News (1573)
The connected object industry has expanded quickly over the past ten years. Thanks to the new usages allowed by the 5G, it will grow further, becoming an important source of employment in Africa, where there is still a lack of skilled labor in advanced technology sectors.
Four partners will launch a 3-year online Internet of Things (IoT) training program next September. The four partners are notably the virtual universities of Mali, Senegal, and Tunisia and the Franch National Institute of Applied Science (INSA), through its virtual academy OpenINSA.
According to a release, dated June 23, announcing the training program, it will include courses on the security and architecture of connected objects, the architectural maintainability and reliability of a connected object, the development of digital apps to interact with connected objects, and the basics of data science.
"The resources developed in the framework of this partnership are placed under a Creative Commons license. They are accessible to project partners’ teacher-researchers in the research section,” indicated Jean-Yves Plantec, the director of OpenINSA. For the director, the main strength of the education project announced is its ability to federate a strong community for its implementation.
The four partners started developing the project in 2019, in the framework of the Support for the development of French Higher Education in Africa (ADESFA). The project entered a new phase between 2020 and May 2022 when the partners focused on the development of an online program accessible primarily to second-year undergraduate students, but also to employees and those seeking professional retraining. At the end of the 3-year training, the learners will constitute a high-quality labor force for innovative sectors.
The connected object industry has expanded quickly over the past ten years. Connected wristbands, watches, speakers, and similar tools have become part of our daily life. According to Banque des Territoires, between 2018 and 2019, 2.5 billion connected objects were sold worldwide.
Samira Njoya
The number of mobile financial service subscribers rose significantly in Africa over the past ten years. According to the GSM Association, it is estimated at some 200 million subscribers currently. With the arrival of new ambitious actors, the high fees, which used to hinder mobile financial services adoption, are dropping.
Wave Mobile Money S.A. (Senegal) and Wave Côte d'Ivoire S.A. recently secured a €90 million financing package arranged by the International Financial Corporation ( IFC). The package includes a €25 million loan from the IFC, and a combined €41 million B loan - Ed.note: Repayable over 5 to 8 years with the possibility to pay a large portion of the loan in the last amortization year- from Symbiotics, Blue Orchard, responsAbility and Lendable. The remaining €24 million is a parallel loan -not exposed to currency fluctuation risks- from Finnfund and Norfund.
The funds secured will serve for the development of Wave’s activities in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. According to an IFC release dated July 6, “in addition to helping to finance the companies' operations, IFC's support will help establish a mobile money environment where customers can transact more often thanks to a simple fee structure and lower transaction costs.”
“This will foster higher frequency of transactions, new payment methods, and growing overall value of payments processed by the users, particularly among lower-income customers,” the release adds.
“Wave's vision of making Africa the first cashless continent, by building affordable and user-centric solutions, matches IFC's ambitions of universal financial inclusion. [...] This investment by IFC and other lenders helps us offer a diversity of financial products, encouraging users to stay within the formal financial sector, deepening financial inclusion in the region,” indicated Coura Sene, Wave’s Mobile Money Regional Director for the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU).
For Aliou Maïga, IFC's Regional Director for West and Central Africa, the loans “will not only promote inclusive finance, but it will also significantly contribute to further advancing digital economy solutions in West Africa.”
Let’s note that in September 2021, Wave Mobile Money Holdings Inc. (parent company of Wave Mobile Money S.A. (Senegal) and Wave Côte d'Ivoire S.A.) raised US$200 million during a Series A round, becoming a unicorn company (valued at over US$1 billion).
Muriel Edjo
The digital payment switch was developed by the government, thanks to the technical expertise of the Nigerian firm eTranzact. It demonstrates authorities’ ambition to boost financial inclusion.
Cameroon’s Minister of Telecommunications, Minette Libom Li Likeng, officially launched the National Digital Payment Switch Infrastructure (NPSI) in Yaoundé, yesterday (July 5). The payment switch, accessible via the USSD Code #237#, is a government initiative to ensure the traceability of electronic payment flows, therefore facilitating the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing and promoting the digital economy. It is hosted at the Cameroon Postal Services (Campost) thanks to the technical expertise of the Nigerian firm eTranzact.
