Covid-19, the iPhone, DocStream & other important events in tech since 2007
5 min readNov 18, 2020
The world has come a long way since our founding on November 12, 2007. In 2020 alone, Nigeria’s digital maturity has done a great leap forward. In January, it was unfathomable that court sessions could be held virtually, but this had become a possibility by May no thanks to the pandemic, which has been as destructive of lives as it has been disruptive of practices.
To celebrate our entry into the teenage years, we scoured the recent history of technology in the world to bring you some of the most important developments in technology in the last 13 years.
2007
- Apple launches the iPhone, transforming the mobile phone industry.
- Quomodo is founded in Nigeria, in Abuja as a technology consulting firm.
- Nigerian Identity Management Commission established.
- Google releases Google Docs.
2009
- Uber launched
- Digital television becomes broadcast standard in the US and other parts of the world
- Bitcoin created.
2010
- Apple introduces the iPad
- Instagram launched
2011
- IBM’s Watson supercomputer defeats two humans on Jeopardy!, the US quiz show whose host, Alex Trebek, has recently died.
- Sci-Hub is launched, providing access to many paywalled research papers and books.
- Phase-change memory solid-state drives (SSD) developed at the University of California, performing thousands of times faster than conventional drives.
- China launches Beidou-2, a navigational competitor to the US’s GPS. The system was expected to offer global coverage by 2020.
- IBM develops microprocessor with claims that it’s the closest ever to mirroring how the brain works.
2012
- Facebook goes public
- Austrian researchers develop a quantum computer capable of performing calculations without revealing any of the data involved, a blind method that can lead to ultra-secure cloud computing by allowing the transfer and processing of sensitive data without danger of interception or decryption.
- The world’s first 3D-printing vending machine is built at Virginia Tech.
- Corning Inc. unveils Willow Glass, a ultra-thin, flexible glass which could eventually replace the plastic screens in today’s foldable phones.
- Facebook acquires Instagram for $1billion.
- IPv6, a new version of the Internet Protocol, the key communications protocol enabling the internet, is officially launched, offering trillions of new web addresses.
- Intel unveils details of Haswell, its new microchip family offering tremendous amounts of computing power and efficient energy consumption for consumer electronics.
- First 3D-printer retail outlet opened in New York City.
- China announces plans to construct the world’s first 100-petaflop supercomputer by 2015. One petaflop is the ability of a computer to perform one quadrillion floating points operations per second.
2014
- SanDisk unveils the first 200GB capacity microSD card. In 2013, it had unveiled a 128GB card.
- The USS FCC publishes the final rule on its Net Neutrality regulations.
2015
- Microsoft releases Windows 10
- Payment management solution company, Paystack was founded.
- The FG begins the implementation of TSA, enabled by Remita, a solution developed by SystemsSpec, a Nigerian tech company.
2016
- Google Deepmind’s AlphaGo defeats European champion of the board game Go and later, South Korea’s Lee Se-dol, a huge breakthrough in AI.
- IBM Research announces a breakthrough in phase-change memory, potentially providing fast and easy storage for the future explosion in data.
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) approved by the EU parliament.
- Sandisk announces the first 1TB SD card, a storage capacity five times as large as its 2014 record.
- Flutterwave was founded.
2017
- Nigeria publishes ICT Road Map for 2017–2020.
- The first practical blueprint for building a large-scale quantum computer published by researchers in the UK.
- DeepStack, the University of Alberta’s poker-playing AI programme, defeats poker pros in a Texas tournament.
- A joint University of Oxford and Yale University survey of 352 AI experts reveals that they believe there’s a 50% probability AI will be able to outperform humans in all tasks by 2060, and take over all human jobs by 2120.
- The largest virtual universe ever created is reported by researchers at the University of Zurich. It consists of 25 billion galaxies generated from 2 trillion digital particles.
2018
- The enforcement of GDPR begins.
2019
- Quomodo launches the Q-Intern Program to attract and incubate top, young tech talents in Nigeria.
- The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) issues the Nigeria Data Privacy Regulations. These regulations will now govern how organizations use the data of individuals.
- DocStream is launched. DocStream is a document management system created by Nigerian engineers at Quomodo Systems. In a world where working from home has become more than a buzz word, DocStream allows you secure filing, access and collaboration on the go, everywhere.
- IBM unveils the world’s first commercial integrated quantum computing system.
- China reports first covid-19 case.
2020
- China reports first Covid-19 in January.
- Nigeria approves a 5-year national broadband policy.
- First Covid-19 case confirmed in Lagos in February.
- On May 4, Nigeria held its first online court sitting in Lagos, less than two months after the Federal Government announced a lockdown of major cities.
- On May 14, President Muhammadu Buhari presides over the first virtual meeting of the Federal Executive Council
- NITDA presents national Blockchain adoption strategy
- Nigeria’s ICT sector contributes 17.08% to national GDP, almost double the contribution of the oil sector.
- On November 12, 2020, Quomodo, a full-service ICT firm clocked 13 years. Quomodo now serves clients across West Africa from offices in Lagos, Banjul & Freetown.
