All about Tech.
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…
There is a persistent issue when it comes to the lack of education and how it contributes to the cycle of poverty, especially in underdeveloped areas of the world. According to UNESCO, more than 617-million children worldwide are lacking knowledge in basic subjects. The situation is alarming in Sub-Saharan Africa where out of 100 children,…
The successful completion of the Azura Edo 450 MW gas-fired power project in 2016 was hailed at the time as setting the blueprint for future independent power projects in Nigeria. The $900-million plant, which gathered 20 international banks and equity financing partners from more than nine countries, took over six years of project development and…
Global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) have announced a new partnership to establish connections between African healthcare innovators and AstraZeneca’s A.Catalyst Network of more than 20 global health innovation hubs. The joint venture seeks to drive the development of engineering solutions that have the potential to address local challenges with…
African unicorns have made big news in recent months, with four startups having recently reached a $1 billion valuation or more this year alone, taking the total up to seven. Two of the new entrants are in fintech, one in edtech, and one in general technology. These and other technology-enabled sectors are where emerging market investors are…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Designing websites came naturally to Onyeka Akumah even as a college student, but his greatest epiphany was in a moving bus in Lagos. Today, his bus-hailing solution is going places. What do you get when you have a mother who wants you to make all the money in the world and a father who wants…
Google announced Thursday that it would no longer allow ads or monetization for content that promotes climate change denialism. The policy change will apply to publishers, advertisers and YouTube creators, who will no longer be able to make money from content that “contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” Google plans to…
Ghanaian startup Kaazi has launched the public beta of its football talent identification and recruitment platform, which will be available to all football players in Africa. Founded in July by Nana Yaw Oppong-Mensah, a former football player, coach and scout, Kaazi is a web-based platform that allows football players to build their own profiles by adding videos…
Nedbank, one of South Africa’s largest lenders, has announced the launch of the Nedbank DigiSkills online platform, in partnership with Microsoft and Afrika Tikkun. The DigiSkills Online platform seeks to help South Africans acquire the in-demand skills needed in a more digital post-COVID-19 economy. The initiative initially aims to upskill and create sustainable income opportunities…
Huawei’s, annual flagship event for the global ICT industry – HUAWEI CONNECT 2021 – kicked off on Sep 23, 2021. Eric Xu, Huawei rotating chairman, opened the event with a keynote speech titled “Innovating Nonstop for Faster Digitalization”. This year’s event, themed “Dive into Digital”, explores how digital technology can better integrate with business scenarios…
South African prop-tech venture building group Castle One has received a “significant investment” from HL Hall and Sons Holdings in a deal it says will unlock new, synergistic value for the benefit of the real estate industry, both locally and abroad. Founded by tech entrepreneurs Jonothan Rawson and Mark Forrester, Castle One has been active in the…
Facebook had its largest outage ever that took down WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and even Facebook’s internal tools for over six hours on Monday night. The social giant blamed the outage across its platforms on configuration changes made to routers that coordinate network traffic. “This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our…
YouTube announced on Monday that it’s expanding video action campaigns (one of Google’s interactive ad types for video) to connected televisions (CTV) to make YouTube ads more shoppable. The company says this new move will help advertisers drive more online sales and grow their businesses. For context, when viewers see a video action campaign on…
The Engineering team at Facebook has revealed the underlying factors that led to six hours of global outage that also affected WhatApp and Instagram. The global social networking company lost billions of dollars to the outages that started about 4.43pm (WAT) on Monday. According to NetBlocks, which tracks internet outages and their impact, the outage had…
South Africa’s water system is in trouble. In the 2020/21 financial year alone, there were over 55,800 pipe bursts, over a third of reservoirs have supply problems, and years of underfunding of infrastructure replacement and maintenance have drastically reduced the lifespan of around a quarter of the country’s asset base. If there’s one lesson we can…
South African startup abela is supporting the informal economy with the same autonomy and security that banks offer to the formal economy via a QR code-enabled system. Launched in August 2020, abela started as a QR code-enabled payment platform offering users without a bank account the ability to receive tips and payments digitally. Since then, it has…
China, the most populous nation in the world, passed its first significant data privacy legislation in August. Moving forward, any global business or aspiring startup doing any type of trade or offering services online likely will be affected because they’ll be engaging with Chinese residents covered by the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL). Although this seems like…
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published internal research from Facebook showing that the social media company knows precisely how toxic its own product is for the people who use it. But tonight, we learned how the Journal obtained those documents: A whistleblower named Frances Haugen, who spoke with CBS News’ 60 Minutes about the ways Facebook is poisoning…
In July, video conferencing mainstay Zoom announced that it was stepping into its first major acquisition buying cloud call centre service provider Five9 for $14.7-billion in an all-stock transaction. The deal was supposed to be finalised within “the first half of 2022.” Now, CNBC reports that Zoom’s agreement with Five9 has fallen through after Five9’s shareholders rejected the deal….
WhatsApp banned over 2 million accounts in the month of August to curb abuse and prevent harmful behaviour on the platform. The latest transparency report from WhatsApp, published to comply with the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, reveals that it banned a total 20,70,000 accounts in one month….
A Nigerian e-Commerce website developed by a startup, Oaklinks.NG has launched its range of services into the market on the month that the nation is celebrating its 61 years of independence with a promise to offer Nigerians top range of goods and services, particularly gadgets. In a statement issued today, October 1st, to launch the e-Commerce website, Mr….
The Internet Society Foundation has launched a new grant program to advance Internet access and connectivity around the world. Known as the BOLT program, these grants aim to support teams of creatives, technologists, researchers, and social/cultural workers to develop solutions to Internet connectivity, particularly among communities where current technologies are unavailable or inaccessible. US$200,000 grants will be awarded to…