The event was fully packed, highly engaging and extremely fulfilling! (Too much grammar? eh..I think it’s worth it)

Day One event focused most especially on developers and Google was fully prepared to hold developers by the hand while sharing their technologies.

Some of the technology touched was; Maps APIs, Chrome extension, HTML5, Google App Engine, a lil mobile and Android brief (this fell below my expectation, no hands on!), Data Visualization, Venture Capital, web and mobile business and products was awesome, and HTML5 app competition was cool.

General feeling of participants was on the good side, so I could say Google has made an head-start in this.

Day Two continues today, focusing on business let’s see what’s going to happen today.

If you were at the event, please share your experience.

If you wont make, follow the hashtag on twitter; #GNigeria

100s of developers are here as the registration commences….

Keynote is about to start now…

In total… about 1,000 developers and business people registered for the event; today and tomorrow.

G-Nigeria is live….intro

Juliet (Read more about her), Nigeria’s Country Manager… to give keynote address

Juliet: 180m ppl in Africa using Google #gnigeria 380m mobile users in Subsaharan Africa and 91m Internet users

4million Youtube pages per day viewed in Africa #GNigeria…. -Juliet, Google country manager

#GNigeria Google strategy in Africa is to bring more contents online – Juliet

#GNigeria cost of getting online is still high in subsaharan Africa, that is a huge hindrance to growth! – Juliet

#gnigeria Google is willin to work wit local stakeholders…and its here 4 d long haul -Juliet

#GNigeria Search made on mobile in Nigeria has grown 100% over a year

#GNigeria Google is committed to helping Nigerians get online!

#GNigeria Google has been supporting students and businesses get online

UNN, UNILAG, UNIBEN, CU, all part of the Google campus/universities program – #GNigeria

#GNigeria Juliet is showing a video on google adsense success story.. the woman in the story grew her biz frm 100k to 15m

#GNigeria GMail SMS currently works with Starcomms and Glo and will launch Google Trader soonest…Classified ads…wow!

#GNigeria Google will hold a training today; Android, Maps API/KML, Chrome, HTML5 etc

Marcus Foster, Google’s Product Manager from the London office is on stage to talk on Cloud computing, HTML5 & Mobile. #GNigeria

It’s going to be a busy week for Nigerian developers as several events are scheduled to take place this week. First G-Nigeria, Imagine Cup final, Tech Open Day with Sarah Lacy and Garage48.

One of the good things of events it’s the opportunity to meetup with other technologist in the country.

For now, all the events are sold out!, yeah Sold out and as I write this, G-Nigeria is already on.

According to Official blog post:

Developers submit their apps to one of three specially-designated ADC categories beginning June 1st at 12 AM GMT. An application may only be submitted to a single category.
Categories

Entertainment / Media / Games
Social Networking / Communication
Productivity / Tools / Lifestyle

To determine the winner, there is a two round submission process. All apps that want to be considered for the competition, must be submit by July 1st, 2011. There are three competition regions — West & Central Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa. Applications will then be reviewed by our judging committee for the top three apps in each region by category (27 in total). Those who reach the final round, will be awarded Android devices and given six weeks to make their apps even better. Finally, our winners in each category will be announced September 12th and will be awarded $25,000. A combined total of $75,000 will be awarded.
Timeline

April 14th: Competition opens
June 1st: Submissions open.
July 1st: First round submissions are due at 11:59 PM GMT.
July 15th: Finalist applications announced.
August 30th: Finalist applications are due at 11:59 PM GMT.
September 12th: Winners are announced.

Do you have the balls? Go start coding!

***Thanks to Truston for the head up.

This year’s event is fully pack, you dont want to miss it! Click here to register.

Google is set to host Nigerian developers and business people. G-Nigeria, launched last year is meant to showcase Google innovations, products and services to developers and marketers. It’s a 2-Day event and will hold at Civic centre in Lagos.

Details

Day 1

The fund is said “… will be used for the expansion of the company’s network, enhance its working capital and increase its operational capacity.”

The placement comprises of 1,520,000,000 ordinary shares of N1.00 each at N1.05 per share. This means that with about N55,000 you can participate.

