Zinox Technologies has been awarded an 85 billion naira contract to supply Personal Digital Assistants devices for the country’s 2023 national census by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Zinox Technologies, which was founded by Leo-Stan Ekeh is a pioneer original equipment manufacturer in West Africa.
After a bidding procedure involving other local and foreign rivals, the Nigeria-based technology firm emerged as the preferred technical partner for the program.
“We are deploying all our resources to make sure it is successful,” said Kelechi Okonta, MD of Zinox Technologies. To ensure the accuracy of the data collected, the PDAs will be encrypted with census questionnaires and maps directing enumerators to assigned enumeration zones.
“The geospatial resources that NPC has acquired will be deployed on the devices. This will ensure that all Nigerians are counted where they are and live. We will also be able to collect statistics on housing types and characteristics for better physical and social planning by the government for the nation,” Nasir Isa Kwarra, chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), stated.
On Friday, February 3, 2023, Zinox delivered the first batch of the devices, totaling around a hundred units.
Zinox introduced automation of Nigerian elections, first with the introduction of the Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines which helped to clean up the nation’s voter register, and later the card reader which enhanced the credibility of elections in Nigeria in recent years.
Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh, a digital entrepreneur, created Zinox Technologies in 2001 with a team of ICT technocrats.
Zinox was the first company in West Africa to begin producing computer and ICT solutions, becoming the first internationally certified indigenous computer brand in West Africa, the first computer brand in the world to incorporate the Naira sign (N) on its keyboard, and the first metropolitan WIMAX solution in Nigeria.
Zinox, Nigeria’s first indigenous internationally accredited computer manufacturer, has established at Gbagada Industrial Estate, Lagos, the first and only computerized digital assembly facility in West Africa with a daily production capacity of over 5,000 units.
Zinox is now Microsoft and Intel Corporation’s only local OEM partner in Nigeria.
Zinox Technologies had also executed major projects offshore in Guinea Bissau, The Gambia, and the Arab nations through partnerships.
In 2018, OEM acquired Konga, a Nigerian e-commerce company, in an undisclosed deal sanctioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission.