If any country could be absolved of responsibility for the climate change crisis, it’s The Gambia. The Gambia is the smallest country in mainland Africa, wedged within the borders of Senegal along the mouth of the Gambia river with a population of 2.4 million. Its carbon footprint is among the world’s smallest, and comes mostly from agriculture and…
Delphine Traoré, member of the Board of Management of Allianz Africa and regional chief operations officer (COO), will succeed Coenraad Vrolijk and assume the role of Allianz Africa Regional Chief Executive Officer (CEO), in addition to her current responsibilities. Coenraad will leave Allianz Africa to pursue new opportunities outside of the Allianz group. These changes will become…
Google has held discussions to invest over $50 million in Indian social commerce startup Meesho, which recently secured $570 million in a financing round, according to a source familiar with the matter. The Android-maker, which has backed over half a dozen startups in India, has yet to make the investment in Meesho, according to another person…
Africa is being hit hard by climate change but has huge potential to minimise the impact and in some instances even triple a return on investment by embracing climate change adaptation, according to a report by the World Bank. Three African countries could more than triple returns on investments in climate-smart infrastructure and create thousands of…
Public fascination with innovation, entrepreneurship and startups in Africa seems to have reached an all-time high, thanks to leading Pan African network organizations like AfriLabs that support the ecosystem. AfriLabs is a Network Organisation of over 300 technology innovation hubs spread across 49 African countries. As the organization marks its 10th anniversary, TechEconomy.ng looks at the CV of Anna…
During a company livestream, Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, with MTN SA CEO, Godfrey Motsa today announced the launch of the MTN Online School, a free online portal that provides a comprehensive digital curriculum for grades R-12 and additional features like video lessons, assessments and extra-tuition lessons for Grade 10 to 12 learners. The solution…
MTN Eswatini and other mobile network operators have reportedly been ordered by the country’s government to suspend access to Facebook and its messenger app “until further notice.” This comes as Africa’s last absolute monarchy has been rocked by another week long surge of pro-democracy protests. Earlier this year in July, protest action began in the Southern African…
Facebook is planning to rebrand itself with a new name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, the Verge reported on Tuesday, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about the name change at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28, but it…
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has strongly warned telecoms consumers to ensure they do not allow their National Identification Number (NIN) to be linked to another person’s Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards, no matter how close the person is to them. The Commission gave the warning during its third run Telecom Consumer Town Hall on Radio (TCTHR)…
Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director general of the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA) has inaugurated a five-day capacity training programme for members of the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) in Lagos, Nigeria, TechEconomy.ng can report. The DG said the capacity training programme aims to upskill the members of NITRA – an umbrella body for journalists reporting information…
Amid rumours that it lost a colossal N2 billion of investor funds to a fraudulent investment scheme, Piggyvest, an online saving and investment platform has announced to its users that their funds are ‘safe and secure’. The rumours started after an Instagram user @_trapselena_ alleged that Piggyvest and some other top organizations in Nigeria invested in an…
Nigerians without access to internet-enabled phones would also be able to utilize the eNaira currency. This was revealed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in a document titled “Design paper for the eNaira”. The CBN, through this document, stated that the eNaira solution will take into consideration all Nigerians, irrespective of the device type they…
The United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, and PwC Nigeria recently signed a ground-breaking Memorandum of Understanding, (MOU), to collaborate on strategic initiatives centred on facilitating skills transfer, knowledge and competencies. The first of its kind collaboration in Africa is aimed at catalysing development and policy dialogues that connect and link the private and public sectors with the start-up…
Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa top 20 other African countries under the enforceability of standard master agreements pillar in the latest African Financial Markets Index presented by Absa, a leading financial services provider. The insight was delivered during the presentation of its Absa-OMFIF Financial Markets Index on Wednesday, October 13, 2021. The top financial services provider also…
