Microsoft has reaffirmed its commitment to working with both the private and public sectors to accelerate digital transformation in African agriculture in order to increase food security for the continent.

Speaking during a virtual roundtable panel discussion on the topic, Microsoft Kenya Acting Country Manager Kunle Awosika said the organisation is committed to continue investing in agritech on the continent, with the goal of developing agritech that enables data-driven, precise and connected farming...

WhatsApp has announced the launch of the WhatsAppreneurs campaign, profiling small entrepreneurs from Africa who are using the WhatsApp Business app to grow their business and reach more customers.

The campaign will highlight the stories of Small and Medium Business owners in Africa, and help them and others like them learn more about business growth opportunities available with the WhatsApp Business app through a virtual educational webinar. “Across Africa, small and medium business owners...

Flutterwave, Africa's leading payments technology company has announced the appointment of Oneal Bhambani as its new Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Bhambani joins the Nigerian fintech startup from American Express and Kabbage where he managed fintech products. Kabbage is a subsidiary of American Express that offers a broader set of cash flow management tools to millions of businesses. He was the CFO and Head of Capital Markets at Kabbage. Among other functions, Kabbage provides credit...

Mozilla has today unveiled a course for SMEs and startups in Kenya to increase their awareness and capabilities on the use and management of data collected in their day-to-day business operations.

The online course, Lean Data Practices (LDP), will be hosted on Udemy, an open-source online courses provider, and is designed for startups and SMEs who lack adequate knowledge about data privacy and security when handling personal information for customers/clients. Many of these startups...

Khazenly, the Cairo-based on-demand digital warehousing and fulfilment platform, has announced its successful seed fund raise of $2.5 million.

The funding round was co-led by leading regional venture capitalists Arzan Venture Capital - specialized in innovative, early-stage startups, and Shorooq Partners - focused on seed-stage tech funding across MENAP. Other investors included Fintech-focused fund - Camel Ventures, Averroes Ventures, and various angel investors. Proceeds will be used to...

Africa Data Centres, part of the Cassava Technologies Group, a pan-African technology group, is pleased to announce building a second data centre in Cape Town, South Africa.

The new 20MW facility will cover 15,000 square meters in eight data halls and is situated on the northern periphery of Cape Town city centre. According to Tesh Durvasula, Chief Executive Officer of Africa Data Centres, there is a clear pipeline of demand for colocation space that cannot be served from the existing Diep River data centre. “The new Cape...

AfricArena, the African series of tech events, announced a partnership with FMO Ventures Program, the Rise Open Innovation Challenge, which focuses on accelerating the growth of startups looking to improve the state of Africa and create more sustainable models for positive impact.

On June 14th, 2022, AfricArena turned the startup incubator in the world, Station F, into the stage of African tech entrepreneurship. Over 45+ African startups from seed to growth stage spent the day pitching to foreign markets and...

The MENA Fintech Association (MFTA), the leading voice of the region's fintech community, has published the second volume of its SHIFT report. The first volume, “SHIFT – MENA Payments Landscaping”, was published earlier this year and contained everything a fintech needs to know about the region’s payments sector.

In continuation to that, MFTA released the second volume titled ‘A Deep Dive into Cross-Border Payments’, a comprehensive report co-authored by M2P Solutions and Mastercard on the cross-border payment landscape in the...

Mastercard has strengthened its collaboration with major fintech operators by partnering with EziPay to enable millions of consumers across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) to make global digital commerce payments swiftly, safely and securely.

Consumers and merchants can use the Mastercard virtual payment solution, which is linked to the EziPay eWallet and provides a convenient payment gateway service, to perform global digital transactions and connect with brands and businesses around the world, wherever Mastercard is...

MTN Group announced the appointment of Riaan Wessels as Chief Risk Officer, Fintech, effective 1 July 2022. Riaan has 13 years’ experience at MTN. He first joined the company in 2004, as General Manager: Business Risk Management and returned in 2017 as Group Executive, Risk and Compliance.

“As Chief Risk Officer, Fintech, Riaan will continue to add immense value at MTN by effectively managing risk exposures to the business and ensuring robust processes and controls,” said Serigne Dioum, Group Chief Fintech Officer. Over the...

Mastercard and Ecobank Group have partnered to connect millions of smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to Mastercard’s Farm Pass – a digital platform that makes it safer and easier for farmers to sell their produce at a fair price.

Under the partnership, Ecobank will extend the reach and impact of the Mastercard Farm Pass platform leveraging its Pan-African network of 33 countries. Many smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa face several challenges. These include limited access to markets, working capital to finance...

BCG Digital Ventures (BCGDV), the corporate innovation and business-building arm of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), is opening innovation centers in New Delhi, Mumbai and Casablanca, Morocco, placing BCGDV in fast-growing ecosystems for pioneering technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and startup creation.

BCGDV will join an established BCG network presence in India and Morocco, creating the opportunity to leverage the combined efforts of BCGDV with BCG GAMMA and BCG Platinion to transform key markets and industries in each...

Silicon Valley DeFi protocol Masa Finance announced it is partnering with African financial data company Pngme to drive the adoption of DeFi credit services in the region.

The partnership will give DeFi lenders across Nigeria and Kenya with access to more than 250 off-chain financial data sources–including credit bureau data–to automate credit decisions through smart contracts while keeping data confidential. Pngme is a credit and lending API that caters to the sub-Saharan market, enabling digital banks and fintechs...

Global edtech company Snapplify has launched its Teacha! brand in East Africa, making thousands of teaching resources immediately available to teachers. Using the Teacha! resource marketplace, teachers can buy and sell their teaching resources online.

