some requirement gathering techniques may prove highly beneficial for you in one project but may not be as productive in the other project or for some other company. Therefore the usefulness of a technique is determined by its need and the kind of advantages it offers in a particular project. There are 10 essential requirement gathering techniques that you must be aware of in order to manage the projects in a better way and run your business successfully are:

  1. Brainstorming
  2. Document Analysis
  3. Domain Analysis
  4. Interface Analysis
  5. Interview
  6. Observation
  7. Prototyping
  8. Requirements Workshop
  9. Reverse Engineering
  10. Survey

We discuss some of them below

Interviews

Interviews are strong medium to collect requirements. Organization may conduct several types of interviews such as:

  • Structured (closed) interviews, where every single information to gather is decided in advance, they follow pattern and matter of discussion firmly.
  • Non-structured (open) interviews, where information to gather is not decided in advance, more flexible and less biased.
  • Oral interviews
  • Written interviews
  • One-to-one interviews which are held between two persons across the table.
  • Group interviews which are held between groups of participants. They help to uncover any missing requirement as numerous people are involved.

Surveys

Organization may conduct surveys among various stakeholders by querying about their expectation and requirements from the upcoming system.

Questionnaires

A document with pre-defined set of objective questions and respective options is handed over to all stakeholders to answer, which are collected and compiled.

A shortcoming of this technique is, if an option for some issue is not mentioned in the questionnaire, the issue might be left unattended.

Task analysis

Team of engineers and developers may analyze the operation for which the new system is required. If the client already has some software to perform certain operation, it is studied and requirements of proposed system are collected.

Domain Analysis

Every software falls into some domain category. The expert people in the domain can be a great help to analyze general and specific requirements.

Brainstorming

An informal debate is held among various stakeholders and all their inputs are recorded for further requirements analysis.

Prototyping

Prototyping is building user interface without adding detail functionality for user to interpret the features of intended software product. It helps giving better idea of requirements. If there is no software installed at client’s end for developer’s reference and the client is not aware of its own requirements, the developer creates a prototype based on initially mentioned requirements. The prototype is shown to the client and the feedback is noted. The client feedback serves as an input for requirement gathering.

Observation

Team of experts visit the client’s organization or workplace. They observe the actual working of the existing installed systems. They observe the workflow at client’s end and how execution problems are dealt. The team itself draws some conclusions which aid to form requirements expected from the software.

 

Prototyping

Prototypes can be very effective at gathering feedback. Low fidelity prototypes can be used as an active listening tool. Often, when people can not articulate a particular need in the abstract, they can quickly assess if a design approach would address the need. Prototypes are most efficiently done with quick sketches of interfaces and storyboards. Prototypes are even being used as the “official requirements” in some situations.

Software Requirements Characteristics

Gathering software requirements is the foundation of the entire software development project. Hence they must be clear, correct and well-defined.

A complete Software Requirement Specifications must be:

  • Clear
  • Correct
  • Consistent
  • Coherent
  • Comprehensible
  • Modifiable
  • Verifiable
  • Prioritized
  • Unambiguous
  • Traceable
  • Credible source

Credits

http://mobidev.biz/

http://tynerblain.com/

CEO of EDEL Technology Consulting named Africa’s leading woman in tech 2015

IT News Africa names CEO of EDEl Technology Consulting Ethel Cofie as one of Africa’s leading women in tech 2015 alongside Funke Opeke( former CTO for MTN and Now CEO of Main One Cable)

The Full Article here

10390322_10152375522540155_2233603133822372793_n

 

http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2015/08/africas-leading-women-in-tech-2015/

Job Opportunity :Junior Business Analyst

Junior Business Analyst
Overview
We are looking for a motivated and enthusiastic individual to join the Product Development Team as a Junior BA. This key role will play a crucial part in helping the Product Development Team successfully deliver projects. It is intended that the successful candidate will be keen to develop and progress towards a full Business Analyst role within the Product Development Team with increased responsibilities.

Responsibilities
Learning about the Business Analyst role and the Project Lifecycle, and practically applying knowledge and skills as obtained to successfully deliver projects
• Supporting the Business Analysis function in the Product Development Team and assisting the Business Analysts in: o Eliciting and documenting the business requirements o Chasing-up approvals and managing effective feedback o Updating documents where necessary
• Running workshops: Arranging sessions o Determining agendas and preparing any necessary workshop material o Taking notes / meeting minutes o Providing updates and follow-ups to attendees
• Supporting and updating multiple Project Logs
• Plan, manage and be responsible for own time management according to Product Development priorities – Planning and working flexibly to a deadline
• Managing the Product Development Document library
• Providing updates and feedback across the Product Development team as required
• Attending Scrums and other key Project Management forums
• Managing small Projects to delivery (with support from existing Business Analysts)
• Supporting test cycles particularly User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Providing training
• Identifying areas for improvement
• Critically evaluating information gathered from multiple sources, reconciling conflicts, decomposing high-level information into details, abstracting up from low-level information to a general understanding, and distinguishing user requests from the underlying true needs
• Developing requirements specifications according to standard templates
• Writing documentation
• L1 support as and when required
• Being a liaison between the business units, technology teams, support teams and

Business Analysis
Qualifications
To be successful for this role you will need to keep up to date with technical and industry sector developments and awareness of evolvement of relevant technologies such as HTML5 vs. Flash, Local vs. cloud etc.

