Tech (561)
Uganda has a high internet penetration rate. However, internet costs are still high, making the resource less affordable for many. The current plan to half the costs aims to make it more affordable.
The Ugandan government plans to reduce internet costs to promote the use of digital financial services and increase financial inclusion for vulnerable groups.
According to ICT Minister Chris Baryomunsi, the country will reduce the price of the data it provides through the national backbone by more than 50%, from US$70 per Mbps to US$30.
“We are talking about purely government internet. Once we cut down the cost at which government is selling to service providers, then they will automatically also reduce the cost that the end user will be paying and we think this will help in our efforts to digitize our economy,” he said last Wednesday.
By reducing internet costs, the country will support ICT innovation, and the development of digital financial services, communication, and e-government, among others. Several projects are underway to complement that measure. The most important of those projects is the National Data Backbone and e-Government Infrastructure project, with an estimated cost of US$75 million. It will connect the country’s major cities to a fiber optic network and connect ministries and administrations to the e-government platform.
The projects initiated are part of Uganda's Digital Acceleration Program, which aims to fill the current infrastructure gap and accelerate Internet penetration in the country.
Samira Njoya
In Africa, most schools teach lessons in official languages. Practically no courses are taught in local languages. Yet, researches show that teaching courses in local languages can greatly improve academic performance. This partnership may be an interesting experience.
Last Wednesday, Premium content streaming platform Ckrowd and Nigeria's Center synergies in areas of education, technology, and the dissemination and advocacy of knowledge for the Advancement of Education "School on Air (SOA)" signed a memorandum of understanding to offer digital STEM courses in local Nigerian languages, including Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, but also in French.
For Kayode Adebayo (photo, right), CEO of Ckrowd, the MoU is a starting point to "generate synergies in education, technology, dissemination, and advocacy.”
The initiative comes after research results showed that many Yoruba youth increased their knowledge retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects by 65% when studying in their native language. The same is true for Hausa students whose knowledge retention increased by 250% after learning STEM in their native language.
The goal of this agreement is therefore to close the education gap on the African continent and provide opportunities that will help students gain the technical skills, professional knowledge, and attitude needed to excel and function globally with a comprehensive curriculum that will benefit the next generation.
According to stakeholders, the initiative will reach more than 40 million young Africans, particularly in West Africa. It will enable students from different backgrounds to access education, and learning opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Doing so will contribute to sustainable development goal number four which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
Kayode Adebayo explains that the MoU is just the beginning of numerous projects to improve the living conditions of “the next generations of young Africans.”
To fulfill that goal, Ckrowd intends to partner with various parties “to deliver true value to young Diasporans and Africans on the Continent” as well as create “unique and ad-hoc local solutions and innovation to advance African nations and harness the new dynamic of the digital age, content creation, technology, and education.”
Samira Njoya
In Africa, biometrics adoption is rising steadily. A growing number of countries are getting interested in biometric technologies because of their effectiveness to combat fraud.
The Togolese National Social Security Fund (CNSS) recently launched Biosecu, a facial recognition web application to attest that its beneficiaries (pensioners and annuitants) are well alive at specified dates.
With Biosecu, the CNSS wants to allow its beneficiaries to perform those mandatory checks remotely. That way, they will no longer be obliged to reach out to dedicated CNSS agencies.
"Facial recognition allows us to confirm that your face perfectly matches the biometric information held by CNSS Togo," explains the social security institution.
In recent years, the country has introduced several reforms including the payment of social benefits in the beneficiaries’ bank accounts. There was also a reform to check whether the beneficiaries (both within and outside the national territory) were alive as of a set date. This operation carried out bi-annually was aimed at preventing fraud.
According to a statement by CNSS director general Ingrid Awadé, the operation, which was previously suspended, in compliance with Covid-19 barrier measures, has resumed and will run from August 16 to December 31, 2022, for pensions and annuities to be paid during the first half of 2022.
"As of January 1, 2023, payment will be suspended for beneficiaries who have not performed the check, per the social security code,” she stressed.
In Togo, the CNSS is the pioneer of digitalization. It was the first to launch dematerialization with online form-filling and payment. With its facial recognition platform, it is innovating once again by leveraging technology to allow its beneficiaries to easily carry out its mandatory processes but at the same time combatting fraud.
Fiacre E. Kakpo
The funds will help build customer loyalty and boost retention. It will also help launch regional expansion.
