MTN Foundation MUSON Music Scholars Programme 2012-2013

MTNF/MUSON MUSIC SCHOLARS PROGRAMME

ADMISSION TO THE MTNF/MUSON DIPLOMA IN MUSICThe Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON) in conjunction with the MTN Foundation (MTNF), announces entrance examinations for the seventh set of the MTNF/MUSON diploma course in Music for the 2012 - 2013 academic year. The Muson School   of Music is staffed and equipped to meet internationally accepted standards in Music education.

The examinations will take place from August 2 -31, 2012 and will take the form of:

A written examination which will include theory questions pitched at approximately grade 5 & 6 standard and basic music knowledge

A practical examination which will be a performance on a major instrument or voice of at least grade 5 standard, before a faculty jury

Admission Requirments:

• Applicants for the MTNF/MUSON diploma course in Music are expected to possess the following minimum requirements:
• The General Certificate of Education (G.C.E) Ordinary Level with Credits in five subjects including English Language OR
• The Senior Secondary School Certificate (SSCE) with a credit in English Language
• The 5 credits must have been obtained at not more than two sittings and before admission to the diploma course

Admission Requirements:

• Practical: Grade five or higher pass certificate of the MUSON School of Music or any other music examining body recognized by the MUSON School
• Theory: Grade five or higher pass certificate of The Muson School of Music or any other music examining body recognized by the Muson School
• NB:Applicants who possess the above practical or theory certificates would have also satisfied the GCE (O/L) or SSCE requirements

Interested applicants who are deficient in the theory requirements are advised to take advantage of lessons available in the basic school to enable them prepare for the admission examination in August

Letters of application together with copies of certificates, two passport photographs, and contact telephone numbers or email address should be sent to:

The Director
Muson Schoool of Music
8/9 Marina, Onikan
Lagos

All applications should reach the Director, MUSON  School of Music on or before July 27, 2012.

Massachusetts International Science and Technology Initiatives(MISTI) Africa Empowering the Teachers call 2012 call for applications

Empowering the Teachers enables outstanding young Nigerian faculty in science and engineering to collaborate with faculty at MIT in developing new curriculum and teaching methods.

The program is offered by the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) together with its corporate partner Total. The director of the program is Akintunde Ibitayo Akinwande, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.

Description
Empowering the Teachers will select up to twelve outstanding young faculty fellows from the disciplines of electrical engineering, computer science and computer engineering in Nigerian universities to spend a semester at MIT in 2013.  Selected fellows will observe instruction in their disciplines and work as a group to prepare innovative curricula and approaches to teaching that can be introduced to their home universities on their return.

Empowering the Teachers will cover the travel, living and instructional materials expenses of the participants.  The home universities of the successful applicants will commit to provide paid leaves of absence during the period of the MIT program.

The young faculty selected to participate in the Empowering the Teachers program will spend either the spring 2013 (February-May) or fall 2013 (September-December) semester at MIT observing classes similar to ones they themselves currently teach.  They will work on new curricular materials and teaching approaches for adoption in their own classes.  During their stays, they will participate regularly in at least two MIT subjects (including recitations and tutorials) that correspond to courses the faculty members teach at their home universities. They will attend weekly Empowering the Teachers Fellows Seminar meetings on curriculum development and meet with professors and teaching assistants. Beyond the fellowship semester at MIT, Empowering the Teachers will support online communications, periodic reunions and meetings in Nigeria in order to build over time a community of faculty devoted to excellence and innovation in science and engineering education.

Eligibility
Empowering the Teachers welcomes applications from all qualified faculty. To be eligible for consideration for selection, a faculty member must hold a PhD and teach in a department corresponding to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at a university in Nigeria.  Only candidates at the level of Lecturer One rank will be considered.

Application and selection
Please download the application form and submit it to misti-africa@mit.edu by Monday, August 6. An MIT committee will establish a list of top candidates. These candidates will be interviewed in Nigeria by MIT faculty in late August/early September.

