Africa By Region
Paxful Records Over 6 Million Users
Paxful now has more than six million users across its peer-to-peer payments platform. The fintech allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, make payments and send money. “Our mission at Paxful is to give everyone equal access to finance, no matter who they are or where they are, so they can control their own money and build the future they want with financial freedom,” says Ray Youssef, CEO of Paxful. “The financial system is failing 99% of the world’s population; it’s disconnected and out of date. This means there’s no way out of income inequality for a lot of people in the world. With crypto-currencies, we see an alternative way to create a financial system based on equality. Hitting the $5 billion volume mark shows us we are making a difference and we’re just getting started.” Paxf...
Africa Tech Week Day 2: Africa is a Magnet for Investors
The second day of Africa Tech Week was bursting with tech trends and practical insights from speakers and acclaimed sponsors Vaxowave, Liquid Intelligent Solutions, Visa, PPC and Gijima, the overarching emotion is one of gratitude and the outlook optimistic. The main focus was strategies for living in a digital world – a reality that has abruptly arrived on the globe’s doorstep. 54 Million Jobs to be Created As Zahra Baitie from the Jack Ma Foundation reiterated, Africa is a recently connected continent, a new market and magnet for those seeking to make their mark on the world stage. Over the course of the two-day summit, Africa Tech Week certainly made a mark on the world stage! It is predicted that Africa will create 54 million jobs by 2022, largely generated by small and medium enterpri...
MÉTISS Undersea Cable Connects South Africa to Mauritius
MÉTISS is a 3,200 km subsea fibre optic cable system that connects South Africa to the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar, Reunion and Mauritius – it lands in Amanzimtoti and is backhauled by Liquid Telecoms to Teraco’s data centre in Durban. With MÉTISS consortium members having the infrastructure in both the Teraco Durban (DB1) and Johannesburg (JB1)data centre facilities, the Indian Ocean Islands have direct access to Teraco’s ecosystem of over 300 networks, 130 IT service providers, 50 global content providers, and the key global cloud providers says Michele McCann, Head of Interconnection and Peering at Teraco. The availability of a new cable servicing the Indian Ocean Islands region widens the addressable market for content and cloud providers in South Africa. It adds new r...
Africa Tech Week Day 1: Unlocking Africa’s Tech Potential
Africa Tech Week has officially kicked off. The two-day virtual summit hosted a galaxy of out-of-this-world speakers, including the panel discussion by Marian Croak, VP of engineering at Google and Lindiwe Matali founder and CEO of Africa Teen Geeks. Marian and Lindiwe delved into how important it is for individuals, especially young girls, and women to have mentors. Starting with Inequality Marian motivationally advised that one should “find a sense of strength within one’s self and reiterated that if you are not failing you are not learning. Yemi Keri, CEO of Heckerbella and co-founder of Rising Tide Africa, was quoted saying that, “the more female investors we get on the continent the more we will reduce the funding gap for female entrepreneurs.” Yemi also spoke on the reasons inv...
MTN Group Reports Service Revenue Growth in 2021
Sourced from TheTechieGuy (https://thetechieguy.com/) MTN Group has reported strong operational and financial performance for the first quarter of 2021. “The MTN Group has delivered a solid Q1 2021 trading performance, with service revenue and EBITDA margins expanding on the back of continued commercial momentum and resilient networks,” says MTN Group President and CEO, Ralph Mupita. He adds that the Group’s Ambition 2025 strategy had gained execution traction during challenging COVID-19 macroeconomic conditions in the quarter. In constant currency terms, service revenue grew by 17.8% to R42.3 billion at end-March 2021, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 21.3% and the EBITDA margin widened to 44.2% from 42.7%. “The overall Group results were suppo...
Airtel Africa Names New Group CEO
Image sourced from Khusoko – East African Markets Airtel Africa has appointed Segun Ogunsanya as the group’s new CEO – effective from 1 October 2021. He is taking over from Raghu Mandava who led the telco for the last five years. “We are delighted to appoint Segun Ogunsanya as the Group’s next Chief Executive Officer. He has displayed significant drive and energy in turning around the Nigeria business by focusing on network modernisation, distribution, and operational efficiency. It is this commitment, together with his industry experience, strategic vision, constant customer focus and proven record of delivery that will enable him to continue to deliver our strategic objectives and to lead the Group in the next stages of its development,” says Airtel Chairman, Sunil Bharti Mittal. He goes...
