Sendy
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Kenya’s Sendy invests in Ivory Coast-based logistics startup Kamtar to accelerate pan-African expansion plans

ByTechTrends

Kenyan logistics startup Sendy has completed a strategic equity investment in Ivory Coast-based counterpart Kamtar to boost the former’s expansion plans in West Africa. Launched in 2015, Sendy offers a marketplace for last-mile package delivery and logistics services, allowing customers to send packages and documents using a mobile application that connects them to motorcycle riders, and drivers…

Bitcoin Dogecoin

Bitcoin Gets Closer to $60,000, Dogecoin Value Continues to Slip

ByTechTrends

Bitcoin continues to one-up its previous days best and moves past $57,000 (roughly Rs. 42 lakhs) for the first time since May. At the time of writing, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency is trading at roughly $57,490 (roughly Rs. 43.3 lakhs) on Binance and CoinMarketCap, while on Indian exchange Coinswitch Kuber, BTC is already valued…

TLcom

TLcom to host 3rd Africa Tech Female Founder Summit

ByTechTrends

Africa-focused venture capital firm TLcom Capital will host the third edition of the Africa Tech Female Founder Summit virtually tomorrow (Wednesday, October 13). Themed “Board and C-Suite Matters – Counsel, Coach and Collaborate”, the third Female Founder Summit will deliver expert insights on how to build and leverage a senior team and board to drive…

global game changer

6 reasons why Africa’s new free trade area is a global game changer

ByTechTrends

• AfCFTA, the largest global free trade area by countries participating, could transform the continent’s economic prospects. • It aims to be a model of cross-border cooperation in an era of growing isolationism. • The agreement must overcome implementation challenges to realize its many benefits. The arrival of COVID-19 in 2020 has rapidly reshaped countries,…

David Daniel

GitOps Best Practices: Orchestrating Continuous Delivery with Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

ByTechTrends

From my perspective, GitOps has completely changed how to achieve flawless Continuous Delivery. The infrastructure as code (IaC) approach of the GitOps methodology has revolutionised the software delivery process.  Through the utilisation of version control systems, particularly Git, GitOps revolutionises the way teams deploy and manage applications and infrastructure. Declarative infrastructure management principles and the…

AfriTECH2021

Zoho emerges Africa Tech Alliance Alliance Forum (#AfriTECH2021) lead sponsor

ByTechTrends

Zoho Corporation has been named the lead sponsors of Africa Tech Alliance Forum 2021 (#AfriTECH2021), by the organisers. The hybride event (both online and physical) will take place on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at Oriental Hotel, Lekki Lagos by 10:00am with Olatomiwa Williams, Country Manager of Microsoft Nigeria presenting the keynote address. Andrew Bourne, Regional Manager (Africa), Zoho Corporation will lead a…

Instagram

Instagram will warn kids if they consume too much ‘sensitive’ content

ByTechTrends

After accusations of ignoring mental health impact on teens using Instagram, Facebook will roll out new measures to make amends. These measures include warnings for consuming too much harmful content, parental control on content, and a “take a break” prompt. Speaking on CNN’s State of Union show last night, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s VP of global affairs, said the nudge…

African fintech Opay

Nigeria’s Opay is the only African fintech listed in the 2021 Top 250 by CB Insights

ByTechTrends

The African tech startup space has continued to be dominated by financial technology companies. These fintech companies have gained more traction, attracted more funding and generally have positioned themselves as the beacons of the African tech space. ? All the top 6 funding raised on the continent so far in 2021 have been raised by…

WhatsApp Community

A Community feature for WhatsApp is reportedly in the works

ByTechTrends

WhatsApp was working on adding lots of new features recently. The most recent improvement the popular messaging app is going to be getting, according to an APK code teardown done by XDA-Developers, is dubbed “Community”. This new feature that WhatsApp may be working on will reportedly coexist with the existing feature Groups. WhatsApp Community: a feature…

Payday
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Favour Ori’s new fintech startup, Payday raises $1m pre-seed to build Africa’s paypal

ByTechTrends

Payday, a Pan-African financial technology company has announced a $1m pre-seed fund raise. According to the startup, the raise will help it to build an online payments system that is equivalent to Paypal. According to the announcement, the raise was supported by several investors including LofyInc, Microtraction, Magic Fund, Ventures Platform, Voltron Capital, CcHub Syndicate, Helicarrier…

Africa Code Week

Africa Code Week initiative aims to bridge Africa’s digital divide

ByTechTrends

Africa’s biggest digital skills initiative, SAP Africa Code Week (ACW), officially launched yesterday with a strong focus on virtual learning as the continent struggles to recover after COVID-19 disruption. The launch coincided with World Teacher’s Day, which focuses this year on “teachers at the heart of education recovery”. Speaking at a virtual event to mark both World Teacher’s…

Kenya

Aggregators are enabling independent voices in Kenya’s controlled news circuit

ByTechTrends

Kenya is all about the news. No, literally, “Habari”, a common greeting in Swahili, means “Any news?” in English. Everyone has their favourite publication. And every publication has a different story. Data-driven digital media is taking the place of print in Kenya. As the world becomes busier and more digital, the consumption of media has…

WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram
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Impact of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram outage on businesses

ByTechTrends

Recently, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook faced a long six-hour outage. Initially, many people blamed it on their internet service provider but soon the realization that it is not the faulty internet connection but the fact that these social media platforms were actually not functioning as a shock to many. Even though many users of these…

Digital technology

Digital technology: friend or foe against climate change?

