The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) has announced that the 2022 .ng Awards is scheduled to hold on Friday, 29th April 2022. NiRA seeks to recognize and acknowledge those who are contributing to the growth of the .ng domain name registration and promotion of the DNS Industry. Using the .ng Awards, NIRA celebrates the achievements and innovation of Nigerian Internet…
Betacube, a Tunisian venture capital firm, has launched the second edition of its Women in Fintech pre-incubation program, which aims to help aspiring entrepreneurs shape their ideas and build long-term businesses. The six-week Women In Fintech programme, run by Betacube in collaboration with the US Embassy in Tunisia, enables Tunisian women-led fintech projects to gain…
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has announced that robotics and coding will be added to the South African curriculum. According to the department’s recently released annual performance plan 2022/2023, full-scale implementation for Grades R through 3 and Grade 7 is planned for the academic year 2023. Robotics and coding will be piloted in other…
AVC, founded by a Grammy Award-winning Nigerian musician, has announced the launch of its platform to assist content creators in creating and trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The AVC platform, based in Lagos and Accra, aims to make it easy for African creators to create, manage, and sell digital art and assets by collaborating with global…
Netflix, one of the world’s leading entertainment streaming services, has launched the Creative Equity Scholarship Fund (CESF) for film and television students in the Eastern African region. The $1 million scholarship fund for Sub-Saharan students is part of Netflix’s global Netflix Creative Equity Fund, which was launched in 2021 and will be allocated to various…
Pranary Business School, based in Cape Town, South Africa, has helped entrepreneurs and startups raise over $1.5 million in investment and has engaged with 50,000 entrepreneurs from 50 different countries since its launch in 2020 through online mentoring. The business school assists entrepreneurs in starting new businesses as well as existing businesses in finding investors…
On September 16, 2021, we launched the #Digitalforall Challenge, a free digital skilling initiative and competition designed to drive young people’s engagement in the digital economy across Nigeria, with the goal of equipping Nigerian youths with skills to enable equal access to technology-centric decent work and economic opportunities. It is a sub-program of Microsoft’s Emerging…
Eight more African startups have been confirmed as participants in the renowned Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator’s W22 batch, bringing the total to 23. The W22 batch of the Y Combinator program is currently underway and will conclude with a demo day next week, having played a role in the early days of companies such…
The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) has opened applications for its Innovating Justice Challenge 2022, which seeks innovations aimed at preventing or resolving a justice problem for a large number of people, including small and medium-sized businesses. HiiL is looking for justice innovators from Africa and the Middle East, specifically Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya,…
The difficulties in Africa’s financial sector open up a plethora of opportunities. When one financial service issue is resolved, other layers reveal more issues to be resolved, much like a giant onion bulb. People were hurt by ridiculous bank charges when businesses found it difficult to receive payments online, but fintech companies came to the…
The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) and Google have announced a new Google.org Fellowship to provide one million more Africans with access to the TEFConnect platform, which connects entrepreneurs with tailored tools, market partnerships, coaches, and investors. The announcement was made at a TEF headquarters event in Lagos, Nigeria, attended by several African political and business…
Africa No Filter and Meta have announced the winners of the Future Africa Grant for Extended Reality Creators. Africa No Filter and Meta (Facebook.com) are pleased to announce the six finalists of the program ‘Future Africa: Telling Stories, Building Worlds,’ which aims to identify and invest in the continent’s next generation of Extended Reality (XR)…
Katapult, based in Norway, has collaborated with the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) for Global Change, Norrsken, and Smart Africa to launch the Katapult Africa Accelerator Programme, which will aim to accelerate and invest in agri-tech and climate-tech startups. The Katapult Accelerator, based in Norway, has invested in a number of African startups and launched spin-offs…
Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) has reduced the price of .NG domain by over forty per cent (40%). NiRA is responsible for maintaining the database of registered names in the .ng country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) namespace in the public interest of Nigeria and the global internet community. Like the currency, the Naira and…
Simplifyd Systems Inc., a YCombinator-backed Nigerian startup aiming to become the platform of choice for data-free Internet access across Africa, has taken a giant step forward. The company is announcing the launch of ZeroData, its toll-free internet application platform, to address the challenges associated with accessing affordable data in the face of the staggering rate…