Nigerian B2B platform Omnibiz announced, Friday (August 19), it completed its pre-series A round, raising US$15 million. The platform will use those funds to accelerate its growth, win customer loyalty and retention for more revenue.
The round, led by Timon Capital, had Ventures Platform, LoftyInc Capital Management, Chapel Hill Denham, Chandaria Capital, and Musha Ventures as participating investors. It consisted of US$5 million as equity participation and US$10 million as debt investment.
“We believe the smart informal retailer – not shopping malls - is the future of modern retail in Africa. By providing the capital, tools and logistics, we will enable retailers to offer great merchandising at an affordable price point to win their customers’ trust. This funding will allow us to quadruple the profitability of our retailers, build a scalable and profitable business, and take us one step closer to transforming African retail,” said Omnibiz co-founder and CEO, Deepankar Rustagi.
According to Techcrunch, Omnibiz will use the funding to double down on winning the loyalty of its retail customers and drive client retention.
Meanwhile, Disrupt Africa explains that by “employing its holistic strategy to become the primary B2B operating system for retailers – helping with last mile delivery, procurement, working capital, inventory management and operational tools for tracking sales, cost, prices and profit – Omnibiz projects a 4x revenue increase for its retailers.”
The company will begin its regional expansion this month, we learn.
Omnibiz was founded in June 2019. It allows retailers to place orders and have those orders delivered to their doorsteps free of charge. Retailers can place their orders via the company’s mobile apps, by chatting on Whatsapp or by calling a dedicated support number.
To date, the e-commerce platform connects retailers in Nigeria and Ghana to more than 200 brands while the goods are delivered by its network of over 70 logistics partners. More than 3,000 retailers use its platform daily, Omnibiz claims. With the information provided by the platform, retaillers can view inventory in real-time and avoid buying products that may prove difficult to resell.
For Nikos Katsaounis, Timpon Capital Partner, the Fast-moving consumer goods “ supply chain is fragmented, inefficient, and opaque. Omnibiz tackles all of these problems and addresses them with an efficient software layer that provides much-needed data on this otherwise obscure market and supply chain.”
Samira Njoya
Despite the ongoing crises and long-standing structural issues, the African startup ecosystem is still thriving. However, it is not yet up to par with the ecosystems in other continents, Europe, and North America namely. The initiative is aimed at helping reach its full potential.
UNDP Africa launched, Wednesday (August 17), timXLAGOS, the Nigerian chapter of Timbuktoo, an initiative aimed at investing US$1 billion of private and public funds to “spur the startup revolution across Africa.”
According to a UNDP release, the aim of Timbuktoo is to “get a lot of private and public sector partners to help set up eight Timbuktoo Hubs in places that are known to have strong startup ecosystems, such as Accra, Nairobi, Cape Town, Lagos, Dakar, Kigali, Casablanca, and Cairo.”
Timbuktoo was initiated in 2021, to contribute to UNDP Africa’s mission to transform the continent by leveraging its population, “especially its ambitious and dynamic youth.” Through the US$1 billion initiative, UNDP plans to help some 1,000 African startups grow significantly over the coming decade.
“The Timbuktoo approach will be based on finding, nurturing, and building African solutions put forward by Africa's youth that directly address one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” UNDP Africa indicates.
To achieve that goal, the initiative will facilitate the construction of eight private-sector-driven Timbuktoo hubs across Africa. Each of them will focus on a key area -fintech, agritech, Healthtech, Greentech, Creatives, Tradetech and Logistics, Smart Cities and Mobility, or Tourismtech- and host a venture builder and a venture fund.
According to the UNDP release, “Timbuktoo has made significant progress since its inception.” It launched the development of University Innovation Pods (UniPods) in ten “lower-income countries” namely Benin, Chad, Guinea Conakry, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo, and Uganda. The universities will encourage innovation and design thinking. That way, they will prompt the development of strong startup ecosystems in those countries, making them worthy to host Timbuktoo hubs. They are expected to become operational by end-2022, we learn.
For Eleni Gabre-Madhin, UNDP Africa Chief Innovation Officer, “Timbuktoo is a big, innovative, and unique initiative to overcome the present vacuum in early-stage risk capital, to better integrate African innovation stakeholders from universities to corporates to investors, and to enable startups to embrace the African market opportunity.”
Samira Njoya
Over the past five years, the number of start-ups founded and run by women has increased significantly in Africa. But, many problems still hinder the growth of those businesses. Various initiatives are being created by development partners to deal with those problems.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and Venture Building's Betacube program launched an incubation program, Tech African Women (TAW), yesterday (July 28). The program is focused on women-led technology start-ups still in the idea stage. Its first edition will target Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania, and Tunisia.
TAW aims to empower female tech innovators, leverage their skills to build strong tech companies from scratch, accelerate the transformation of their project ideas into validated business models, and develop alliances between different African ecosystems.
Applications are open until August 10, 2022, for Tunisia, and August 17, 2022, for Ethiopia, Senegal, and Tanzania at the official address www.techafricanwomen.com. To participate in TAW, applicants must be aged between 18 and 35 and be fluent in English or French.
Tech entrepreneurs selected for the program will take part in a 3-day intensive training and pitch competition organized in partnership with actors from each of their various local tech ecosystems. The winning team from each camp will receive a US$2,000 cash prize.
The top 2 startups from each country will then take part in a 2-month online incubation program to be prepared to enter the market and attract investments.
Later, in December, the top eight startups will take part in a pitching competition to select the best startup, which will win a cash grant of US$7,000.
The deal comes a few days after Benin officially introduced biometric ID cards, canceling the issuance of old cards.
Trade facilitation solution provider Webb Fontaine announced Monday (July 25), a deal with Beninese authorities to implement its Customs Webb solution. The new artificial intelligence-based solution will replace ASYCUDA World, the old IT system used by Benin customs.
The deal is the result of a partnership binding Benin and Webb Fontaine since 2018. According to Alain Hinkati, Director General of Benin Customs, “Customs Webb, Webb Fontaine’s Customs system, based on artificial intelligence, was chosen by Benin to continue the modernization of customs and optimize the trade environment.”
“Webb Fontaine’s ability to provide cutting-edge technology and digital solutions is a guarantee of success. With this new system, the objective of the public authorities to make Benin an exemplary platform in the simplification and transparency of Customs clearance procedures has taken a major step forward,” he added.
The deal to implement Customs Webb follows a decision issued by the Ministerial council on July 6, 2022. It is in line with the government’s ambition to make Benin a model country whose customs clearance procedure is clear and simple.
Customs Webb's main objective will be to interconnect all the main commercial platforms such as the single window, the community port system, and the electronic goods tracking solution.
In January 2018, Webb Fontaine launched the Single Window for Foreign Trade (GUCE), a platform through which pre-clearance and trade inspection documents can be requested.
With Customs Webb, Benin is taking another step toward the digital transformation of its public and private sector. A few days ago, the country officially introduced biometric identity cards, canceling the issuance of the old non-biometric card.
Samira Njoya
In Africa, the digital ticketing system is nascent. However, Morrocan startup Guichet wants to develop it further and conquer the whole of Africa.
Moroccan digital ticketing platform "Guichet" announced, Friday (July 22), the official launch of its Senegalese subsidiary. The new subsidiary, based in Dakar, is the result of a strategic partnership with a Senegalese operator.
For Guichet founder and CEO Ahmed Tawfik Moulnakhla, Senegal is a strategic market. "Morocco and Senegal are sister countries, whose exemplary relations embody an ambitious and inspiring model of South-South cooperation. By setting up [its subsidiary] in Dakar, Guichet wants to contribute to the exceptional dynamism of Senegal’s culture and entertainment industries by providing the public with smart ticketing solutions developed in Morocco,” he said.
Guichet, which has been operating in the Moroccan market for three years now, just passed the mark of one million tickets sold online. This is an unprecedented performance in the Moroccan entertainment industry. The ticketing platform wants to replicate this performance in the Senegalese market, which is its first step out of its native country, Morocco.
The Senegalese subsidiary is a test for Ahmed Tawfik Moulnakhla who wants to conquer the whole of Africa in the coming years.
Despite a difficult start, over the years, Guichet has managed to gain the trust of the Moroccan public by offering them the possibility to buy tickets online. The platform, which has Android and iOS apps, offers the possibility to buy tickets for concerts, sporting events, festivals, etc. In Morocco, it has organized more than 2,000 events.
Samira Njoya
Morocco embarked on a digital transformation journey years ago. Thanks to the various partnerships and agreements it has already signed, the country expects to digitize all of its public services by 2025.
In Morocco, the Ministry of Justice is moving to accelerate its digital transformation. Indeed, on Friday, July 22, in Rabat, Justice Minister Abdellatif Ouahbi signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, represented by Digital Minister Ghita Mezzour.
In the framework of that memorandum, the Ministry of Digital Transformation will offer technical assistance for the implementation of the Ministry of Justice’s digital projects. The two ministries will also share experience and collaborate on human resource development. Notably, the memorandum will oversee the interconnection of the Ministry of Justice’s digital platforms and allow the Ministry of Justice to use digital participatory platforms.
According to Abdellatif Ouahbi, the digital transformation of the Ministry of Justice is a strategic move aimed at rendering its services more accessible to users. “In the coming months, the Ministry will redesign its websites and digitize its justice services,” he said. He explained that with digitalization, the justice system will be accelerated since data can now be securely exchanged in real-time between departments.
The acceleration of the Ministry of Justice’s digital transformation is in line with the country’s digital transformation strategy (Maroc Digital 2020 and 2025) launched in 2016. The national digital transformation strategy aims to reduce the divide. Its ambition is to digitize at least 50% of administrative procedures and connect at least 20% of Moroccan SMEs to the internet by 2025.
As Minister Ghita Mezzour explains, in its new development model, Morrocco considers the digitization of public services a tool to improve economic, social, and territorial integration.
Samira Njoya
Over the past four years, Africa's startup industry has attracted significant investors. The number of innovations developed is growing with beneficial impacts on the lives of millions of people. Several tech solutions developed by African startups have gained international recognition.
African startups have developed a fantastic ecosystem, according to Arun Venkataraman, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets. Speaking during an exclusive interview, with Ecofin Agency, before the next US-Africa Leaders Summit, the official revealed his country’s admiration of the digital ecosystems developed by African countries.
“The fantastic ecosystems developed by startups in countries like Nigeria and Kenya as well as the innovations that have come out of them” meet the expectations of the creative and forward-looking African youth, who are the core of the demographic dividend, he said.
"If this dynamic is carefully backed by the right policies, it can lead to great success and greater innovation that will benefit every one of us," he emphasized
Arun Venkataraman estimates that digital technology is one of the sectors where Africa and Africans can contribute a lot to their trade relationship with the U.S. "The U.S is looking forward to the innovations and new ideas contributed by Africans. We see Africa not only as a consumption market for U.S. goods and services but also as a key provider of the goods and services the United States needs,” he told Ecofin Agency.
Over the past four years, Africa's start-up industry has indeed undergone a profound transformation. The number of innovative companies created on the continent has increased. The volume of investments they attracted has gone up as well, following a sharp uptrend. According to Partech, African startups attracted US$1.16 billion in 2018. By 2021, that volume rose to US$5.2 billion. Investors committing funds to those innovative companies include American companies such as Bezos Expeditions, Visa, PayPal, Sequoia Capital, and LeapFrog.
For Arun Venkataraman, given the dynamism of its startup ecosystem, “Africa is much more than a commodity market. Even though we have to help it develop strong value-added sectors, we admire the successful ventures noticed because they add value to the U.S., but also the global market as a whole.”
Muriel Edjo
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Over the past five years, there has been a steep rise in the volume of investments secured by African startups. All through those years, Nigeria has almost always been the country attracting the most startup investment. Authorities now want to enhance those startups’ capabilities with a dedicated legal framework.
The Nigerian Senate passed Wednesday (July 20), a startup bill first drafted in June 2021. With its bill passing the Senate review, the national startup ecosystem is getting closer to its goal of ensuring “that Nigeria's laws and regulations are clear, planned, and work for the tech ecosystem.” The two steps remaining are validation by the House of Representatives and the signature of the President of the Republic.
The main objectives of the bill are "to provide a legal and institutional framework for the development of startups in Nigeria and to provide an enabling environment for the establishment, development, and operation of startups in Nigeria; Foster the development and growth of technology-related talent and position Nigeria's startup ecosystem as the leading digital technology hub in Africa, having excellent innovators with cutting edge skills and exportable capacity.”
Currently, Nigerian start-ups attract the most investment in Africa. They are thriving thanks to a long battle fought by the private sector. Nowadays, analysts point to their contribution to economic growth in the current digital age, and public authorities are determined to provide a better framework for their development.
In its nascent start-up bill, Nigeria has provided several facilities that will help accelerate the maturation of startups. The facilities include a label entitling to tax incentives, financial facilities through a dedicated seed fund, and customs facilities as well as training.
Once the bill is passed, Nigeria will join the list of the few African states that have adopted specific startup regulations. These include Senegal, Tunisia, and Mali.
Muriel Edjo
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation in most African countries. Nowadays, investments that were previously concentrated in urban areas are increasingly channeled to the development of rural areas, which house most of the population.
