Nigeria’s Largest Book Festival ‘ACBF’ 6th Edition Back On October 26th

Arts & Culture, Books

Joyce Onwuka
Organizers of the Akada Children’s Book Festival (ACBF) which was launched in 2019, is hosting its sixth edition.
At inception the festival clearly declared its mission to create a vibrant and inclusive platform that promotes children’s literacy while spotlighting the work of Indigenous authors and illustrators.
The festival’s name, “Akada,” translates to “a lover of literacy and books” in Yoruba, reflecting its deep commitment to celebrating the richness of African literature.
Through the festival, children aged 13 and under are encouraged to develop a lifelong love and appreciation for books and storytelling, providing them with the tools they need to explore, imagine, and learn through literature.
As Nigeria’s first and largest book festival dedicated exclusively to children, the Akada Children’s Book Festival (ACBF) has carved out a unique space in the nation’s cultural landscape. Over the years, it has grown into an eagerly anticipated event, welcoming over 8,500 attendees.
In its efforts to make reading more accessible, ACBF has also donated more than 4,206 books to communities and schools, expanding its reach to children who might otherwise lack access to quality reading materials.
Each year, the festival builds on its core mission—nurturing a love for stories that reflect the diverse experiences of African children while offering a stage for local authors to connect with young readers and their families.

Glasgow adds environmental impact to computer science syllabus

Science and Health

Opting to travel by train rather than plane has become a popular choice for many scholars and students, but few think so hard about the environmental impact of the computers they use.That may soon change at one UK university, at least, where computing science students will be regularly taught and assessed on the sustainability implications of their chosen field of study.
The decision by the University of Glasgow’s School of Computer Science to integrate environmental questions into its curriculum – believed to be a first for a UK university – comes amid growing concerns over the enormous amounts of energy used the industry, and in particular, by the supercomputers powering artificial intelligence tools.
It is estimated, for instance, that each ChatGPT query consumes 4.3g of CO2, with 16 queries the equivalent of boiling a kettle, and 139 the equivalent of running a washing machine on a hot cycle.
About 70 per cent of the computing sector’s carbon emissions come from powering data centres behind such algorithms, and a further quarter relates to the production of computing hardware – with the difficulty of recycling increasingly complex computers also set be discussed in class.
“Computing has transformed society in my lifetime, enabling huge advances across science and medicine and providing us with new ways to instantly communicate, collaborate and share ideas,” said Wim Vanderbauwhede, head of the school’s low carbon and sustainable computing group, who has led the curriculum changes along with colleague Lauritz Thamsen.
“However, the many advantages we enjoy today as a result have come at the cost of a major contribution to the carbon emissions causing the climate crisis. The ever-increasing complexity of integrated circuits, and the reduction of repairability in favour of planned obsolescence, has outpaced our ability to use every generation of computers in the most energy-efficient ways.
“Rethinking our approach to education is one way to help ensure that the next generation of computing scientists, who will be increasingly greatly impacted by the effects of the climate crisis, can be equipped with tools to help them tackle it.”
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WATCH: The Business Journal Roundtable Series: Minority Business

Business News

The Business Journal held the Minority Business Roundtable on Aug. 14 at The Courtyard by Marriott, Canfield.Participants were Terrell Washington, owner/founder of Leaf Relief in Boardman; Lisa Robinson, owner of Show Stopper Landscaping in Youngstown; Vicki Hall, vice president and business banking officer at Consumers National Bank in Salem; DeShawn Scott, founder and CEO of The D5 Group in Warren; Ashlyn Symone Baker, owner of Signatures by Symone Brand Design Studio in Youngstown; Kelan Bilal, owner of Excalibur Barber and Grooming Salon in Boardman; Matthew Longmire, business resource manager at Valley Partners; and Juan Santiago, vice president and community development officer at Farmers National Bank.

Science Museum Oklahoma takes a star turn with new Love’s Planetarium

Science and Health

Housed in the shell of the former Omnidome, the planetarium has been in the works for years. It opened on Friday with a show from its director, Waylon Troyer.“Here we are just a short hop and a rocket off of our big, blue marble,” Troyer said as the dome showed a view of Earth from space. “If you look carefully, you can see all that traffic on I-35 right over there. There’s Oklahoma City, there’s Dallas.”During the planetarium’s opening event on Friday, Troyer showed off a blue Mars sunset, a supernova and an Oklahoma City night sky untouched by light pollution.“We see sunsets nearly every single day of our lives, and we’ve got some incredible ones here in Oklahoma,” Troyer told the audience. “But being able to see one on another planet is quite an experience.”Sharing the skies with visitors has always been part of the museum’s mission. Sherry Marshall, the president and CEO of the museum’s executive board, said Science Museum Oklahoma started as a planetarium on the grounds of the State Fair. More recently, the museum housed a planetarium in the middle of its main hall.“When our console in our old planetarium literally caught fire, it was that crossroads that made us decide that if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right,” said Sherry Marshall, the president and CEO of the museum’s executive board.