According to Campost MD Pierre Kaldadak, the NPSI will promote equal access to interconnection, reduce the cost of value-added services and help trace all the bank and non-bank transactions. He also informed that the telecom operators that are active in the country and about forty firms have already joined the payment switch. Meanwhile, a significant number of firms are still awaiting connections.
The NPSI, whose development was launched in 2018, was inaugurated on June 30, 2020. For Minette Libom Li Likeng, it will help reduce cash dependence, boost financial inclusion, and stimulate innovation with the development of public and private-sector applications and startup promotion. The digital infrastructure is "a key [...] tool for digital systems and payments in Cameroon,” she added.
Samira Njoya
The center will help boost access to quality digital education and offer employment opportunities and innovative solutions in Senegal.
IT company Atos and 01Talent Africa launched Monday (July 4) a collective intelligence center in Dakar, Senegal. The center will offer digital training, starting from September 2022.
During the launching ceremony, Alpha Barry, Head of Atos Africa, elaborated on why Africa is the perfect continent to develop the collective intelligence center project. “With an average age of 19, Africa is the youngest continent in the world and will represent 40% of the world's population by the end of the century. By working with 01Talent in Africa, we are giving these young people the opportunity to unleash their creative potential to contribute to the innovation and digital transformation of the continent," he indicated.
“This initiative is part of a strategic partnership that aims to accelerate the digital transformation in Africa, by enabling the massification of world-class digital skills through an innovative and inclusive training of excellence on the continent,” the two partners inform.
For 01Talent Africa’s strategic director, Karim Sy, “this strategic initiative confirms the commitment of 01Talent and Atos to the creation of an African technology ecosystem strengthened by the training of world-class talent, essential to the accomplishment of the continent's digital transition.”
“This is a huge opportunity to create jobs for young people and value for local businesses. Everyone becomes an actor of change,” he stresses.
The collective intelligence center baptized Zone01 will be inaugurated in September 2022, welcoming the first cohort of 120 young talents selected during a competitive stage. After Dakar, the two partners intend to launch a new Zone01 in Egypt, Morocco, and Mauritania.
Samira Njoya
In 2020, connectivity demand accelerated worldwide with the change in consumption habits induced by the coronavirus crisis. In many countries, the Internet is now considered a basic service, just like drinking water and electricity. Such transformations are leading to major changes in the African telecom market.
Mobile broadband will represent 78 percent of mobile subscriptions in the Sub-Saharan African region in the next five years, Ericsson reveals in its June 2022 Mobility Report. According to the Swedish multinational, those subscriptions will be mainly driven by 4G subscription uptake. In 2021, it explains, 4G subscriptions increased by 26 percent and are expected to grow further this year due notably to migration to 4G devices.
“3G mobile data traffic is still increasing, but the majority of traffic growth is expected to be in 4G,” the report reads. However, it should be noted that 3G will still account for the majority of mobile subscriptions in 2027, i.e. 40% compared to 28% for 4G. As for 5G, it will represent 10% of mobile Internet subscriptions in 2027.
In some markets such as South Africa and Kenya, where additional spectrum has recently been allocated, service providers have been able to expand the coverage and capacity of their 3G/4G networks, increasing mobile broadband subscriptions. Ericsson forecasts Sub-Saharan African average monthly data traffic per smartphone to reach 11 gigabytes by 2027 with the Covid-19 crisis-induced change in Internet consumption habits.
By that period, Africa will be the only global market where 2G networks will still be significantly present. The technology will account for nearly 20% of mobile subscriptions compared to an average of 7% in other continents.
Muriel Edjo
In Africa, the land management sector is confronted with several issues, from cumbersome administrative procedures to illegal documents. The Guinean government has decided to rely on technology for an efficient solution to problems affecting the efficiency of the national land leasing process.
The Guinean Ministry of Urban Affairs rolled out, Wednesday (June 29), habitatguinee.app, a land management platform. By rolling out the platform, the ministry wants to address the problems identified in the land management sector and help people (land lease applicants notably) easily complete administrative procedures.
According to Minister of Urban Affairs Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, the aim of the platform “is clearly to promote efficiency and secure the collection of government revenues by mitigating potential risks.”
During the roll-out ceremony, Prime Minister Mohamed Béavogui (photo, center) explained that a valid lease is required from citizens and investors alike for their construction or investment projects.