''There is a great need for Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), resources in Kenya at the moment and this is an enormous opportunity – not only for Kenya’s teachers to sell resources they’ve already created and earn extra income...

Intracom Telecom, the global telecommunication systems and solutions vendor, announced the supply and deployment of its Fixed Wireless Access ecosystem, the WiBAS Point-to-MultiPoint (PtMP) and the uniMS platform, by the operating company of one of the largest mines in the world, located in sub-Saharan Africa.

The use of high-frequency PtMP technology over the vast area of the mine is one of the many uses for this technology. Mining companies take advantage of the latest technology which ensures not only high capacity but also long range to cover...

Huawei's total number of 5G Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) has made the company maintain the patenting pole position globally, according to Clarivate, a leading global IP consultancy, and analytics firm.

Clarivate’s latest report titled, “Demystifying the 5G Standard Essential Patent landscape: Phase 3” shows that Huawei still ranked No. 1 with 6,566 additional patents. The firm has 107,000 employees in Research and Development and had invested about Kshs. 2.5 trillion (USD 22.4 billion) R&D by...

African business leaders are forecasting a surge in spending on tech start-ups as foreign direct investment and improved internet connectivity helps establish the continent as a tech superpower,  new research for blockchain-based mobile network operator World Mobile shows.

More than half (54%) of African senior executives expect spending on tech start-ups on the continent will more than double by 2025 to $10 billion or over compared with the $4.9 billion raised last year. Around one in six (16%) believe...

Unicaf is an online and blended learning higher education platform that is dedicated to making higher education of international standard accessible, by offering scholarship opportunities to professionals and young school leavers.

What are scholarship opportunities?

A scholarship could be defined as financial aid that relieves the burden of tuition fees and living costs that students and families have to pay to secure a place in secondary and tertiary education. Considering the rising costs of student expenses and debts, we could nowadays describe education...

The Africa Trade Expo (TATE) presents direct access to African buyers whose main aim is to source the latest products, establish partnerships, and conclude import/export deals. TATE is an ongoing virtual trade show for African businesses to network, collaborate, and enter into partnerships with international manufacturers and exporters. Present your new opportunities, network, build relationships and grow your business in African markets...

Future Foods is a virtual meeting place for importers, F&B managers, retail category buyers, owner-operators, agents, and distributors from across Africa’s diverse and booming market to come to conferences, to network, meet exhibitors, source products, new ingredients, retail shelf-ready products, and the latest processing, packaging, and logistics solutions. Future Foods connects attendees exhibitors across the...

An estimated 45% of young people aged 34 years in South Africa were not in employment, education or training last year according to data released by Statistics South Africa in Q4 of 2021. In 2022, predictions for the South African youth unemployment rate are projected to be as high as 64%.

Following the rising levels of unemployment among young South Africans, the UK-South Africa Tech Hub Launch League initiative undertook a research project dubbed ‘Skills and Training offered by South Africa’s Hub Network: How can...

While many governments in Africa have made welcome progress toward digital transformation in the last year, more work needs to be done towards offering transparency, digital inclusion, and the protection of digital rights to citizens across the continent.

This was the main finding of the Londa report, launched recently at the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF) 2022. Held between April and May this year, DRIF brought together over 1000 delegates and participants for 39 days to...

The world has already witnessed the remarkable force of Fintech in Africa, powered by mobile money. In 2020 the continent’s transaction volume of mobile money was US$2.75 billion with 161 million active accounts.

Combining the popularity of mobile money solutions with smartphone connectivity will drive even greater demand for financial services in Africa’s Fintech sector. For the unbanked and for people living in rural areas who do not have access to fixed infrastructure, mobile connectivity improves individual...

In 2021, phishing attacks increased by 7.3% according to the ESET Threat Report and the Cisco 2021 Cybersecurity threat trends report revealed that around 86% of organisations had at least one person click a phishing link.

This echoes the findings of recent KnowBe4 Security Awareness Research that found people keep clicking – on fake emails from HR, the business and IT.  The majority of top email categories that people fall for are those that fit in to everyday life – invoices, purchase orders, shared files, and...

Mobile communications technology has been a crucial enabler of the information age, connecting individuals, businesses and governments, and facilitating improvements in daily life for people everywhere. Connectivity is the lifeline of modern societies and access to it is a digital human right.

Digital disruption is supporting economic development and the ambitions of the nation states in which MTN operates. According to a recent GSMA report , mid-band 5G will generate a $13 billion contribution to GDP in Sub-Saharan...

Enterprise security that doesn’t properly consider the end-user is doomed to failure. With more devices in the hands of employees than ever before organisations risk exposing themselves to cyber threats if their security solutions and services don’t factor in how individuals will actually use them.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, every industry has embraced hybrid working to some degree and Covid-19 has changed the way we work forever. Every industry is embracing some form of hybrid working and mobile workers are predicted to make...

When it comes to the discourse around the way we work in the new era of hybrid working, it has never felt more balanced between the technology that enables it and the culture that defines it.

As well as investing in the latest digital experience technologies to support employees wherever they choose to work, organisations are also having to re-think the culture of a workforce that is no longer confined to an office full-time. If making a decision between permanent hybrid working and a return to the office wasn’t hard enough, employers also...

The idea of venture capital involves investing in early-stage businesses that are premised on being innovative in one form or another, for example by developing bespoke technology, or making use of existing technology in a unique way, or uncovering new markets by creating demand where there once was none.

It’s important to realise that when a business is still young, it can be difficult to evaluate. Despite the growth experienced, there remain many unknowns about the future prospects of the business. The founders of young businesses are...