For more: visit MIT Africa's website

Systems Engineer required by Multichoice

Multichoice needs a Systems Engineer

Location: This position is based in Lagos

Context
(External factors which influence the work environment, taking future conditions and strategic requirements into account)

• Diverse, multi-national organization, participative, empowerment driven culture complex, regulated, competitive industry
• Local and international Pay-TV Industry
• Highly technical and specialized environment
• Rapid industry change

Customers

• MNET & Supersport
• Transmission Operation Department
• Broadcast Technology Department
• Subscribers
• Service providers (programmes, satellite and terrestrial signal delivery services)

Outputs
(Products, services, programs and information which the individual must provide to external individuals or groups, or one another to accomplish the organisation’s mission and strategy)

• Ensure world-class Operations and maintenance of the Outside Broadcast services to ensure quality of service delivery to customers
• Installation and maintenance of: Digital mobile terrestrial transmitters, Satellite reception and transmission infrastructure
• Conduct data and RF measurements
• Assets management
• VSAT installation and maintenance
• Compile first line maintenance and callout reports
• Effective communication up & down
• Established and maintained operational processes to achieve optimum service levels
• Adopted Best Practices in Technical Operations to achieve
• Change control and problem solving processes
• Streamlined processes, operational efficiency and cost effective delivery
• Established and maintained recovery processes
• Budgeting planning to ensure that resources are available for capacity expansion, spares and new configurations
• Testing and implementation of new Broadcast service requirements
• Training programs for staff to ensure that they perform their jobs efficiently
• Ensure all activities such as cessation, circuit migrations are performed according to schedule
• Resources management, such as optical fibre links
• Test and implement new broadcast services requirements
• Attend to equipment breakdown on 24×7

Competencies

Knowledge

• High level of Outside Broadcast Services-relevant technology operations knowledge
• Best practices for Terrestrial broadcast networks (digital and Anaogue)
• Satellite RF operations
• Conditional Access systems
• Equipment repairs, Modular swap-outs
• Monitoring practice
• Computer Literacy – IT Networking
• Digital signal measurement
• Radio frequency (RF) knowledge, including measurement, i.e proficiency with the use of RF test equipment

Skills

• Analytical thinking/problem solving under extreme pressure
• Questioning
• Withstanding pressure
• Multitasking under high pressure
• Creative problem solving
• Decisiveness
• Organizing
• Relationship Building
• Report Writing
• Psychomotor skills: handling or components and soldering
• Idea generation
• Information processing
• Attention to detail
• Initiative
• Negotiation
• Analysis
• Verbal and written communication skills
• Planning and Organizing
• Communication skills
• Interpersonal Skills

Personal Qualities

• Ability to function effectively under adverse conditions
• Diplomacy
• Resourcefulness
• Innovation
• Multitasking
• Performance driven
• Self development orientated
• Proactive approach
• Flexibility
• Integrity
• Deadline driven
• Tenacity
• Adaptability
• Cultural sensitivity
• Empathy

Application Closing Date
18 July, 2012.

How To Apply
Please email your applications in the form of CV’s to:hrservicesng@multichoice.co.za

M.Sc in Biofuel Process Engineering at Cranfield University, UK

The UK, along with many other countries, has entered into legally binding targets for renewable energy usage by 2020 with biofuels and biomass contributing on a growing global scale. However, early biofuel technologies exerted pressure on land, food and water supplies which prohibited the sustainability of large scale deployment. The future of biofuels will be in the delivery of biofuels from waste and sustainable feedstocks that will not compete with food production.
In order to meet these targets and continue the development of scalable biofuel solutions a significant number of highly trained engineers are required both in the UK and across the world.
The MSc in Biofuels Process Engineering is delivered via a combination of structured lectures, tutorial sessions, computer based workshops and private study. Knowledge and understanding are further enhanced by seminars that are delivered by invited industrial or academic experts along with industrial site visits.
The course is made up of eight compulsory modules that are assessed via a combination of written exams and individual coursework assignments, a group project and an individual research thesis.
The taught programme of compulsory modules is generally delivered from October to March in one-to-two week blocks of intensive delivery followed by a period free from structured teaching to allow time for more independent learning and reflection.
Students on the part-time programme will complete all of the compulsory modules based on a flexible schedule that will be agreed with the course director.

Group project

The group project is designed to give students invaluable experience of delivering a project within an industry structured team. The project allows students to develop a range of skills including learning how to establish team member roles and responsibilities, project management, delivering technical presentations and gaining experience of working in teams that include members with a variety of expertise and often with members who are based remotely.
Part-time students are encouraged to participate in a group project as it provides a wealth of learning opportunities. However, an option of an individual dissertation is available if agreed with the course director.

