BENEFITS OF OVI LIFE TOOLS, BY MADUNEME, NOKIA DIRECTOR
Nigeria has become the first country in Africa to benefit from the Nokia's emerging market information service with the introduction of Ovi Life Tools. This launch in Nigeria follows highly successful launches over the last year in Indonesia, India and China. According to Nokia's Director of Ovi Life Tools for Africa, Mr. Izuchukwu Maduneme, the information services has over 6.3 million users in these markets, and the introduction of this service in Nigeria will further extend Nokia's reach in emerging markets. He speaks elaborately on the services of Ovi Life Tools. Excerpts:
Relevance of Ovi Tools
Maduneme said Ovi Life Tools offers a wide range of information services
It is a key part of Nokia's overall strategy to connect the next billion people by providing access to locally relevant services on affordable devices. The service allows users of certain Nokia phones to have updated wide range of information on their mobile phones covering healthcare, agriculture, education, Sports related services and entertainment which address the needs of consumers, and improves their economic prosperity and quality of life.
Suitability to the Nigerian market
Nokia is acknowledging the potential of Africa and Nigeria by investing in and developing this service. This service has been especially tailored for Nigeria. By involving and working in close cooperation with local content providers, NGOs, local governments, and private enterprises across agriculture, education, & healthcare, Nokia is able to deliver a service which is hyper-local, bridging specific information gaps in the daily lives of millions of people in Nigeria.
With the launch of this service in Nigeria, farmers will be able to check market prices without traveling long distances, people will be able to receive important healthcare information without having to travel miles to see a doctor, and WAEC students will be able to check their examination results. All of these will be available on easy-to-use and affordable mobile phones. Football enthusiasts and entertainment buffs are also not left out as they would be updated on latest developments in their favorite club sides including entertainment news.
Handsets with Ovi Life Tools (OLT)
Nokia's Ovi Life Tools in Nigeria will be offered on the Nokia 2690 and on the Nokia C1-01. They will soon be available on more devices. The service is currently available on Zain/Airtel, Glo Mobile, and Etisalat networks, at the affordable monthly subscription of N200. It will soon be offered on the MTN network.
Commencement of services
Starting this month, people in Nigeria will have access to a wide range of services and information on their mobile phones through Ovi Life Tools. Services available will include: healthcare services covering mother and childcare, health and fitness and disease information; agriculture services covering commodity market prices, news and advice and weather; education services covering learn english, exam results; and entertainment services covering football, music, news alerts, horoscope and jokes.
Format of service
The OLT service is a text-based service with a very rich graphical and icon-rich interface. The user has the choice of three languages to receive the content - English, Hausa, and Pidgin; this ensures that the majority of Nigerian users can benefit from this service.
Content providers
Nokia is working closely with reputable content partners including the Nigerian Agri-Market Information Network (NAMIN) and Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) for Agricultural content and to administer the Agri-desk, Healthcare Strategic Consulting (HSC) for Healthcare content and to administer the Healthcare-desk, BBC for International News, Cellcast/OSMI for football and sports, MTech for Music, Horoscope and Entertainment Gist, and 3WC for Education. Nokia is also working closely with MTech and with 3WC for the aggregation of the specialized Agri and Healthcare content respectively.
Workability in the agricultural sector
The Agriculture service covers 25 crops/commodities as of now and will progressively add more. Market Prices are provided for 111 marketplaces in Nigeria, with three market places for each state in Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Users can subscribe to the service by choosing three commodities and specifying their locations.
Healthcare
The healthcare service is also personalized, and provides information specific to the user's age and geographic location or to the week of pregnancy for pregnant women. In Mother and Child service, the pregnancy advice keeps the user informed on what to expect from pregnancy and parenthood along with the nutritional and developmental needs of oneself during the entire course of pregnancy, while the Child advice provides information on the nutritional, hygiene, immunization, and developmental needs of the child linked to the important milestones related to child growth up to five years of age. In the Health and Fitness service, the user will receive gender, region and age specific health tips on nutrition, hygiene, fitness and wellbeing to help the user stay fit on a daily basis. In the Disease Information service, the user receives daily health tips based on important disease conditions prevalent in his specified geographical area. This information will help user in prevention, prolonging onset and living better with the condition. Health tips are related to medical, co-morbidities, lifestyle, fitness and safety based on the condition chosen by the user. Disease information are available for the following conditions; HIV/AIDS, Hypertension, and Diabetes.
Learning English and education
In the Education Services, Learn English service allows users to learn conversational English with the help of their local language via daily messages. The service comes with a choice of three levels – Easy, Medium and Difficult allowing users the choice of learning levels. The service also allows choice of languages - Learn English with English, English with Hausa and English with Pidgin; the General Knowledge service allows users to keep themselves updated with general knowledge, important information and vital facts about their state, country and the world via daily messages. This service focuses 60% on region or state level, 30% on national level and 10% international information; while the Exam Results service allows users to get their exam results for WAEC by providing their registration number. Exam results from other bodies such as NECO, JAMB, and the Universities end of semester exams for all universities will be added soon.
Other services
Yes, it offers a range of services from entertainment to football and news. In the Entertainment Services, Football service allows user to keep themselves updated on the latest happenings around their favourite football clubs. The daily updates will be around news, match dates, transfers, gossip etc. around the club and the players. There will also be live match updates on match days covering key items likes score updates and other developments on the field. Music service allows the user access to a variety of music services like MonoTones, TrueTones, PolyTones categorized into various genres including top ten lists. Other services include the News service which allows the user to keep up-to-date with the latest International, National and Sports news, the Horoscope service which allows the user to access daily predictions based on Sun Signs of choice, the Jokes service allows user access to a daily dose of humor in the form of jokes, and the Entertainment Gist service which allows the user to keep up-to-date on the gossip around the entertainment industry and popular personalities.