Browsing: technology

• Beyond physical infrastructure, Africa’s integration requires modern software upgrades: the systems, policies, and institutional frameworks that power trade across borders.
• By positioning economic transformation at the heart of our integration agenda, Africa can advance up the value chain to generate wealth.
• By effectively mobilizing our own resources first, driving economic transformation, and building both the required software and hardware, we can successfully integrate Africa.

Ask any traveler about their experience moving across parts of Africa, and you will likely hear about familiar challenges: high costs, indirect routes, and unpredictable schedules that can make even the simplest journeys more complicated and costly. These travel hurdles highlight the immense opportunity to further strengthen Africa’s integration and unlock seamless connectivity across the continent.

The potential is undeniable. According to the World Bank, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) stands to be the world’s largest free trade zone, encompassing 1.4 billion people and …

• Mukuru Wallet is set to allow millions of users in Zimbabwe to send and receive money locally and internationally via mobile phones.
• The service provides convenience and cost savings, such as paying for utilities, buying airtime, DStv bills and insurance.
• Launch of Mukuru Wallet comes after the company received a Deposit-Taking Microfinance Institution licence from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

Financial services platform Mukuru has launched a mobile wallet in Zimbabwe just weeks after the company received a Deposit-Taking Microfinance Institution (DTMFI) licence from the country’s central bank.

With more than three-million customers in Zimbabwe, Mukuru wallet is poised to offer several services, including its standout features: two pockets that allow users to send and receive money locally and internationally from mobile phones, safe storage of funds as well as a free cashout on international transfers.

“To avoid disappointing people who travel long distances to receive their remittances which they …

• Africa’s exploding population presents huge growth opportunities; A world-class digital payments ecosystem will be fundamental to that.
• There are opportunities for anyone who can simplify, rationalise and standardise payments for the continent’s dynamic financial economy.
• Any platform entering this space must recognise that there isn’t one answer; there are many.

Africa is an exciting, vibrant, and creative place to do business. But make no mistake, it has its challenges. Currency devaluation, political instability, and service disruptions are endemic. Africa is not for sissies, as the saying goes.

In navigating those challenges, relationships matter. It’s not so much about throwing money at a problem, it’s about investing time, building trust, meeting with partners and regulators, and understanding each other’s needs.

Africa offers an enormous upside for those prepared to make this time investment. The continent’s population is set to reach 2.5 billion by 2050, and Africa’s people are embracing digital technology, …

• Kenya’s education sector is set to receive nearly $32 million of investment from the United States to support new partnerships between the two countries.
• part of the investment, $850,000, will go towards supporting the Ed-tech Africa initiative
• The funding includes a new $24.5 million early-grade literacy program.
• USAID Counselor Clinton White signed the deal alongside Kenyan Prime Cabinet Secretary Wycliffe Mudavadi.

STEM education is a teaching approach that integrates Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics related fields. Kenya’s education sector is set to receive nearly $32 million of investment from the United States to support new partnerships between the two countries. This is to drive innovation, research, and job growth in the country’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) related fields.

The funding announcement was made during the strategic partnership signing event in Atlanta, USA, during President William Ruto’s four-day US visit.

The US expects the deal signed on Tuesday to …

• TLcom Capital has raised $154 million  in its second Fund, TIDE Africa II
• With this second fund, TLcom Capital maintains its early-stage, multi-sector focus and expands its mandate beyond Sub-Saharan Africa to Egypt.
• TLcom Capital currently has over $300 million under management.

TLcom Capital, the Africa-focused venture capital firm, announced the final close of TIDE Africa Fund II, its second fund for technology in Africa, at $154 million. Confirming TLcom Capital’s status as Africa’s largest Seed and Series A investor, the new fund accelerates the firm’s mission to partner with elite founders to tackle Africa’s biggest and most complex challenges with innovative solutions that will unlock massive value in the continent’s critical sectors.

At more than twice the size of TLcom Capital’s first fund, TIDE Africa Fund II is oversubscribed and sees participation from several new, high-profile LPs alongside returning LPs from the firm’s first Africa-focused fund, TIDE Africa Fund …

• The strategic manoeuvrings of the United States in the DRC’s cobalt mines serve as an international yardstick for how well it can balance economic aspirations with ethical imperatives.
• The DRC has become embroiled in a complicated geopolitical chess game, and it is no longer merely a national asset but a worldwide commodity.
• The strategic importance of cobalt from the Congo to the United States exemplifies the necessity for a multifaceted solution that upholds human dignity in the workplace, safeguards natural resources, and encourages economic resilience.

Conspicuously rising to critical importance on a global scale, cobalt has been overshadowed by the world’s precious metals. Although it is sometimes overlooked in resource talks in favour of its more glamorous cousins, gold and oil, this silvery-blue element—a byproduct of copper and nickel mining—is an essential component of modern technology.

Nevertheless, it is a mineral of the future because it powers electronic devices such …

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers new job opportunities for tech-savvy African graduates.
• African policymakers must, however, protect current employees from job losses in the new AI era.
• Gen AI has the potential to offer solutions for Africa’s medical, nutrition, and financial difficulties.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the new frontier, offering numerous possibilities for efficient productivity. However, what does it mean for Africa’s job sector?

AI means new job opportunities for tech experts. Yet, it also means lost jobs for less tech-savvy staff. For example, Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) can generate text, images, or other media using generative models. This implies that graphic designers, copywriters, artists, personal assistants, and others are no longer needed.

“Gen AI is being embedded in everyday tools like email, word processing applications, and meeting software, which means the technology is already positioned to radically transform how people work,” writes Sandra Durth, a researcher with consulting firm, …

According to John Howkins, the orange economy incorporates industries whose goods and services arise from intellectual property. These include research and development, radio and TV, visual and performing arts, publishing, advertising, music, software, gaming, design, film, crafts, architecture, fashion, and design. Artists, cultural non-profits, and creative businesses can produce and disseminate goods and services that generate jobs, revenue, and quality of life.…

According to Investopedia, a gig economy is a labour market mainly reliant on temporary and part-time work filled by independent contractors and freelancers rather than full-time permanent employees. A gig economy produces cheaper, more efficient services for those willing to use them.

A gig is a broad category that includes a wide range of positions. Work can range from cab driving or restaurant delivery to writing code or freelance essays. Instead of tenure-track or tenured professors, adjunct and part-time professors are contracted employees. By recruiting more adjunct and part-time teachers, colleges and universities can save costs while also better-matching instructors to academic needs.…

In a recent announcement during the US-Africa Business Roundtable in the United States, Kenya’s President William Ruto revealed that Safaricom, a leading telecommunications company, is establishing a strategic partnership with Apple Inc. The Safaricom-Apple partnership will integrate the widely-used mobile money platform, M-Pesa, with Apple’s ecosystem. This integration will expand M-Pesa’s mobile financial services globally.
President William Ruto announced the deal after he toured Silicon Valley in San Francisco Bay, United States, on 16 September. The Kenyan leader is fast gaining popularity across Africa and globally. He has led from the front in marketing Kenya as a conducive ground for foreign business to thrive.…