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‘Our Bowling Was Excellent’ — Ali Rahmon Demands Better Batting as Junior YellowGreens Chase World Cup Ticket

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Nigeria U19 captain Ali Rahmon has praised the Junior Yellow Greens’ disciplined bowling performance in their emphatic five-wicket victory over Ghana in the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup Africa Division 2 Qualifier in Rwanda.

Nigeria bounced back strongly from their opening-day defeat to Uganda, restricting Ghana to just 93 runs all out before completing the chase at 96/5 in 22.2 overs to secure a crucial five-wicket victory.

Rahmon credited the bowlers for maintaining pressure throughout Ghana’s innings, particularly through a steady supply of dot balls that prevented the hosts from building meaningful partnerships.

“The bowling unit was disciplined and kept the pressure on Ghana. The dot balls helped us control the innings and put us in a strong position.”

However, the captain believes Nigeria still has work to do with the bat. Despite chasing a modest target, the Junior Yellow Greens lost five wickets before reaching the required total.

Rahmon admitted that losing wickets while chasing such a small target is an area the team must address as the qualification campaign continues.

“We did well with the ball, but the batting needs to improve. Losing five wickets while chasing 94 is something we have to look at.”

The victory has revived Nigeria’s hopes of progressing from the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup Africa Division 2 Qualifier, after the Junior Yellow Greens suffered an opening defeat to Uganda. Keneth Boniface was again influential, taking four wickets against Ghana before contributing 30 runs during the chase.

Nigeria’s preparation for the qualifier included a four-week high-performance camp designed to improve the players’ batting, bowling, fielding, fitness and tactical awareness.

The Junior Yellow Greens have now turned their attention to hosts Rwanda, with the crucial encounter scheduled for Wednesday, August 12. A strong result would further strengthen Nigeria’s bid to progress in the qualification race.

Rahmon and his teammates will therefore be looking for another disciplined bowling display while demanding greater composure from the batting department as Nigeria continues its pursuit of a place at the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup.

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Celebrating Sunny Adeda: Alpha Choice Boss and Insurance Icon Hits 70th Milestone

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The sounds of celebrations and thanksgiving will rent the air; anniversary chants will serenade the atmosphere in celebration of a great and charming personality, Mr. Sunny Oberuomor Adeda, today August 12th in Lagos.

Sunny, as he is fondly called by close pals and colleagues is a man of amiable character, despite possessing an intimidating built and gait. Sunny is a man of integrity, mixes freely with everyone, even though he is a man of high societal status.

All roads will lead to the house of Sunny Adeda as he clocks 70 years on earth.

Sunny is a hard working man who has indeed paid his dues. In the corporate world, he is not shy to take up responsibilities. His hard working nature propelled him into the insurance industry, where he became a seasoned insurance executive with a distinguished 30 years career marked by progressive leadership and strategic vision.

He rose through the ranks in the insurance sector, hitting the managerial level, making his management capacity second to none.

As he rose through the ranks, he acquired people’s skills, technical and underwriting prowess, culminating into him being an expert in the corporate world. Despite his rise, he remained a man of accountability.

Sunny is a hands-on insurance professional, his years in the industry have seen him deeply involved in policy evaluation, policy implementation, marketing and strategic policy formulation, product designs and business executions while supervising various technical and marketing directorates.

He possesses a demonstrable record of effectively leading and mentoring high performing teams, consistently delivering results in areas such as Life Assurance, Aviation, Oil and Gas, as well as public sector insurance penetration.

His insurance experience spanned over 30 years and across key areas of risk management practice including underwriting, marketing and brokerage operations.

His Professional Journey

With a distinguished career spanning over three decades, Sunny brings with him a track record defined by technical depth, commercial acumen, and strategic foresight.

He is currently MD/CEO of Alpha Choice Insurance Brokers Limited.

He joined NICON Insurance as a Graduate trainee in October 1980 and worked in various technical departments.

He was appointed Executive Director (Technical) 20th October 1999 to July 2006. He oversaw the transformation of the company into one of Nigeria’s most respected risk management and insurance firms. However, he voluntarily retired from the Corporation at the age of 50 years.

Sunny has led start-ups, pioneered projects, and driven market expansion.