“The platform connects all the ministerial departments and institutions involved in the lease contract process in Guinea. It dematerializes the lease granting process and centralizes the already granted leases on a single platform,” explained Souleymane Diallo, a representative of Global High Tech, the Ministry of Urban Affairs’ partner in the development of habitatguinee.app.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
As digital transformation is increasing in Africa, governments are intensifying public service digitization. It is, therefore, necessary to guarantee digital trust. Hence digital identification measures are being taken by some countries.
The Tunisian Ministry of ICT signed Friday (July 1), a partnership agreement with the National Agency for Electronic Certification and telecom operators for the implementation of "mobile ID," a mobile identity project. The project concerned will transform sim cards into identity tools by linking users’ national identity card numbers to their phone numbers.
"This new service will reinforce digital trust in Tunisia by giving citizens a new secured and simple tool that allows them access to all the digital services and also provides them a digital signature,” explained ICT Minister Nizar Ben Neji.
Under the partnership agreement, telecom operators will verify users’ identities and link their phone numbers with their ID card numbers. The National Agency for Electronic Certification will issue personal identification numbers for every identified citizen. It will also generate personal QR Codes, which citizens can use to sign administrative documents online. The long-term goal is to allow Tunisians to connect to the public administration platform, log in with their identification numbers, request administrative documents, and sign them if need be online.
Mobile ID was announced in February 2021, in the framework of the government’s digital transformation program. According to the Ministry of ICT, it will rid the public administration system of the certified signature and certified copy requirements. In its initial phase, it will facilitate Tunisians’ access to the 120 administrative services already digitized. Then, it will gradually be rolled out to include the whole public administration.
Samira Njoya
The lab hosted by Orange Digital Center is an opportunity for project developers and companies to test the quality of their tech products and services. It will let them carry out small-scale tests before the launch.
Orange inaugurated, Thursday (June 30), its first African 5G Lab in Dakar, Senegal. The 5G Lab is dedicated to the experimentation and development of 5G-compliant products and services. The lab was ianuguared by Sékou Dramé, CEO of Sonatel Group, and Michaël Trabbia, Orange Chief Technology and Innovation Officer.
According to Michaël Trabbia, 5G is a tool that can be leveraged to boost companies' and nations’ growth. This is why Orange is committed to a co-innovation approach to help create futuristic products. "Territorial anchoring is key in the Orange 5G Lab program to support the digital transformation of economic players, and help everyone take advantage of the potential of the 5G," he said.
Orange 5G Lab Dakar is housed at the Orange Digital Center in Dakar in a 108 m² room with several sections that can be used as demonstration space for virtual reality and augmented reality services, a gaming space, or a co-working space. The space has case studies carried out in several areas (e-Health, smart port, smart édu, smart Agri) in partnership with technology providers Huawei and Nokia. It also has innovation demonstrations carried out by Caytu in partnership with the Dakar American University of Science and Technology (DAUST) and Senvital in partnership with Sonatel corporate medicine.
Orange 5G Lab Dakar is the 14th technology space of its kind to be inaugurated by the French telecom group in all its markets. Apart from Senegal, Orange has 5G Labs in France (10), Romania (1), Belgium (1), and Poland (1). More than 1,200 companies and local authorities have already benefited from the technology space, 114 of which have been able to experiment with their products and services.
In Senegal, the introduction of 5G combined with new technologies such as Big data, AI, and augmented reality aims to stimulate the transformation of the Senegalese society and economy in key areas such as agriculture, public health, education, entrepreneurship, and youth employability.
Ruben Tchounyabe
Since 2016, Cameroonian tech entrepreneur Vincent Onana Binyegui has multiplied actions to improve education access, in rural zones notably. The flagship product he developed, Teachmepad, allows access to educational content offline. The assembly plant is the next step in his project.
Teachmepad Mobile Limited, the developer of the solar-powered educational tablet Teachmepad, seeks €5 million to set up an assembly plant in Cameroon. For that purpose, it launched a pre-series A round last Friday, June 1. The capital sought will be divided as follows: €420,000 in equity crowdfunding and €4.573 million in loan crowdfunding. The pre-series A round will be closed on June 1, 2023, we learn.
The project has been reviewed by the national investment corporation SNI’s technical teams, revealed Teachmepad Mobile Limited founder Vincent Onana Binyegui at the end of a work session called by the Ministry of Economy.
