In March 2020, Google.org announced a $25 million Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls to support organizations focused on gender equity in recognition that COVID-19 had put the economic future of women and girls at even greater risk. Today, Google.org announced the 34 funding recipients of the award. The $25M global philanthropy challenge was launched in March 2021 and called for…
IFC has partnered with Liquid Intelligent Technologies to expand data center capacity and the rollout of fiber-optic cable on the continent. The partnership with Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Africa’s leading independent fiber and digital services provider, aims to increase digital connectivity and inclusion in Africa and to support the region’s growing digital ecosystem. IFC’s equity and debt investments in Liquid Intelligent…
Egyptian startups are the most accelerated in Africa, with 38.6 per cent of them having taken part in some kind of acceleration or incubation programme. That is according to the newly-released Egyptian Startup Ecosystem Report 2021 from Disrupt Africa, which dives into the local ecosystem by analysing active startups, local support networks, and funding and exit activity over…
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed that its revenue target for the 2022 fiscal year stands at N632.39 billion Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, made this known during the budget defence before the National Assembly Joint Committee on Communications in Abuja. Danbatta explained that the revenue targets would also be made…
African cross-border payments provider Chipper Cash has secured $150 million in an expanded Series C round, which included participation from FTX, Ribbit Capital, SVB Capital, Deciens Capital, and Bezos Expeditions. Chipper Cash is now a unicorn, having been valued at over $2 billion. CEO Ham Serunjogi and President Maijid Moujaled founded the company in 2018. Additionally,…
South Africa’s FNB and business growth specialists Fetola have opened applications for the 2021 Social Entrepreneurship Impact Lab (SEIL) programme, which will accelerate the growth of 50 South African social entrepreneurs wanting to scale their business models and improve their investment readiness. Running for the second year in a row and organised by FNB and Fetola, the SEIL programme supports…
Twitter temporarily disabled the Trends feature in Ethiopia to make sure that the platform cannot be used to instigate violence in the conflict-torn country, the social media said on Saturday. On Thursday, the Ethiopian parliament declared a six-month state of emergency throughout the country to protect the population from the rebels of the Popular Front…
Adia Sowho, MTN Nigeria’s chief marketing officer, has expressed optimism about the future of the Nigerian startups while discussing the Nigerian Startup Bill at the Nigerian Economic Pre-Summit event. The virtual event which featured addresses from Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, the minister of Communications and Digital Economy; Abubakar Lado, chairman, House Committee on ICT; Davidson Oturu,…
The federal government has disclosed that Nigeria’s economy recorded $10.1billiom investment announcement in the first half of this year. Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, Minister of Trade and Industry, made this known at Lagos International Trade Fair, held at the Tafawa Balewa Square, organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI). Adebayo explained that the $10.1billion announcement…
With the shopping season approaching, it’s likely that internet-connected gadgets and toys will be a popular item on many users’ wish lists, as more than 88% of people use IoT (Internet of Things) devices in their households. However, cybersecurity experts warn: Internet of Things devices can quickly go from fun to creepy, depending on how hackable they…
The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) will later this month host the first annual HiiL African Justice Innovation Symposium, bringing together key stakeholders from the worlds of law, activism, technology and business to discuss the existing innovations in justice delivery and the opportunities and challenges that present themselves in the world today. The symposium,…
Cameroonian startup Agrix Tech has developed a mobile app that helps farmers to prevent and treat crop diseases utilising machine learning technologies. Founded in August 2018, Agrix Tech is using mobile and machine learning technologies to overcome vital agricultural challenges on the continent. “Most of the small-scale farmers in developing countries are self-taught farmers who lack proper…
What Are Standard Operating Procedures? Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is a detailed and systemized instruction that is expressed in a step-by-step sequence on how the roles of employees should be carried out. A standard operating procedure is usually created by the employer in order to create a company culture that transcends individual differences in carrying out…
WhatsApp has started rolling out its anticipated multi-device support for a large number of users on both Android and iOS to let them use their account on secondary devices, without requiring their phones to be connected to the Internet. Users can leverage the new feature to connect WhatsApp on up to four devices simultaneously to…
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has officially declared that the auction of the 3.5 Gigahertz (3.5 GHz) spectrum for the deployment of Fifth Generation (5G) technology in Nigeria, will take place on December 13, 2021. According to the Information Memorandum (IM) presented by the Commission at a stakeholder engagement forum organised on 5G spectrum in…
MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa Plc have secured approval in principle to operate a Payment Service Bank (PSB) in the country. The two leading telcos made this known in regulatory filings on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Friday, November 5. Techeconomy.ng understands that the PSB operators provide financial services through digital means to low-income earners…
Approximately 6 million people in the US workforce have quit their jobs after making more money from cryptocurrency investments than from their low-income jobs, according to a new survey by intelligence firm Civic Science. Civic Science surveyed over 17,000 respondents across the country for a period of seven months, starting from April 20, 2021 to…
Some Twitter users on iOS are starting to get access to a feature that makes it easy to search an individual user’s tweets. For those with access, when you navigate to a user’s profile, you’ll see a search icon in the top right corner of the screen on the user’s profile banner, next to the…
A former upstart Instagram rival is suing Meta, formerly known as Facebook, over allegations that the company violated antitrust laws by cloning a competing product and ultimately killing its business. The app, Phhhoto, launched in 2014, inviting users to create and share short GIF-like videos. If that sounds familiar, that’s because the same functionality was popularized in Boomerang,…
This week, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) got underway in Glasgow, turning the world’s attention to the global climate crisis and the solutions needed to address this. But many solutions already exist… in Africa. “Whilst we are delighted that nearly 500 global financial firms have agreed to align $130 trillion – 40%…
In the afternoon of October 20th, 2021, the opening session of the 10th Meeting of China-Africa Think Tanks Forum was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. As a companion warm-up event for the upcoming session of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Senegal, this Forum brought together more than 200 political, academic, media and business representatives…
WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and other Facebook apps have started showing the company’s new ‘Meta’ branding on both Android and iOS devices. The update comes a week after Facebook announced that it is changing its company’s name to Meta. The renaming is aimed at going beyond traditional social media and better reflecting the company’s ongoing investment…
Facebook, the social media platform owned by Meta, removed a post on the page of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for allegedly violating its policies against inciting violence. The post in question, uploaded to Facebook on Sunday, asked citizens of Ethiopia and of its capital city of Addis Ababa to use ‘any type of weapon’ to…
Amazon.com is seeking approval from US communications regulators to deploy more than 4,500 additional satellites as part of the company’s effort to deliver broadband Internet to areas around the world that lack high-speed service. Amazon had said previously it planned to spend at least $10 billion to build 3,236 such satellites through its Project Kuiper programme. Late on Thursday…
More fuel for social audio: Berlin-based social audio startup Beams, which is building a platform for sharing and consuming short-form audio recordings — as a sort of bite-sized/deconstructed and/or collaborative podcast format which it bills as “audio-based social media” — has doubled its seed funding, adding another $3 million to close out the round at $6M….
Bicycle community delivery platform Errand360, which was built to serve users with demand for quick and short errands within their communities and on-demand delivery services, has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding to expand across Africa. Launched earlier this year, Errand360 bicycles serve users with a variety of delivery services, with the first phase of rollout…
The company formerly known as Facebook has been discussing the possibility of opening retail stores way before it rebranded itself as Meta, according to The New York Times. Apparently, discussions about opening brick-and-mortar shops started last year, though nothing has been finalized, and the project could still end up being scrapped. If Meta does open physical outlets, however,…
Egyptian e-health startup Bypa-ss has raised a US$1 million pre-seed funding round to further improve its platform and accelerate its expansion plans. Founded in 2019 by Andrew Saad, Bypa-ss has developed an end-to-end health information exchange (HIE) platform called HealthTag where healthcare professionals and patients are able to securely access medical records stored in a cloud-based database. Having originated…
Access to affordable, reliable and environmentally sustainable sources of electricity is a pressing issue for the growing number of Data Centre operators across Africa. These facilities need to ensure a high availability of power to mitigate downtime, but many African countries face frequent power outages. Existing Data Centres have relied on diesel-fuelled generators to sustain operations…
Kenyan startup BasiGo, an electric vehicle technology and financing company working to bring electric bus services to Sub-Saharan Africa, has launched operations in Nairobi having secured KES100 million (US$900,000) in funding earlier this year. BasiGo provides state-of-the-art electric buses along with charging and maintenance services for bus operators, making these vehicles affordable through a financing model…