Is ICT the Solution to Unemployment in Africa?
Sourced from IDG Connect The socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is especially hard-hitting for younger generations in Africa. The youth are faced with multiple challenges including disruptions to education, training and on-the-job learning. They are further impacted by employment and income losses due to layoffs and reduced working hours. Despite massive obstacles, the employment crisis should be an opportunity for immense transformation. The pandemic has shown that digital technology is now vital for every economy, greatly increasing the potential for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to solve growing problems of unemployment and skills development across the continent. However, the success of countries’ responses to this crisis, the sustainability of the recove...
Here’s How Many Mobile Users in Kenya and Nigeria are Affected by Stalkerware
Stalkerware affects one out of every 100 mobile users in Kenya and Nigeria, according to Kaspersky Research. The same report reveals that similar malware impacts every four out of 100 South Africans. “Even though these numbers might seem low, especially when it comes to stalkerware, it bears mentioning that this form of attack is focused on specific individuals,” says Lehan van den Heever, Enterprise Cyber Security Advisor for Kaspersky in Africa. “So, unlike general malware that is distributed on a massive scale, stalkerware is a more personal crime that has life and death consequences for the individual affected, for example, a perpetrator can track down their estranged partner with ill intentions, or human trafficking rings targeting children.” Amongst other things, stalkerware can enab...
Absa Group Appoints New Chief Risk Officer
Absa has appointed Deon Raju as the new Group Chief Risk Officer – effective 1 June 2021. Raju is currently Absa Group Treasurer, primarily responsible for the liquidity risk, funding, capital, and non-traded market risks of the Group. He has been with Absa for more than 20 years, having held roles including in Enterprise Risk, Finance, Investment Banking, Credit Portfolio Management and Global Markets. He is a seasoned banking professional with deep institutional knowledge of the Group, as well extensive and diversified banking experience in business, finance and risk management. Raju is a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst. He holds a BCom (Honours) from the University of Natal and is currently completing an MSc in Finance at the University of Michigan (Dearborn). “De...
Top Tech African Entities Collaborate to Boost Digital Transformation for 2021 and Beyond
“To inspire people, don’t show them your superpowers. Show them theirs -” Alexander den Heijer. Africa Tech Week advocates are setting out to do just that. The event is the golden opportunity to showcase what’s hot in tech on the African continent – a platform to demonstrate to the rest of the world Africa’s superpowers. Welcome to the ‘new frontier,’ Africa Tech Week, created in Africa, for Africans, by Africans. The event is taking place on the 5th and 6th of May, and we are expecting an excess of 3000 attendees. Everyone is aware that Africa has faced challenges, and it is together that we can solve them. Africa is a hotbed of potential in terms of measuring and testing concepts and ideas. What we lack in capital, we make up for in passion, resilience and a ‘can do’ attitude. Afri...
New ‘for Africans by Africans’ Social Media Platform to Launch in Kenya
MyCountry MyWorld is set to launch a new ‘for Africans by Africans’ social media platform – called MY! – in May 2021. “Having developed the app over a period of two years, with a series of tests; we are now confident that the app is ready to be released to the world”, Samuel Zean Jr, Co-founder of MY!. MY! is expected to work as a platform where users – especially from developing economies – can tell their stories. Zean Jr adds the “majority of Africans complain of how African nations are portrayed by the western countries on both traditional media and digital media. The MY! app is developed by Africans for Africans to help change this narrative. Whereby, everyone is given a chance to tell their story their way.” /* custom css */ .tdi_3_59c.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_59c.td-a-...
Should African Governments Digitise to be Innovative, Inclusive and Resilient?
Sourced from Redbubble and iStock. It’s been said before, but it bears repeating – the COVID-19 pandemic offers Africa the chance to leapfrog development through digitisation, and potentially position itself as a global digital powerhouse. And while the private sector has an important role to play in this development, governments across Africa have a critical role to play in enabling digitisation, through infrastructure development, but also in digitising their own systems and processes and by creating an enabling environment using regulatory and legal tools. Developments such as the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) reinforce the urgent need for governments to digitise to enable not just trade, but positive economic growth across the continent. In its report Reopening and ...