You will have previous experience of working in Agile environments (SCRUM experience is an added advantage)

Once you have established yourself, it is intended that you would want to ultimately progress to a Business Analyst position and will therefore demonstrate the following skills:

• Self-motivated and proactive
Able to think logical and objectively with the ability to think outside of the box and therefore see the bigger picture
Comfortable working under pressure and successfully engage in multiple initiatives simultaneously

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Results driven with good time management skills
Good leadership skills in order to obtain appropriate information and to arrange and co-ordinate projects

Possess a high attention to detail
Able to work outside Accra for extended periods of time

Strategy and Technology to make your Organization More Revenue

Are your current revenue streams plateauing? Are you looking to build additional revenue streams Have you reached highest revenue limits with your current clients looking to build an additional revenue stream?

In a world full of continuing business uncertainty and tough economic challenges, what would you give for a predictable, growing revenue stream that creates loyal customers and helps sell product?

Are you a Business looking to bring your business into the Digital Era?

Do you want to digitize your services to provide increased and additional revenue stream?

If any of these questions keep you up at night as a business owner or CEO then talk to us as Edel Technology Consulting.

EDEL Technology Consulting was built on the tenet: organizations all over the world need to align strategy and technology to ensure that they survive, innovate and beat their competition.

Let us a give you a quick example

Case Study 

Setting the Scene

A legal firm (RF and Partners) have being in business for the last 10 years. They serve small to medium size companies and have being successful so far. RF and Partners have noticed that they have stagnated in terms of profits and unless a the company strategically transforms itself and come up with innovative products, the RF and Partners might be gradually heading to closure as they might not be able maintain the current cost of running the firm – an indication from their financial projections..

EDEL Technology Consulting is contracted to bring synergies in strategy and technology to enable RF and Partners’ growth.

Phase 1

Strategy and alignment meeting

EDEL Technology Consulting’s initially setup strategy sessions with the RF and Partners’ team to understand their business and by so doing establish key points:

 Unmet needs of customer

What strategies to employ to address them

The evolution of the market or industry, and strategies to adopt to remain relevant to industry evolutions

These questions help define strategies and direction of RF and Partners and how EDEL Technology Consulting can align technology to new revenue channels, revised products or redefinition of business models.

Phase 2

Design Workshop

DesignThinking_UXC

Design thinking process first defines the problem and then implements the solutions, always with the needs of the user demographic at the core of concept development.  This process focuses on need finding, understanding, creating, thinking, and doing.  At the core of this process is a bias towards action and creation: by creating and testing something, you can continue to learn and improve upon your initial ideas.

In the Design thinking workshop a problem space emerged

Problem Space

There was class of SME’s that RF & Partners were not serving and these were startups and individuals who need quick simple legal services without having to pay huge retainer fees.

Worldwide, there are about 300 million persons trying to start about 150 million businesses. About one third will be launched, so you can assume 50 million new firm births per year. Or about 137,000 per day. As firm birth and death rates are about equal, the same number of active firms, say 120,000 probably terminate trading each day–world wide

These startups cannot afford the high legal fees or retention costs charged by the traditional firms, but are still in need of legal services

There were a large number of solution s to offer services to these client in way the was price sensitive and yet provided RF and Partners good margins.

Solution One

On demand Online Platform in which startups would enter and answer a number of questions and a set of tailored documents would be generated automatically. There would be little human intervention and startup would be able to access template legal documents at on demand price.

We create a prototype to test viability of product (minimum viable product for testing without actually building out the whole platform?)

  • We quickly put together a one page Google form. ( it takes 10 minutes to create)
  • In the Form we included a mobile money number to which amount was to be paid (clients base is in the emerging markets where mobile money is prevalent)
  • On receipt of payment paralegal with supervision of second year lawyer would compile legal document startup needs to preset template

We market the product through online mediums

 (We increases cost by 10% each week and document volume of sales at each price point- This is to find the maximum price at which clients will pay for the service). Edel Technology Consulting runs the product experiment for a month.