ByTechTrends

From the energy that goes into making smartphones to the fact that even emails create carbon emissions, the world’s internet addiction comes with costs to the climate. But could digital technology be part of the solution to climate change, as well as the problem? Ahead of next month’s COP26 climate talks, AFP looks at five…

Mono

Tiger Global backs African fintech Mono in $15M Series A round

ByTechTrends

Mono, an African startup that helps connect consumers’ bank accounts to financial applications, has raised a $15 million Series A round, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. The round, led by Tiger Global — the VC firm’s third major investment in Africa this year after Flutterwave and FairMoney — also had participation from new investors Target Global (an investor…

WhatsApp

WhatsApp to Add Ability to Pause Recording Voice Messages, Fix for Chat Backup Issue Found

ByTechTrends

WhatsApp is reportedly working on letting users pause voice recordings while they are being recorded, through a future update. The alleged update will let users pause and resume recording their voice message right from where they had paused. Furthermore, the instant messaging service is also reportedly working on fixing an issue with chat backups. A…

AB InBev

AB InBev opens applications for Beer Garage Africa Innovation Challenge

ByTechTrends

The world’s largest beer company, AB InBev, has partnered Hindsight Ventures to launch the Beer Garage Africa Innovation Challenge, which will offer startups access to venture development and grant funding. AB InBev, which has over 500 brands and over six million B2B customers in over 100 countries, launched Beer Garage a few years ago with…

#AESIS2021

VC4A & ABAN bring together the African Early Stage Investor Community at #AESIS2021

ByTechTrends

Welcoming investors to join the 8th edition of the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit #AESIS2021 online and offline on 4 – 5 November 2021. VC4A and the African Business Angel Network (ABAN) are pleased to announce the 8th edition of the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit (#AESIS2021) which will take place online and offline from…

Start up
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Five emerging cities around the world to launch a startup

ByTechTrends

America since long has dominated the world of start-ups along with buzzing activities in venture capital. However, now the craze of the start-up has increased and many cities of different continents including Asia, Europe and Africa have created many promising cities that are ideal for starting a start-up. Even though the Coronavirus impacted the startup…

Digital Transformation
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Businesses Need to Be “Data Driven” for True Digital Transformation says Altron

ByTechTrends

Over and above leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud services; it has been widely acknowledged that the key building block for true digital transformation is the need for businesses to become data-driven. Of course, this is a uniquely challenging task for almost every business. Dealing with the Data Challenge At the core of any data…

CryCrypto currency remittances

Crypto remittances are a lifeline for the world’s most vulnerable

ByTechTrends

Cryptocurrency remittances are a lifeline for Afghans after the abrupt U.S. withdrawal led to Western Union temporarily ceasing operations and banks in the country severely limiting withdrawals. As regulators in remittance source countries like the U.S. and U.K. turn their sights on crypto, they should remember how indispensable those currencies are to some of the…

pandemic

The pandemic put a spotlight on the need to invest in women founders

ByTechTrends

Without a doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic created catastrophic effects in our communities, educational systems and, most importantly, our careers and overall global economy. The pandemic has also had a disproportionate effect on women’s careers: We are 1.8 times more likely to be laid off than men. It is also important to note that the pandemic caused a…

E-Track Programme

Update : Apply for UCT GSB E-Track Programme Cohort Five

ByTechTrends

Deadline: 11 October, 2021 The University of Cape Town (UCT) Graduate School of Business (GSB) Solution Space, in partnership with Ayoba, has opened applications for the Cohort Five of the E-Track Programme. The programme serves as a platform for corporate partners to engage and collaborate on specific research and development agendas. Designed to support individuals…

MarketForce

Kenyan retail-tech startup MarketForce expands to Nigeria

ByTechTrends

MarketForce, the Kenya-based B2B platform for retail distribution of consumer goods and digital financial services, has made Nigeria its first port of expansion in the wake of its funding round. Co-founded in 2018 by Tesh Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti, MarketForce is a B2B retail marketplace that empowers informal merchants in Africa to source, order and pay for…

Startup Accelerator
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Applications open for 3rd Google Startup Accelerator: Middle East and North Africa

ByTechTrends

Google has opened applications for the third edition of its Startups Accelerator: Middle East and North Africa programme, which offers startups access to mentorship and support from Google experts. The three-month digital programme, which kicks off in January of next year, is targeting seed to Series A tech startups. Twelve companies just graduated from the second…

Uber
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Nigeria: Uber launches ride-hailing operation in 2 new cities, Ibadan and Port-Harcourt

ByTechTrends

Ride-hailing company, Uber has announced the expansion of its services to two new cities in Nigeria, Port Harcourt and Ibadan. With this move, Uber’s services will now be available in five cities including Lagos, Abuja and Benin City. According to Uber, the move is intended to unlock growth opportunities in the cities for drivers who…

Fluterwave Opay

Flutterwave, Opay named among CB Insights’ Fintech 250 companies

ByTechTrends

Made up of 250 top private companies leveraging technology to solve challenges in the financial services industry, CB Insights has unveiled the fourth annual Fintech 250. The Fintech 250 includes the most promising fintech companies from around the world, operating in capital markets, insurance, digital banking and wealth management. Companies in this year’s cohort have…

Ford Foundation

Ford Foundation appoints Catherine Chinedum Aniagolu-Okoye as regional director W/Africa

ByTechTrends

A new regional director, in the person of Catherine Chinedum (‘ChiChi’) Aniagolu-Okoye, has been appointed to take charge of the West African office of Ford Foundation based in Lagos State. Before the appointment of Aniagolu-Okoye, the position was served by the late Innocent Chukwuma from 2013 to 2021. During his tenure, he helped Ford Foundation build its…