Graycen Wheeler

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KOSU The planetarium viewed from outside the museum.

The new Love’s Planetarium features eight 4K digital projectors to show science-based depictions of planets, galaxies and other celestial bodies.“The amount of technology that is found in this planetarium is unlike any other,” Marshall said. “You can only find it here, unless you go to Shanghai, China.”The planetarium also uses an analog star ball, which uses pinpoints of light to show what stars would look like in true darkness — something that can’t be achieved with projectors.“The contrast between the darkest darks that we can get in here and those really sharp, pinpoint stars — that’s what makes it so realistic,” Troyer said. “That’s what makes it feel like a true sky.”The planetarium is now offering a variety of shows every day, including programming in Spanish on Saturdays. Troyer said each show will be unique, thanks to the diverse expertise of the planetarium’s presenters and input from the audience.Entry to the Love’s Planetarium is included with the cost of admission to Science Museum Oklahoma.

Google’s Sundar Pichai reveals crucial insights from PM Modi’s tech meet in NY

Technology

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the United States saw him engage with top technology executives, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. During a special roundtable discussion in New York, PM Modi highlighted India’s growing role in the tech world and assured U.S. business leaders of India’s strong commitment to protecting intellectual property. The meeting showcased India’s opportunities in technology and the country’s potential for innovation on the global stage.[embedded content]The prime minister’s three-day visit featured meetings with several industry giants like Adobe’s Chairman and CEO Shantanu Narayen, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, and AMD CEO Lisa Su. The roundtable was part of India’s broader outreach to strengthen ties with Silicon Valley and bring further investments into the country’s booming tech sector.[embedded content]After the event, several key tech figures expressed their admiration for the prime minister’s vision for India. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang praised Modi’s proactive learning approach, noting, “He wants to learn more about technology…India is home to some of the world’s greatest computer scientists. Artificial intelligence is also a new manufacturing industry that is very important, so I am looking to partner with India in a very deep way.”Pichai discusses PM Modi’s vision for AI in IndiaFollowing his interaction with PM Modi, Google’s Sundar Pichai spoke at length about the prime minister’s clear vision for the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) in India. Pichai explained that Modi is pushing for more innovative uses of AI to benefit the people of India.”The PM has been focussed on transforming India. It is Digital India vision. He pushed us to continue making in India, designing in India. We are proud to now make our Pixel phones manufactured in India. He is really thinking about how AI can transform India in a way that benefits the people of India,” Pichai said.#WATCH | New York, USA: After the roundtable meeting of prominent CEOs of Tech Companies with PM Narendra Modi, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says, “The PM has been focussed on transforming India. It is Digital India vision. He pushed us to continue making in India, designing in… pic.twitter.com/kF2XwV5X2F— ANI (@ANI) September 23, 2024He also shared details of how Modi is encouraging technology companies to consider AI applications across various sectors such as healthcare, education, and agriculture. Additionally, the prime minister is paying attention to India’s infrastructure, including data centres, power, and energy, ensuring the country can meet the needs of a fast-developing tech ecosystem.Pichai reiterated that Google is deeply committed to investing in AI in India and has already initiated several programs to foster innovation. “We are robustly investing in AI in India and we look forward to doing more. We have set several programs and partnerships…He has always challenged all of us to do more, more for India. Now, he is asking us to do the same with AI. He has a clear vision, both in terms of the opportunity that AI will create but he wants to make sure ultimately AI is there to benefit the people of India and he has a clear vision that it should all be in the service of the people of India,” Pichai added.PM Modi highlights US-India business partnerships at tech meetAt the meeting with U.S. business leaders, Prime Minister Modi emphasized the importance of collaboration through initiatives like the India-U.S. Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (ICET), calling it central to the Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership between the two nations.According to an official statement from the Centre, Modi reassured business leaders of India’s unwavering dedication to protecting intellectual property and fostering technological innovation. He also spoke of India’s ongoing economic transformation and reiterated his administration’s efforts to make India a hub for semiconductor manufacturing.[embedded content] Also Read: Nirmala Sitharaman’s ‘relying on God’ comment over EY employee death sparks Reddit backlashPM Modi also underlined India’s commitment to responsible and ethical AI practices under the “AI for All” initiative. By doing so, the government aims to make sure AI development is inclusive and benefits all sections of society.For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.