Ghana’s central bank has released information about its ‘eCedi’ digital currency, which it hopes will encourage more people to use the country’s banking system. The Bank of Ghana has released a digital paper advocating for hardware wallet services for Ghanaians who do not have internet access or bank accounts. The West African country is developing…
Engen, a South African petroleum company, has opened applications for its Pitch & Polish pitching competition, in which 16 entrepreneurs will compete for a ZAR1 million (US$67,000) first prize. Pitch & Polish, now in its 12th year, went fully virtual for the first time in 2021, when Cape Town-based business partners Pieter du Plessis and…
Startupbootcamp AfriTech and Telecel Group have chosen 11 African startups to participate in the second edition of the Africa Startup Initiative Programme (ASIP), which provides funding and support to participants. Startupbootcamp AfriTech was founded in 2017 as the first pan-African startup accelerator backed by multiple corporations. Disrupt Africa announced in March of last year that…
Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian organization, has established a $1 million Crypto for Good Fund to test and support blockchain-based solutions for people who are low-income and/or unbanked. “We are excited to partner with visionary founding teams to identify, test, and prove the potential of crypto and web3 to improve financial access for the world’s…
According to the National Infrastructure Plan 2050, which was released on Friday by South Africa’s Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Patricia De Lille, every South African household will receive 50GB of data by the fiscal year 2025/6. According to the document, the government’s goal is to provide high-speed, affordable, and accessible broadband to underserved…
Africa has recently made significant progress toward realizing its ambition of being a launching pad for most startup businesses. Although, Africa’s track record of maintaining and ramping up startups is a different tale. Only few African startups with global impact exist on the continent, the most stemming from the tech industry. In comparison, the Western and…
PECB University has signed a new Academic partnership agreement with Digital Encode Limited, to commit their knowledge, resources, and efforts to provide top-class education to students in Nigeria. PECB University is an independent institution of higher education focused on business education, which is inspired by the tenets of professionalism of its parent company, PECB Inc. – a…
Google for Startups Accelerator Africa Class 7 participants have been announced, with the selected startups set to receive mentorship and expert advice over the course of the three-month program. The Google for Startups Accelerator Africa, announced in 2017, is a three-month program that connects early-stage African tech startups with the best of Google’s products, people,…
Curacel, a Nigerian insurtech startup that offers an AI-powered platform for claims processing and fraud management in Africa, has announced its participation in the latest Y Combinator cohort, as well as the launch of Grow, an embedded insurance product that enables technology companies to seamlessly offer insurance as part of their existing products and services….
Twelve African tech startups have been chosen for the first cohort of the FAST startup accelerator, which was developed by Microsoft in collaboration with Flapmax to strengthen and scale Africa’s digital ecosystem. The 12-week FAST programme, which starts next week, brings together startups from six different countries and nine industries, chosen from over 800 applications…
On Friday, three Nigerian federal government agencies—the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), the National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission (ICPC)—worked together with the Nigerian police force to raid some illegal financial institutions based on Opebi Road in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. Digital lending platforms…
The United States government is committed to assisting the next generation of female leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by connecting them with networks and opportunities that will help them advance their careers and dreams in the technology fields. The United States government is committed to assisting the next generation of female leaders…
South Africa’s MultiChoice Group, one of Africa’s leading entertainment companies, saw its shares rise on Thursday after reaching a $4.4 billion settlement agreement with Nigerian authorities. According to Bloomberg, MultiChoice has agreed to drop all pending lawsuits against Nigeria, following a long-running feud over an alleged breach of agreements and denying officials access to its…
The government of Osun is the most recent to enter the mobility sector. On Thursday, March 10, it announced a partnership with Metro Africa Xpress (MAX) Drive to distribute “1,000 tricycles to alleviate transportation burdens” in the state. “The Government of the State of Osun, led by Governor Gboyega Oyetola, has inaugurated 1,000 tricycles to…
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Fintech Conference has announced the grand prize winner of its 2022 Fintech Startup Pitch Competition as Kenyan startup Money254. Money254 is a financial services comparison platform that will be launched in April 2021, making it easier for users to find, compare, and apply for financial products that meet both…