Nigerien Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Hassane Baraze Moussa, presided over the launch of the first edition of the Smart Village Innovation Forum (FIVI) last Monday. The forum, which will be concluded tomorrow (July 22), serves as a framework for reflection on rural areas’ digital transformation. Its theme is “Tec4Dev through Carpooling for Development.”
According to Minister Hassane Baraze, the end goal of the reflections will be to help materialize the government’s commitment “to connecting the rural areas by supporting state institutions and agencies.” It will also help “achieve the state agencies and institutions’ strategies, and end the digital isolation of Niger’s administrative villages.” The reflection is also expected to help “promote the use of e-services in urban and rural areas to notably improve financial inclusion, as well as create an ecosystem that is conducive to the development of local digital content and facilitates support to local startups.”
The plan currently set in motion for the digital transformation of rural areas in Niger is in line with the government’s commitments in its Renaissance Program Act III. The program notably provides for the modernization of rural areas by developing production and human capital as well as improving financial inclusion. By leveraging information and communication technologies, the country can quickly reach those goals.
In 2021, the country’s internet penetration rate was around 30% with low public services digitization scores. According to UN data, in 2020, it was among the countries with the lowest e-governance index, ranking 188th out of 193 countries. Developing broadband connectivity that supports digital services and information is one of the key requirements for the government of Niger to realize its "smart villages" ambition.
Niger "has a predominantly young population living in rural areas. [..] Our youth are our main asset. By training them and allowing them access to information, we will create better conditions to achieve our development objectives,” said Hassane Baraze Moussa.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Despite the ongoing digital revolution, Africa’s higher education still faces a certain number of challenges. They include access to documentation. However, multifunctional centers are being built to overcome the challenges.
The World Health Organization (WHO) inaugurated, Friday (July 15), a digital information center in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. The infrastructure was inaugurated by Health Minister Gilbert Mokoki during a ceremony attended by Dr. Lucien Alexis Manga, the WHO resident representative in Congo.
The center is aimed at facilitating access to the documentary resources published by the WHO on its information platforms.
"The digital information center will facilitate exchanges between health professionals. It has several rooms, some of which are reserved for WHO teams and their partners. It also has a twenty-workstation multipurpose room that can facilitate online training,” said Dr. Lucien Alexis Manga.
The newly inaugurated infrastructure will promote research and higher education in Congo. It will also serve as a digital library with a collection of audio and video documents that can be accessed remotely. "We formerly had huge libraries that were difficult to peruse. With the [digital information center] initiative, everything is summarized and can be read easily and fast. The initiative must be shared at will so that [the center] can inspire others,” commented Gilbert Mokoki.
The center, equipped with broadband internet, adds to ARCAI, an artificial intelligence research center funded by the UNECA and its partners. The research center was inaugurated in Brazzaville last February.
Samira Njoya
There is a growing number of coding and digital training programs in Africa. The said programs aim to equip the youth with ICT skills that render them competitive in the digital economy.
Last Friday, July 15, on the sidelines of the World Youth Skills Day, the African Development Bank (AfDB) announced the selection of 500 Coding for Employment digital ambassadors “who will lead a peer-to-peer training model.”
The selected digital ambassadors will undergo three months of training in digital skills such as software development, problem-solving, project management, and communication. At the end of the training, they will receive ICT toolkits to “offer the same training” in their local communities to allow access to digital skills for more Africans, in rural communities with limited internet connectivity notably.
For this first edition of the digital ambassador program, AfDB (through its Coding for Employment) and its technical partner Microsoft, received 21,000 applications from all over Africa. In the end, 500 young people from four countries where the AfDB's Coding for Employment program is operational were selected. Those countries are notably Côte d'Ivoire (75 selected), Kenya (100), Nigeria (150), and Senegal (175).
“We are delighted by the enthusiasm and the passion the candidates have shown for the program. We have sifted through all the applications to identify candidates whose backgrounds and qualifications closely match the selection criteria. The 500 candidates will not only acquire skills that can help them find work but will also be able to create their jobs while also training others," said Hendrina Doroba, the AfDB’s Head of Education and Skills Development.
Coding for Employment, launched in 2018, is one of AfDB’s programs to achieve the goals of its Jobs for Youth in Africa (JfYA) Strategy. It aims to enable the youth “to bring about economic and social transformation in the digital age.”
With the JfYA strategy, the AfDB wants to create 25 million jobs in key sectors and increase the employability and entrepreneurial success of some 50 million young people by training them in hard and soft skills.
Samira Njoya