Vinh Hoan banks on new business segments in quest to build USD 1 billion company

Business News

Leading Vietnamese pangasius exporter Vinh Hoan scored two big wins in September.First, the Cao Lanh City, Vietnam-based firm’s Lucky Bag dumplings won the Best New Product award at the 2024 Seafood Excellence Asia competition, presented at Seafood Expo Asia on 4 September.Then, a U.S. Department of Commerce investigation decided Vinh Hoan will not be subject to antidumping duties for frozen pangasius fillets.The wins were celebrated by the company as evidence its commitment to new business segments and honest business practices are paying off, according to Vinh Hoan Sales Director Hoa Truong.“The Lucky Bag product is made from pangasius surimi, which is another new business for us,” Truong told SeafoodSource at Seafood Expo Asia. “They are part of our strategy to fully optimize the company’s pangasius value chain and to utilize our wider footprint as we move from changing our vision from being a seafood company to a food company.”Even though 2023 was a difficult year for the company, as inflation weakened demand for pangasius in the U.S. – Vinh Hoan’s biggest market – and worldwide, the company’s widening of its vision beyond whitefish has turned out to be a wise move, Truong said.“We started not with pangasius but with looking around in our home province and seeing what grows locally, and that was seafood,” Truong said. “As we have grown bigger, we have taken on other local products, and now we want to be creative and find new markets and new combinations of these products to get more people interested in them.”In 2015, it invested in a collagen production plant that brought USD 31 million (EUR 27.8 million) in revenue for the company in 2023.In 2020, Vinh Hoan formed a subsidiary in Singapore, Vinh Technology, to support its import and export operations and to explore opportunities for food sector trading.In 2021, Vinh Hoan formed Thanh Ngoc Agriculture Food Co. (TNG Foods) in An Nhon, Vietnam, which produces freeze-dried and frozen tropical fruits and vegetables. The same year, it purchased Sa Giang Import and Export Corp., which produces ready-to-eat foods such as shrimp crackers and instant noodles. And, earlier in 2024, it completed the installation of a surimi raw material production line it installed at its processing facility in Cao Lanh City, Vietnam, in 2023. The line gives Vinh Hoan an annual capacity of producing 5,000 metric tons of pangasius surimi, which is used in the wrappers for its Lucky Bag dumplings and in many of its other new innovations, such as a line of pangasius protein noodles, including its new Protein Pho Fusion product.“The main market includes Asian countries and the Asian community in the U.S. and Europe,” Vinh Hoan said in a press release. “With noodle products that come with steamed pangasius meat and white-leg shrimp, Vinh Hoan hopes to capture the needs of health-conscious consumers.”Vinh Hoan is also branching into …

U.S. Research Aided Chinese Military Technology, House Republicans Say

Technology

A congressional report argues that Beijing has exploited ties with American universities to advance technologically, and that further guardrails are needed.A House committee focused on threats from China argued in a report released on Monday that U.S. federal research funding had helped to advance Chinese technologies with military applications, helping to fuel a potential national security rival to the United States.The report argues that Chinese partnerships with U.S.-funded researchers and joint collaborations between Chinese and American universities have helped to propel Beijing’s advancements in fields like hypersonic and nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and advanced semiconductors. The report concludes that these developments may one day influence how the two nations perform on the battlefield.The report — put out by the Republican members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce — also recommends stricter guidelines around federally funded research, including significantly curtailing the ability of researchers who receive U.S. grants to work with Chinese universities and companies that have military ties.Part of the report focuses on several joint China-based institutes between Chinese and American universities, including one by the University of California, Berkeley, and another with the Georgia Institute of Technology.Both Berkeley and Georgia Tech disputed many of the report’s findings. But in a statement to The New York Times on Friday, Berkeley said it had decided to terminate its ownership in the Chinese institute, in part because of its lack of visibility into research being conducted there by affiliates of other institutions.Georgia Tech also announced this month that it would discontinue its participation in its joint institute and work to end its degree programs in China, saying the inclusion of its Chinese partner on a restricted U.S. trade list had made the cooperation “untenable.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.