Business

How to optimise for the new world of hybrid work

Published

3 years ago

November 7, 2021

The work environment has changed in a post-COVID world, making it imperative for business owners and employees to seek new ways of working to achieve common goals.

There is already a remedy to help businesses transition to this new work environment, according to Microsoft Influencer Events Team.

Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft in his opening remarks at Microsoft Ignite 2021 discussed how Microsoft and the Microsoft Cloud are at the cutting edge of helping organisations and their employees and customers navigate the major trends of this new time: How to optimise for the new world of hybrid work; how to help customers build hyperconnected business; how every business can become a digital business; how to protect everything with end-to-end security.

“At Ignite, we are introducing more than 90 new services and updates and will feature tech sessions that dive into news and demos from: Jared Spataro, corporate vice president, Microsoft 365; Alysa Taylor, Corporate Vice President, Industry, Apps, and Data Marketing; Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud & AI; Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice president, Security, Compliance, and Identity.”

News highlights

Powering the metaverse. The Microsoft Cloud provides a comprehensive set of resources designed to power metaverses – there will be more than one! At Ignite, we are making two important announcements that continue the evolution of the metaverse: Dynamics 365 Connected Spaces. Now in preview, this product provides a new perspective on the way people move and interact with nearly any space, from the retail store to the factory floor, and how they manage health and safety in a hybrid work environment; Mesh for Microsoft Teams. This bridging of communication methods makes human presence the ultimate connection. Now, everyone in a meeting can be present without being physically present using personalized avatars and immersive spaces that can be accessed from any device, with no special equipment needed.

Translating AI breakthroughs for customers. Large scale artificial intelligence models are now becoming platforms, creating ambient intelligence – digital environments that are responsive and aware of a user’s needs.

Azure OpenAI Service. This new service will give customers access to OpenAI’s powerful models in addition to the security, reliability, compliance, data privacy and other enterprise-grade capabilities built into Microsoft Azure. Microsoft also is offering Azure OpenAI Service customers tools to ensure outputs the models provide are business-appropriate and we are monitoring how people are employing the technology to assure it is being used correctly.

Building a trust fabric. As we continue to explore hybrid work, hyperconnected business, multi-cloud/multi-edge computing and zero trust security, there’s one key element that connects them: the ability to have a digital ecosystem where trust between parties can be established in real time.

Teams Shared Channels allows users to invite an external team to join a channel, schedule a shared channel meeting and collaborate on files.

Chat with Teams allows users to chat seamlessly with people outside of a work network. Teams users at work can chat with any Teams user with a Microsoft personal email address or phone number and remain within the security and compliance protocols of their organization.

Important Updates

Microsoft Loop, a new app that moves freely across applications, enabling teams to think, plan and create together. You can organize everything you need for your project – files, links and data from other apps – into a single workspace. It is easy to use portable components to complete work in chat, meetings or documents, knowing that the content always stays in sync. The Microsoft Customer Experience Platform, a marketing solution that puts organizations in control of their customer data to personalize, automate and orchestrate customer journeys.

Context IQ, a set of capabilities that will further integrate collaboration, sharing and communication in the flow of work across Dynamics 365, Office 365 and Teams. Several major updates across Azure, including how we are helping customers manage data and applications across hybrid and multicloud environments with Azure Arc, new, best-of-breed security solutions for small businesses with Defender for Business.

Aviation

Disaster averted as bird strike hits Abuja-Lagos Air Peace flight

Published

16 hours ago

November 14, 2024

Trends Admin

Disaster averted as bird strike hits Abuja-Lagos Air Peace flight

An Abuja-Lagos flight was on Thursday aborted following a bird strike on the airplane belonging to Air Peace, forcing the authorities to ground the aircraft.

The bird strike experienced in the early hours reportedly prompted a ramp return to ensure the safety of passengers onboard.

All the passengers quickly disembarked and were calmed down before they were moved into another plane for the one-hour journey.

A bird strike is a collision between a bird and an aircraft, or other airborne animal, while the aircraft is in flight, taking off, or landing. And it can be a significant threat to aircraft safety.

Air Peace in a statement by its Head of Corporate Communications, Ejike Ndiulo, said the bird strike occurred at 6:30am, and all passengers disembarked normally.

The statement read, “We wish to inform our esteemed passengers that our Abuja- Lagos 06:30 flight experienced a bird strike before take-off, prompting a ramp return as a safety measure. All passengers disembarked normally.

“We have deployed a replacement aircraft for the affected flight in order to minimize disruptions, thus ensuring that passengers continue their journeys promptly.

“We appeal for the understanding of our valued passengers impacted by this development, as well as those on other flights that may experience delays.

“At Air Peace, we are committed to providing safe, comfortable, and reliable air travel for all our passengers.”

Business

NNPC achieves 1.8mbpd crude oil production

Published

16 hours ago

November 14, 2024

Trends Admin

NNPC achieves 1.8mbpd crude oil production

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) and its partners have revved up crude oil and gas production to 1.8million barrels per day (mbpd) and 7.4standard cubic feet per day (scfd).

The company which announced this at a press briefing said the feat was achieved in compliance with the mandate of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Speaking on the development, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mele Kyari, congratulated the Production War Room Team that anchored the production recovery process.

“The team has done a great job in driving this project of not just production recovery but also escalating production to expected levels that are in the short and long terms acceptable to our shareholders based on the mandates that we
have from the President, the Honourable Minister, and the Board,” Kyari explained.

Giving details of the efforts of the Production War Room, the Chief War Room Coordinator and Senior Business Adviser to the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Lawal Musa, disclosed that the feat was achieved through the collaborative efforts of Joint Venture and Production Sharing Contract partners, the Office of the National Security Adviser, as well as government and private security agencies.

NNPC achieves 1.8mbpd crude oil production

Business

FG gets fresh $134m loan from AfDB for agric projects

Published

17 hours ago

November 14, 2024

Trends Admin

FG gets fresh $134m loan from AfDB for agric projects

The Federal Government has secured a loan facility of $134million from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to help farmers boost seeds and grain production in the country.

This is contained in a statement issued by Anthonia Eremah, Chief Information Officer, Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, on Thursday, in Abuja.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, made his know at the unveiling of the 2024/2025 National Dry Season Farming in Calabar, Cross River State capital.

Kyari explained that with the re-introduction of the national dry season farming to boost year-round agricultural production, the loan would be handy and guarantee national food security in the country.

The minister said the initiative is under the National Agricultural Growth Support Scheme-Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP) Project.

He said the federal government had declared an emergency on food production to enable all Nigerians to get easy access to quality and nutritional food at affordable rates.

Kyari also said government wants to use the agricultural sector for national economic revival through increase in production of some staple food crops such as wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, soybean, and cassava during both dry and wet season farming.

He added that 107,429 wheat farmers were supported under phase 1 of the 2023/2024 dry season, and 43,997 rice farmers under the second phase of the 2023/2024 dry season.