The plant, dubbed Teachmepad Mobile Industry, will create 200 direct jobs, the founder stresses. In the framework of the project, Teachmepad Mobile Limited will acquire a unit, whose daily production capacity is 5,000, from China. In its first year of operation, the plant will operate at 20% of its capacity with 10 employees and progressively go at full throttle with a team of 205 people.
During the work session, SNI suggested the government should provide support to scale the project and make it bankable for additional technical and financial support. SNI also suggested a partnership with a technical partner, a mobile components manufacturer preferably, to guarantee the supply of needed components.
In 2021, Teachmepad Mobile Limited concluded a funding round launched in 2020 by raising about €1.219 million from Cameroonian and French investors. With the funds secured, it acquired a 5-hectare plot that will host the assembly plant, carried out 3D printing of the commercial prototypes, and performed some administrative tasks and the studies required for the plant installation project.
Teachmepad is an educative tablet that allows access to educational content, like Wikipedia, offline. It was developed to boost education in rural areas with poor internet and electricity access and a low number of teachers. The tablet has received the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI)’s patent.
Currently, Vincent Onana’s goal is to make TeachmePad the choice tablet in African countries for easy data collection, general census, and related works since the tablets can function in “remote areas with electricity and internet access problems.”
Ruben Tchounyabe
In 2021, Africa officially became a common market with numerous trade facilitation mechanisms. However, non-tariff barriers still pose challenges during financial transactions notably, therefore threatening the business inclusion sought after.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) recently presented a project for the development of an e-payment platform dedicated to African SMEs. The project was presented by Wamkele Mene (photo, left), AfCFTA secretary general, during a meeting with Cameroonian Minister of Trade Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana (photo, right) in Yaounde, last Monday (June 27).
According to Wamkele Mene, the end goal of the project is to create a digital marketplace to facilitate trade. For that purpose, the AfCFTA is negotiating with banks to secure guarantees because SMEs are usually confronted with credit access challenges. With those bank guarantees, SMEs can transact through the e-payment platform while banks cover the risks. Four sectors are targeted for the first phase of the project. They are notably agriculture, textile, transportation, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The AfCFTA is a key initiative in the African Union’s development blueprint Agenda 2063. It aims to accelerate intra-African trades and consolidate the continent’s commercial position in the global market. Currently, the area includes 44 member countries, including Cameroon.
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During the coronavirus pandemic, e-education proved its worth. Apart from its practical aspect, it easily allows access to greatly diversified content. Several African countries have thus decided to adopt this teaching mechanism.
In Cameroon, the Ministries of Secondary and Higher Education will mutualize their education system digitalization efforts. The will was formally expressed last Friday (June 24) during a meeting between Minister of Higher Education Jacques Fame Ndongo and Minister of Secondary Education Nalova Lyonga.
“The two government officials noted the initiatives taken by the government to digitize education through notably the Ministry of Higher Education’s Inter-university network’s supervisory center and the Ministry of Secondary Education’s distance learning center. They then decided to mutualize the said efforts to achieve economies of scale and attain the desired efficiency,” indicates a release published after the meeting.
The two ministries will mutualize their infrastructures and digital resources, notably the Ministry of Higher Education’s digital university centers and the Ministry of Secondary Education’s decentralized institutions. They will also build secondary education teachers’ digital pedagogy skills thanks to the IT department of Cameroon’s teacher training schools. They also decided to regularly assess the collaboration initiated.
The digitalization of Cameroon’s secondary and higher education systems is part of the education system modernization program contained in the 2030 National Development Strategy. It aims to create learning environments that allow teachers to easily share their knowledge and learners to swiftly pick up knowledge.
Ruben Tchounyabé
Since the launch of its activities over a year ago, the fintech is highly praised by users. However, its partners’ discontent is growing because they fear its operating model could have a negative impact on financial inclusion and job creation in the long term.
On June 24, 2022, in Côte d’Ivoire, telecom operators and U.S Fintech Wave carried out a consultation meeting to elaborate a fee grid that would be beneficial for electronic money users, service providers, and electronic money issuers. According to the national union of mobile money agents Synamcil, no effective resolution came out of the meeting instructed by the Minister of Employment and Social Protection.
Ivorian mobile money agents will therefore have to wait a bit longer for a clear answer to their request for the improvement of their incomes, which is dwindling since April 2021 when Wave officially entered the local market with greatly reduced fees.