Individual project

The individual project allows students to delve deeper into an area of specific interest. It is very common for industrial partners to put forward a real world problem or areas of development as potential research thesis topics.
For part-time students it is common that their research thesis is undertaken in collaboration with their place of work.

Modules:

• Biochemical Engineering Fundamentals
• Biofuels Process and Technology
• Energy from Biomass
• Management for Technology
• Environmental Management
• Process Plant Operations
• Advanced Control Systems
• Process Simulation and Design

Suitable for Chemical, Mechanical, Materials or general Engineering and Science graduates who wish to specialise in Biofuels applications.


Takes you on to an excellent career as a qualified engineer of the highest standard in the field of biofuels, capable of contributing significantly to the increased demand for biofuel experts in industry, consultancies and the education and public sectors.

You will be taught by the academic team in the Department of Offshore, Process and Energy Engineering and our industry partners ensuring that all of the material taught on the course is relevant, timely and meets the needs of organisations competing within the energy sector. This industry led education makes Cranfield graduates some of the most desirable in the world for energy companies to recruit.

To apply, visit Cranfield University Website

Indecision costing Nigeria oil,gas market share

There is palpable fear that Nigeria will continue to lose market share in the global oil and gas industry over its failure to anticipate and pro-actively respond to the possible impacts of developments in the sector in other countries.

Countries such as Ghana and Kenya with new oil discoveries, Angola with its growing petro-dollar infrastructure, Tanzania and Mozambique forging new alliances with the big investors from Europe and America, have experts here in Nigeria worried about the in-ward investment prospect for the sector in the medium to long term.

There are already projections in some quarters that demand for Nigeria’s oil and gas and its market share will shrink drastically as attention shifts elsewhere and towards the emerging Africa oil countries.

Already, the United States of America, a major importer of Nigeria’s crude oil, is turning to Canada for the supply of crude oil through a pipeline already in place.

They are also anxious that the Federal Government doesn’t seem to have taken any feasible measures that suggest there are some safety valves in place against falling oil prices.

They are however of the opinion that in the event that the price of crude slumps to $75 per barrel, it should be an opportunity for government to deregulate the sector.

As regards gas, they expressed apprehension that a sustained Europe economic crisis could negatively affect the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited market while the proposed Brass LNG may not take off because there may not be a market for it.

Paul Michael Wihbey who is also the President of GWEST LLC, Washington DC, in a recent presentation titled: ‘Strategic Developments in the Middle East and Implications for the Nigerian Oil Industry’ highlighted the huge opportunity costs and market share for Nigerian crude oil and gas.

He said Nigeria for instance, has declined from being the third largest exporter of crude oil to the US, to being the sixth, as of February this year, with volumes falling from over one million in the late 1990s to just 350,000 barrels in February.

Seye Fadahunsi, a director of Pillar Oil, said the fact that other countries were also discovering oil, means that Nigeria has to do more to retain its market share and also create an enabling environment for investors to come and participate in the oil and gas industry without any encumbrances to their businesses.

Also commenting on the situation, the former group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Chamber Oyibo, said “government takes too long a time before it takes decisions on good projects that it conceives, and before we know it, others would come up with similar ideas and implement them, taking over from us.”

He added that Nigeria may lose the market, especially the gas market, to countries in East Africa because of their proximity to Asian countries such as Korea , Japan and China, urging the government to expedite action on Trains 7 of the NLNG, Brass LNG and Olokola LNG, so that it would not lose the market completely.

Oladiran Fawibe, chief executive officer of International Energy Services (IES) also told Business Day that :“If we are strategic in our thinking and approach to issues, Nigeria should identify the countries where explorations are taking place, and their likely effects on our country’s oil and gas industry”.

He advised that Nigeria should assess the implications, adding that the country knows the effect of oil discovery in Ghana, not in terms of output, but the diversion of investments that have gone to Ghana. The market he said, was now more competitive and Nigeria must move fast.

Osten Olorunsola, director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, recently expressed concern that for the first time in Nigeria’s history, there was an actual decline in reserve estimates between 2011 and 2012, wondering what would happen between 2014 and 2017 in terms of oil and gas production, since no major investments have been recorded in exploration in the last five years

Source:BusinessDay

Ghana earns $903million from oil

Ghana has to date, lifted about 5.9 million barrels of crude oil, accumulating revenue of US$903 million, the National Co-ordinator of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI), Mr Franklin Ashiadey, has said.