Africa.com undertook a rigorous research project to identify the women who run the largest, most complex businesses on the African continent. The result of this extensive research undertaking is The Africa.com Definitive List of Women CEOs. SAP’s Cathy Smith, MD Sub-Saharan Africa, made the list of 50 women CEOs leading corporate Africa. The list was compiled…
In 2016, a coalition of 34 Kenyan Uber drivers filed a suit against Uber Kenya after, the coalition claimed, the company had violated an online contract. According to the contract in question, the drivers were expected to transport customers at a minimum of $0.54 per kilometre, with a minimum fare of $2.71, with Uber Kenya making 25%…
Sparkle, a mobile-first digital bank that provides financial, lifestyle and business support services to Nigerians across the globe, has raised an oversubscribed seed round of $3.1m from an all-Nigerian group of investors including Leadway Assurance, Trium Networks and a number of Nigerian HNIs. This follows a previous friends and family pre-Seed round totalling $2m [N857m], bringing Sparkle’s…
American technology giant Microsoft announced today that it will pull its professional social network LinkedIn from the Chinese market later this year. Microsoft purchased LinkedIn for more than $26 billion back in 2016. The news comes amidst a flurry of regulatory changes in the Asian nation, as well as rising tensions between the company and the country. Two…
Mobile network provider, MTN Nigeria announced in a statement that the nationwide service outage that was experienced by its subscribers on Saturday, 9th October 2021 was a result of a disruption in its core network. The South African-owned company is the largest telecoms provider in Nigeria with about 71 million subscribers in Nigeria as at 2020. The outage…
South Africa’s Health Minister Joe Phaahla has announced that children and teens between 12 and 17 will now be able to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The announcement came during a media briefing Friday morning, where Phaahla confirmed that the decision was influenced by recommendations made by the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on vaccinations during a…
With IT job vacancies continuing to climb as companies struggle to recruit and obtain critical skills in South Africa, there is an opportunity to upskill or reskill individuals to meet this demand. Prudence Mabitsela, founder and MD of Dynamic DNA, a leading training and skills development company empowering Africa’s ICT generation, believes these skills are…
French President Emmanuel Macron has made a new EUR130 million (US$150 million) commitment to support 500 African startups as part of a rejigged Digital Africa initiative. Launched in 2018 with the mission to equip African tech entrepreneurs with capabilities to design and scale up ground-breaking innovations for the real economy, Digital Africa brings together startups, academia, incubators, institutional…
Microsoft Africa Development Centre (Microsoft ADC), the premier Engineering Center for Microsoft, has announced the commencement of its Game of Learners Clinic, a 3-month intensive programme for students in the university and beginner developers across West Africa. The programme is scheduled to commence in October 2021 and will allow participants to level up on .Net,…
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, professionals and experts in the technology sector have stressed the importance of technology in the drive towards the smart city project of the state. Specifically, Governor Sanwo-Olu expressed his administration’s commitment to greatly invest in technology, which according to him, is critical to the development of the state and nation…
Internet security provider Kaspersky has blocked more than 206,000 mobile malware attacks across the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region in just 6-months measured, between January to June 2021. Out of these attacks, a combined 30,000 originated from Nigeria (14,071), Kenya (10,697), and South Africa (5,499), respectively. Significantly, for the African countries monitored, Nigeria…
MyBroadband Insights has released its Q3 Mobile Network Quality Report, which shows the network quality of several of South Africa’s top telecoms gauged by a number of factors, including download and upload speeds, and latency. The report is based on results recorded between 1 July 2021 and 30 September 2021. The download speed (60%), upload…
Product Management (PM) in general seems to have a different job description depending on the company. Some focus more on project management skills, some focus on UX skills — but the core of the position seems to be the same: the glue between business development, product development, and the users. However, every industry has its…
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…
The Nigerian federal government has, within the last 12 months, enacted a series of bans and restrictions across a country that has one of the most vibrant tech ecosystems in Africa. Africa’s most populous country has a booming tech industry and was the incubator for 4 of the 5 unicorn startups in Africa, all of which have…
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…