He was Deputy General Manager of NICON Insurance (Lagos Office); Assistant General Manager (Lagos Zonal Office); Assistant General Manager (Aviation); Senior Manager (Aviation); Assistant Manager (General Accident); as well as Assistant Manager (Life).

His governance experience also includes service on the board of NAL Merchant Bank plc, 2000/2001; NICON Hotels Ltd, 1999/2005; College of Insurance and Financial Management, 2008-2009; Aderesa Nigeria Limited (Tega Farms); Alpha Resa Hotels Limited.

He obtained a B.Sc (Hons) Biology, from the University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba

His professional qualifications include Associateship of the Chartered Insurance Institute – London (ACII); Fellowship by Examination of the Chartered Insurance Institute London – FCII; Elected fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria – FIIN.

He was the President, Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria 2009 – 2011; Elected a Council Member of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN) – 1999; Chairman – Mandatory Continuing Professional Development  Committee (MCPD); Member – Fellowship Assessment Committee; Chairman – Accreditation Committee, Office Representative Committee; Pioneer Chairman College of Insurance and Management studies (Chairman) 2008; Member Nigerian Institute of management; Member institute of Directors (IOD).

A commitment to continuous learning is exemplified by his participation in executive development programs locally and internationally at institutions such as Upstream Energy Insurance Module 2011 at JLT Academy, London; Chief Executive & Directors Course, Management School, London -2005; Executive Management Development Course, South Africa –  April 2000; Life Insurance Course at the Swiss Insurance Training Centre, Zurich – 1988; Munich Reinsurance Course, Munich, Germany – 2001; Computer Appreciation Course; Budgeting and Budgetary Control; Financial Management; Human Resources Management; Action Centered Leadership; Total Quality Management; Chartered Insurance Institute of London Annual Conference; Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria – Seminars and Conferences.

He belongs to Ikoyi club 1938, Country club 1949 Ikeja, IBB international golf club Abuja, Fountain of Hope International, as well as ENI Club.

His hobbies are Table Tennis, Swimming, Reading and Music. He is married with four children and hails from Delta State.

The post Celebrating Sunny Adeda: Alpha Choice Boss and Insurance Icon Hits 70th Milestone appeared first on Business Today NG.

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AI code-testing startup Blacksmith’s valuation jumps almost 10x in less than a year

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As AI makes coding dramatically faster, the next big challenge in software development is testing and validating all that code. Blacksmith has raised a new $45 million round to capitalize on that shift.

The Series B, led by Peak XV Partners, values Blacksmith at $550 million, up from the $60 million valuation it was assigned when it raised a $10 million Series A less than a year ago. Existing investors GV and Y Combinator also participated, bringing the startup’s total funding to $58.5 million.

Founded in 2024, Blacksmith helps companies build, test, and verify software before it reaches production. The startup now serves more than 5,000 customers, including Mercury, Supabase, Clerk, Ashby, and Expensify, up from more than 700 customers less than a year ago, co-founder and CEO Aditya Jayaprakash said in an exclusive interview.

The rise of AI coding tools such as Cursor, OpenAI’s Codex, and Anthropic’s Claude Code has made it significantly easier for software teams to generate code, but the quality of AI-generated code is not a given.

“Validating code is still a bottleneck, and it’s an even bigger bottleneck because people are writing even more,” Jayaprakash said.

Blacksmith started as a cloud provider for continuous integration (CI) workloads, helping companies run the software builds and tests needed to validate code before it reaches production. The startup has since broadened its platform with Codesmith, an AI coding agent that can automatically fix failed code checks.

Jayaprakash said Blacksmith reached a $10 million annualized revenue run rate with just 10 employees and has since grown its workforce to about 30 and grown revenue to “tens of millions of dollars.” He declined to provide a specific updated ARR figure, though did say some of its largest customers now spend more than $1 million a year on the platform.

While that appears to be solid and fast progress, Blacksmith is operating in a crowded market. Its key competitors include GitHub Actions, Cursor Automations, validation capabilities baked into Codex and Claude Code, numerous other startups, and AI code-testing services offered by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Jayaprakash said his startup is competing on the speed of testing code as well as affordability.

Looking ahead, Jayaprakash said that Blacksmith plans to expand into a broader suite of coding tools, aiming to help developers write, validate, and merge software faster.

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