According to a Ghana News Agency (GNA) report, Mr Ashiadey made this known at a one-day sensitisation workshop on GHEITI on oil and gas for assembly members of the Nzema East Municipal, Sekondi- Takoradi Metropolitan, Jomoro, Shama, Ellembele and Ahanta West at Axim in the Western Region.

The GHEITI Secretariat at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning organised the workshop.

But the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines and Energy, the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) on Oil and Gas and the Africa Centre for Energy Policy-Ghana, a civil society organisation in the oil sector, have raised a red flag over the lack of transparency in the activities of the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC) in the management of the nation's oil revenue.

The organisations argued that although the GNPC had received over half of Ghana's entire oil revenue for last year, it had failed to account for a single Ghana cedi and cautioned that steps must be taken to prevent the GNPC from becoming a monster and a law onto itself.

Members of the three entities made the call in separate interviews with the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of a two-day capacity building workshop for members of the PIAC, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines and Energy and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) at Aburi last Friday.

Dubbed "Making Ghana's Oil and Gas Resource Count", the workshop was organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (lEA), STAR¬-Ghana and the Centre for International Private Enterprise.

The first annual report of the PIAC uncovered several issues and discrepancies in the country's oil sector reporting, such as the wide gap between government revenue projections for 2011 and the actual revenues received.

The report also noted that the GNPC was yet to provide the PIAC with a report on the use of funds (GH¢315,390,698) received to cover its activities in 2011.

The GNPC did not pay dividend to the government for 2011 because the company needed to plough back its profits to recover significant investments and operating costs associated with its participating interest.

According to the GNA report, Mr Ashiadey explained that the shortfall between the projected revenue and the actual receipts was mainly due to failure to consider that most tax revenue remained unavailable, while the sector was still coming on stream.

He said the committee's report urged the government to follow the letter of the law when forecasting revenues because the projections determined what the country should save, as well as spend.

He said the committee was expected to ensure that the Ghanaian public had the opportunity to debate how the government was managing petroleum revenues in the light of the country's development priorities.

He said the success of Ghana's oil would not be measured by the number of barrels of oil produced but the amount of poverty reduced with the revenue from the barrels of oil produced.

Mr Ashiadey said it was incumbent on Ghana EITI stakeholders to ensure that the requisite systems were in place to promote good and accountable governance in the management of the country's oil resources.

To that end, he said, strong policy institutions, legal frameworks, prudent revenue management, transparency, among others, were required.

He said it was in that regard that the government was committed to the EITI implementation in the oil and gas sector to ensure transparency in oil revenue management.

Expressing concern over the lack of transparency in the management of the nation's oil revenue in an interview on the sidelines of the workshop at Aburi, Mr Amin Adam of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy-Ghana said the GNPC must be supported financially, technically and in capacity to build its capacity and in the future become a competitive operator in the industry, so that Ghana would eventually benefit, writes Donald Ato Dapatem.

"However, what we should prevent is allowing the GNPC to become a monster devouring the nation," he said.

Mr Adam explained that the Petroleum Law defined how resources should be allocated to the GNPC.

He said surprisingly, it came out from the PIAC report that the GNPC had ploughed back its dividend, a move it had no mandate to make, and explained that the definition of benchmark revenue included expected revenue from oil and gas and dividend from the national oil company.

"So if the GNPC decides to plough back, then it means that the benchmark for 2011 is incomplete, which is inconsistent with the law. We should prevent the situation where the GNPC will arrogate to itself the power to decide what to hold back out of the oil revenue because the law has defined how money should be allocated to them," he said.

According to Mr Ishmael Edjekumhene, a member of the PIAC, the committee first raised the issue about the accountability and transparent posture of the GNPC when it released its report this year.

He explained that it was unacceptable that a company which was receiving close to 50 per cent of the nation's entire revenue from oil and gas had not completed its audited accounts for last year for the ordinary Ghana to know how much it had received on his or her behalf and how much had been spent on what.

"But the mere fact that the GNPC received a chunk of the nation's receipts from the oil and gas imposes a little bit of responsibility on it to be extra-transparent and accountable to the people of Ghana," he added.

Mr Edjekumhene said one of the worrying developments was the indication by the board chairman of the GNPC that the company would sponsor the Black Stars to the tune of $3 million yearly.

"Why should the GNPC spend $3 million on the Black Stars when the team has done so exceptionally well over the year that it has become a big brand name which will be sponsored by any commercial entity?" he queried.

