Browsing: accelerating digital transformation

The hospitality industry is changing fast. When considering the future hotel experience, you are no longer just looking at a travel destination or a sleepover spot. Hotels of the future must offer more. An ‘augmented hospitality experience’ is what experts are calling it. Thus, stakeholders in Africa’s hospitality industry must explore ways to adapt.…

• Visa committed to investing US$1 billion in Africa over the next five years
• Visa will facilitate more accessible access to digital payments as a stepping stone to extending formal financial services for consumers and businesses
• The funds will also go toward upskilling, talent development, and capacity building, as well as boosting the digitization of economies and enhancing the payment ecosystem via innovations and technology

Visa has committed to investing US$1 billion in Africa over the next five years to support robust, creative, and inclusive economies during the U.S.-Africa Business Forum.

Visa will also facilitate more accessible access to digital payments as a stepping stone to extending formal financial services for consumers and businesses.

Alfred F. Kelly, Jr., chairman and CEO of Visa, presented the pledge at the US-Africa Business Forum in conjunction with the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC. The commitment will help Visa expand operations in …

• A report by the African Development Bank notes that today, at least a quarter of the continent’s population has internet access, a nearly fifty-fold increase in internet usage since the turn of the millennium.
• Mobile technologies alone have already generated 1.7 million jobs and contributed US$144 billion to the continent’s economy, or roughly 8.5 percent of GDP
• Accelerating digitalization, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, robotics, and 3D printing – have obvious and important implications for education, employment, and the future of work

Leaders on the African continent must work harder to harness emerging technology to boost government performance, transparency, and inclusivity as the continent recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic.

They also need to ensure that the growing technological advancements across the continent are not used as a tool of repression, division, and conflict.

According to a study by the World Health Organization, 13 percent of all new or modified …