- Gricd, a hardware startup, rebrands as ‘Figorr’ and announces $1.5 million seed funding to support data-driven insurance for perishable goods in Africa.
- Roads, power, rail and agriculture input do not sound like components of digital innovation, but they can be the difference between stagnation and reaching our potential, says Abraham Augustine (@signorabraham).
- Nigerian telecoms have received approval to disconnect several banks due to the banks’ failure to pay over ₦120 billion ($260 million) in USSD debts.
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- Nigeria has introduced a national blockchain policy in hopes of growing its digital economy by 2030. While the move remains unprecedented in Africa, it appears that the policy makes no room for crypto, bringing a question to fore: why is crypto still banned by a pro-blockchain government?
- Former music promoter and indie artist, @EclipseNkasi, wanted to show that AI can create compelling music on a budget. He used AI tools to generate an entire music album in just 3 days and with less than $500.
- Sama's "layoff party" was cancelled weeks ago, and now the Kenyan court is asking the former content moderation upstart to ensure that the moderators it has been trying to fire get paid their salaries.
- Speaking at a press briefing to provide an update on the country’s Energy Action Plan, Ramokgopa stated that the programme will provide a R3 million incentive for every megawatt saved through reduced demand.
- Zimbabwe backs its new digital money with 140kgs of gold as part of efforts to support the sale of the currency. It also released gold coins to reduce the increasing demand for US dollar. But the IMF warns that the policy may lead to depletion of reserves.
- On top of the meteoric rise in fraud cases, in a report last month, INTERPOL also gave South Africa the unwanted title of the cybercrime hub of Africa, with the country recording over 230 million incidents.
- The United States and AWIEF have announced the 2023 Academy for Women Entrepreneurs. The programme is aimed at helping women scale their businesses and secure funding.
- Google is inviting everyone to use its experimental AI tool, MusicLM. This tool transforms text descriptions into music and your feedback will be utilized to enhance the model's performance.
- Yesterday, Kenya’s Employment and Labour Relations Court ordered Meta's outsourcing partner, Sama, to pay its content moderators salaries pending the decision on a lawsuit alleging harmful working conditions at Sama.
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- Reports from Data Sparkle, a data and analytics platform for emerging markets, have shown that Africa has over 270 million monthly active users who spend one-third of their time on mobile apps.
- The Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has been barred from imposing fines on broadcast stations. This happened after a ruling in Abuja on May 10, 2023.
- It is important to note that South Africa’s MTN Group pulled out of a second tender offer to purchase a telco licence in Ethiopia in 2021, citing an unwillingness to operate in conflict-ridden markets, a reference to conflict in the Tigray region.
- Andy Umana’s father was a civil servant and his mother a trader; Umana was “that guy ready to help out and try to see how to put food on the table” for his family. In his own words, he “has always sold”.
- As funding for the Nigerian tech ecosystem falls — and consequently the marketing budgets, will the growth in the coming years be slower, or will smaller companies find a way to make up for smaller budgets?
- You may need to check and print your NECO exams results to satisfy tertiary institutions' admission processes. Here's how to check NECO results online for printing.
- Today, African startups are faced with a new reality where investor appetite has dropped. Some founders told TechCabal that in response to this, there has been a shift towards forgoing venture capital and instead focusing on attaining profitability.
- One of the most important things for JAMB candidates is to check their admission status after writing the UTME (Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination) and Post-UTME exams. Here are the steps to follow to check your JAMB admission status online.
- With the continuous rise of chargeback fraud, some Nigerian fintechs are now instituting decline fees to deter bad agents. Some users, however, believe that this move will deter adoption as well as fraud.
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- If you're looking for where to get consistent motivation and resources in your tech journey, then a community is the way to go. This edition of #EnteringTech🚀 explores one of the very few cases where peer pressure is actually good.
- 97% of surveyed leaders of financial institutions in Africa say cybercrime, inadequate policing of cybersecurity and macroeconomic worries are the leading threats to the financial services industry.
- The appeal of virtual cards is that they make FX payments easy and also help people avoid bank charges. For fintech startups, it’s a no-brainer for customer acquisition. But chargeback fees are changing how fintechs are thinking about virtual cards
- With African content and its creators taking centre stage in this new frontier in streaming, platforms like Wi-flix are looking to capitalise on their ability to serve the African market.
- Now that the JAMB 2023 exams are over, checking and printing your results become imperative. Here's how to print your original 2023 JAMB result slip from your portal.
- The Nigerian House of Reps has launched an inquiry into the state of telecommunications service delivery in Nigeria. It wants to know why some parts of the country are still without coverage, or with poor coverage.
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- The Kenyan government is proposing a 15% withholding tax on all payments received by content creators. The tax will cover all subscription and membership fees content creators collect as well as merch sales and crowdfunding raises.
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- This morning, a memo widely shared on social media stated that South Africans would start paying for car radio licences in order to operate their automobile stereos.
- Richmond Ohalewe says it took him three weeks to develop the initial Lazerpay logo. “At the time, they were looking to raise money to get started, and I was there to help them produce a compelling brand identity," Ohalewe added. But it soon became apparent that the most prominent identity of the…
- We are doing 5G wrong if we market only its consumer appeal. Instead of trying to serve retail users at scale, Africa’s telecoms industry should concentrate 5G on transforming the continent's industry and business operations. @signorabraham argues.
- Zimbabwe's gold-backed digital currency launches today. The tokens will be issued only for investment purposes, and available through banks. Zimbabweans can apply for a minimum of $10 for individuals and $5,000 for financial institutions.
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- These apps can be used to make and receive calls, send and receive texts, and keep your personal and business calls separate. In this article, we will highlight 3 popular apps that provide free phone numbers.
- Ecobank Kenya has announced a new neobank service, Fingo App. The lender, which is part of Ecobank Group, aims to fill the gap left by the rebranding of NCBA Loop, a digital bank by NCBA that previously allowed customers to send money to mobile wallets for free. This free service made it an…
- A federal US court has ordered the CEO of a South African firm to pay a $3.4 billion penalty for one of the biggest crypto fraud case involving Bitcoin.
- According to data from Omdia, Vodacom Mozambique is the country's biggest mobile operator with over 11.3 million customers in the first quarter of 2023.
- Innovation in the African fintech sector has been largely centered around payment solutions, with payment-focused startups accounting for 54.5% of all fintech startups on the continent, as of 2022, according to a report by Disrupt Africa. In 2022, African fintech startups raised a record-breaking $…