How do we test this product and what are the Key success factors

The Key Success factors here was the volume of sales and how many people clicked to view the of the Google forms

Solution Two

On demand service in which organization who can request, an online conference with a legal practitioner and pay for a set time .In that time legal practitioner and can review and give advice. The user can pay based on experience and seniority of legal practioner.

How do we create a prototype (minimum viable product for testing without actually building out the whole platform)

  • We create a landing page for users to request the service ( request can be done via landing page or the via email)
  • The user can pay for service using mobile money ( clients base is in the emerging markets where mobile money is prevalent)
  • On receipt of payment paralegal schedules a Skype call with user for the time paid for with Lawyer

We market the product through online/sms marketing

(We increases cost by 10% each week and document volume of sales at each price point- This is to find the maximum price at which clients will pay for the service). Edel Technology Consulting runs the product experiment for a month.

How do we test this product and what are the Key success factors

The Key Success factors here was the volume of sales and how many people clicked to view the of the Google forms

At the end of the month the revenue generated and feedback from client who bought the service is used to make the decision on digital product to build for RF & Partners.

  • We build Digital Product
  • Create Product go to market strategy
  • Choreograph product launch

EDEL Technology Consulting has provided RF Partners a digitized service that will increase revenue flow year on year 20%.

 bigstock-Portrait-of-happy-leader-with-44709070

We would love to bring these expertise to your organisation , please contact us at services@edelitconsult.com

Job Opportunity : Developer

Job Title: Consultant Developer

Job Type: Permanent

Location : Could be remote or in Ghana 

 

We are currently looking to fill a very exciting opportunity as Consultant / Developer within the our organisation.

 

We are seeking a Senior PHP Developer capable of leading teams of Developers on projects and acting as the technical authority within the team.

 

This role is a full SDLC position and you will be communicating with all kinds of end users across the world via phone, Skype and email. Therefore strong communication skills are essential and you must be able to listen to what the end user needs, Consult them on how it can be done and any alterations or be able to actually develop and build that from scratch.

The key skills are

–        C# / ASP.NET

–        PHP /Word press development

–        HTML / CSS / JavaScript / JQuery

–        Strong communication skills

The nice to haves

–        Prince2 qualification or the desire to take it

The ideal candidate will be very self-motivated, have a passion to learn new technologies and keep themselves up to date.

 

You must show a willingness to learn and be able to work well both independently and within a team.

If this seems like the opportunity you are looking for please do apply and I will be in touch to discuss further.

 

We would love to hear back from you, so If you are interested or want any more information on the role then email me your CV at services@edelitconsult.com

 

Is Your Social Media Manager Lying to you – Edel Technology at Social Media Week Lagos

CEOs (and almost C levels decision makers) need to ask certain high-level but tough questions of their digital marketing team and agency. This can be a hard task when new digital programs involve something they may not have direct experience with or when the language employed is often a tangle of acronyms and terms for which they have no context. So, on behalf of all the CEO’s out there – here is a starting primer on what you might ask your teams responsible for digital strategy and execution:

Why should you approve that budget for the social media campaign ?

Don’t be bamboozled by meaningless vanity metrics such as the number of Facebook likes or Twitter followers (those can be cheaply purchased). Instead We will give you the tools to be able to suss and and ask the right questions to make sure you are not throwing Money Away!!

Please See Presentation below

Edel Tech at Social Media Week Lagos

Edel Technology Consulting is part of the social media week advisory board  we will be organizing 2 events

Face the Facts : Practical Strategies for Women in Tech 

Face Up To The Facts: Lessons From Leading Women In Tech is an engaging panel discussion on  practical strategies for women and tech companies seeking more women talent.

Date : Tue, Feb 24 – 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM

 Participants will learn:

  • Practical Strategies for navigating  a career as a women in a technology role
  • The art of career story telling for growth

The Speakers will be Nkem Begho, Ugochi Ugbomeh,Lola Olusola

Is Your Social Media Manager Lying to you 

CEOs (and almost C levels decision makers) need to ask certain high-level but tough questions of their digital marketing team and agency. This can be a hard task when new digital programs involve something they may not have direct experience with or when the language employed is often a tangle of acronyms and terms for which they have no context. So, on behalf of all the CEOs out there – here is a starting primer on what you might ask your teams responsible for digital strategy and execution:

Date :Wed, Feb 25 – 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

The Event is a Executive Master Class run by Ethel Cofie

Edel Technology at USAID Digital Development Summit

Credit:ICTworks

Edel Technology Keynoted at the USAID Digital Development Forum at Labadi Beach Hotel | Accra, Ghana on  Monday ,Jan 26, 2015

We were represented by our CEO Ethel Cofie , who spoke in the future of Technology in Africa.

Please See Presentation Below

Get in Touch With Us Now,To Help You Grow Your Business!

Get in touch with us!