Remember, this is a private place and not IPO. It’s usually opened to institutional investors and not the general public. If you are one, why not request for info here.

I have always said on this platform that, e-payment is the major driver of e-commerce which ultimately is the driver of the internet. So many sites have come up these days to address this issue. Let’s take a look at CashEnvoy and see how their service can benefit Nigerians and other customers of theirs.

About

Cashenvoy.com is a web application that aids the transfer of money from person-to-person, person-to-merchant and vice-versa using the web application and personal email addresses. The service allows account owners to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility of payment using their bank accounts and debit cards. The company was founded by LA Systems Limited, a Lagos based company.

How it works

To make a Cash Envoy payment:
- Fund your Cash Envoy account using Interswitch debit cards or online bank transfer
- Select Cash Envoy during checkout on a merchant website.
- Funds are transferred securely through Cash Envoy and money is deposited into the seller’s Cash Envoy account.
- Funds can also be withdrawn at anytime from your Cash Envoy account.

A New Deal?

The deal is not new on the world scale but on the Nigerian scene, it a welcome development. Imaging being able to pay for services with just your email address? That’s cool! A very brilliant paypal-like service to aid ecommerce development in the country.

The Real Deal

Cool features

• Funding via Interswitch: you can fund your CashEnvoy account via Interswitch card
• Only email address is needed to make and receive payment
• No need to share your account information on every site.
• SSL secure for all your  transaction on the site
• It’s save because you only fund your account to the tune of how much you need to spend. No frivolous spending.
• You can receive donation through the account

Downside

• Somehow we need a form of verification for merchant who receive money on their site, how do we safeguard people from phishing sites?
• How long will it take a merchant to clear their money from you? Incase the merchant is a fraud? How do you deal with it?
• The percentage commission is not available on the site. How much do you charge to receive or send money?

Business Model

The business model employed by this site is awesome giving the strategic importance of the segment on ecommerce. Model falls under transaction broker.

As we see many e-payment platform spring up, their ability to scale and gain traction will eventually liberate Nigerians from the stronghold of Interswitch on the industry. The best should win at the end of the day!

Visit: Cashenvoy.com

Update:

I recieved an update email from the operator:

Somehow we need a form of verification for merchant who receive money on their site, how do we safeguard people from phishing sites?

Merchant verification tests were sent to you in the last email. Below is an excerpt from the last mail sent to you:

Merchants are to submit photocopies of Utility bills (PHCN bills) for address verification.

Personal IDs for personal verification

Together with the CashEnvoy Merchant Application form (Sent to merchant when he/she requests for integration codes).

And other types of myriad methods.

Other security measures can be found on our official blog: http://www.cashenvoy.com/blog/?p=19

How long will it take a merchant to clear their money from you? Incase the merchant is a fraud? How do you deal with it?

When merchants make withdrawals on CashEnvoy, the merchants CashEnvoy account would be audited and the funds paid into the merchant’s bank account. This is usually done within hours but it takes a maximum of the morning of the next working day. This is because not all banks practice adequate online banking.

The percentage commission is not available on the site. How much do you charge to receive or send money?

This question should not be listed because the CashEnvoy fees can be found on ALL CashEnvoy pages (footer). (sorry I still cant find this)

In Google’s own word: Let’s say you’re in Ghana and you need to chat with somebody in Gmail Chat, but they don’t respond because they just walked away from their computer. Or maybe you’re in the middle of chatting with them just as they need to leave. But you still need to tell them something — something really important, like where you’re going to meet tonight … or perhaps it’s about a new spot for delicious kelewele. This is why we’ve built a way to chat with your friends even when they’re away from their computers. Now you can keep the conversation going with a new feature that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail: you chat from your computer, and your friends can reply from their mobile phones.

The goal is to keep you connected with your friends wherever they go! Google understands that mobile penetration in African is much more than internet penetration and most people still log on to the internet via their mobile phone.

Nigerians at the last G-Nigeria Day asked the question… when will Google SMS come to Nigeria? Google said, very soon! so keep your fingers crossed!