The Acting Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines, and Energy, Mr Ernest Kofi Yaka, said parliament, as the representative of the people of Ghana, was in the dark regarding the revenue that the GNPC had received on behalf of the people.

He quickly gave the hint that the House would have to very quickly summon the management of the GNPC to account for its activities and, most importantly, the huge sums of money it had received from the oil-producing companies since Ghana found oil in commercial quantities.

"As a member of the committee, I don't know what is happening in the GNPC," he said.

He expressed worry when it came to light that the GNPC had been given thousands of dollars for the training of Ghanaians in the oil and gas sector yearly.

According to a, report presented at the workshop, the GNPC had been receiving between , $75,000 and $250,000 annually from the oil companies as petroleum costs, which were deductible from the petroleum income tax.

"As Members of Parliament, we must know the criteria for the selection of those who have been benefiting from such training, how much is spent on each person, how much they have received for the training, among other issues," he noted.

Source: Joy Online

Mobil Seeks Engineering OND holders only

Mobil 2013 Apprentice Program

 The NNPC/MPN Joint Venture invites applications from suitably qualified persons into our Apprenticeship Program beginning January 2013. The Program is designed for young Nigerians with an interest in pursuing an Operations and/or Maintenance Technician career in the oil and gas or related industry

Only applicants with Ordinary National Diploma (OND) in one of the following disciplines are eligible to apply:
(a) Mechanical Engineering Technology
(b) Electrical Engineering Technology
(c) Electrical/Electronics Engineering Technology
(d) Petroleum Engineering Technology
(e) Chemical Engineering Technology

Applicants with higher qualifications should not apply.

2. Applicants must have graduated from the Ordinary National Diploma (OND) program between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2012, and possess a minimum of Lower Credit

Click Mobil's website to apply
Deadline: July 17, 2012

Nigerian Writer Rotimi Babatude Wins Caine Writing Prize

Nigerian writer Rotimi Babatunde has won this year's prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing. The £10,000 ($15,700) prize was given for his story Bombay's Republic about Nigerian soldiers who fought in the Burma campaign during World War II."  It is about liberation and how a character can have his world widened," Mr Babatunde told the BBC. He was among five writers short-listed for the prize, regarded as Africa's leading literary award.

The chair of judges, Bernardine Evaristo, presented the award at a dinner held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford on Monday evening.
"It is ambitious, darkly humorous and in soaring, scorching prose exposes the exploitative nature of the colonial project and the psychology of independence," she said about the winning short story.
Afterwards Babatunde told the BBC's Network Africa programme he felt happy to have his story recognised and privileged to have been on such a strong and diverse shortlist. "The story is about African soldiers who go to Burma and came back with a sense of new realities and new possibilities," he said. The boundaries that the main character, Bombay, witnessed in Nigeria fell away during the heat of the campaign, he explained. "He lost his reverence for the colonial officers," he says.

Mr Babatunde, who currently lives in Ibadan in Nigeria, will now be given the opportunity to go to Georgetown University in the US, as a writer-in-residence for a month at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice.

Source: All Africa

Attend Lekki Business Expo 2012- Free to Attend

Lekki Business Expo 2012, an international business conference and
exhibition for small and medium scale enterprises

Date: 13 July-14 July 2012

Venue- 'THE INCUBATOR’ 7\8 chief Yesuf Abiodun way, City of David way, Oniru, Victoria Island, Lagos*

Lekki Business Expo is expected to attract over 100 exhibitors(made up of
SMEs and large organisations supplying the small business market) and a
delegates conference that is expected to attract over 100 conference
delegates made up of Managing Directors, CEO, Business owners, Business
Development Managers, entrepreneurs and people who want to start their own
businesses. Also expected to visit the exhibition are a highly-targeted
audience of over 1,000 business-minded individuals over the duration of the
2-day event.
WHY EXHIBIT AT LEKKI BUSINESS EXPO 2012?
•Reach a captive audience & generate NEW CUSTOMERS immediately
•Gain direct face-to-face contact with business owners & decision-makers
•Make immediate on-the-spot sales
•Introduce your company to new prospects
•Reach a very large prospect pool within a short period of time
•Brand your business
•Direct access to your target market
•Launch new products and services
•Conduct market research
•Direct access to the press
•Distribute product samples
•Stay a step ahead of your competitors