Meanwhile, hoping for an ultimate solution to the situation, the case will be transmitted to the Prime Minister, with minutes of the various meetings initiated by the Ministry of Employment and Social Protection. For the time being, mobile money agents will only have to continue operations as usual hoping their job would not become unprofitable in the long term.
An annoying business model
Since June 1, 2022, the Ivorian mobile money market is shaken by fintech Wave’s decision to introduce a new price grid that reduces the commission paid to mobile money agents. According to Felix Coulibaly, secretary-general of Synamcil, the commissions were reduced by about 40 percent going from XOF2,400 to XOF1,350 for some transactions and XOF4,600 to 2,675 for others.
“When Wave reduced the commissions we used to collect, it also introduced a new system called ‘revenue sharing’. We rejected that system because we believed it was not transparent since we had no visibility on the inner workings,” he explained.
Despite the agents’ opposition, Wave insisted on implementing its new price grid, leading some agents to go on strike from June 2 to 4, 2022. The grid was finally canceled during a meeting with unions operating in the electronic money segment, telecom operators, Wave, and the Ministry of Employment on June 17.
Agents then unilaterally decided to impose a XOF100 fee on deposits and withdrawals. The aim, according to Felix Coulibaly, was to allow agents to “make ends meet… let them earn enough to cover operating charges until the Minister of Employment helps find a solution” to the problem.
For the secretary-general, the 1% model touted by Wave is not that realistic and could have a negative impact on the market. “The three telecom operators used to pay us commissions for every transaction… Since April 1, Orange has decided to copy Wave’s operating model by paying us commissions for cumulated daily transitions. What we are holding against Wave is its model, which changed the market and reduced our commissions. Its Wave’s arrival in the market that caused all those problems. They [Wave executives] have always claimed that their model is tested and proven and that reshaping it would destroy it. They did not bring only problems to the market. In fact, thanks to them, the population is now aware that it is possible to collect just 1% fee on electronic transactions. Even we, agents, were not aware of such a possibility. It is now up to them to prove to the Ivorian state that they have a sustainable model,” he indicated.
Threat to financial inclusion
“The Ivorian mobile money market was relatively peaceful before Wave’s arrival. Transaction fees were about 2 to 3 percent. Every operator had a well-defined grid. Everything was fine until Wave entered the market. When it introduced a new model to the market, it disrupted everything,” says Sidibe Aboubacar, chairman of the Ivorian independent mobile money vendors’ union Amimomoci.
He explained that in October 2020, when Wave first started operations in Côte d’Ivoire with its 1% fee model, users were enthusiastic because the other operators’ fees were averaging 1 to 1.8 percent. While users were praising the model, it was destroying vendors’ income, he added. For four to five months, telecom operators maintained their commission level, they finally took measures since they were losing market share. MTN and Moov reduced their commissions while Orange completely changed its business model.
Apart from the reduced commissions that affect mobile money agents’ income, the other grievance Sidibe Aboubacar nurses against Wave is its propensity to make agents pay for the weaknesses of its economic model. “When Wave says fee-free deposits and withdrawals, some users deposit money in their account in Abidjan and go withdraw it [the same day] in Yamoussoukro. In that case, Wave will not pay commission to the two agents involved here because the transaction did not generate commissions. It sometimes even claims that the mobile money agents are complicit with the clients that act in that manner. We deem this treatment unfair,” he confided.
Mobile money fears job losses due to some outlets becoming unprofitable and therefore shutting down if the government does not find a sustainable solution for the fee problem. Failure to find a solution will also affect financial inclusion. The population could also be forced to go miles and spent transport fees just to carry out financial transactions they can currently perform in their immediate neighborhood.
Muriel Edjo
This year, DR Congo has accelerated the modernization of its public administration. This project wants to improve transparency and management in state firms.
DR Congo recently unveiled its plan for the digitization of 29 state firms. The plan was presented by State Minister Adele Kayinda during the ministerial council held last Friday (June 24). According to the government official, the digitalization project aims to ensure the traceability of the selected firms’ operations and facilitate transparency.
The project will be funded thanks to private capital already negotiated, we learn. It will be implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Affairs. For Digital Minister Désiré Cashmir Eberande Kolongele, in the framework of the digitalization project, a shared services platform will be acquired, local tech teams trained and the capacities of firms’ staff built.
“The digitalization of state firms will not only improve management and performance for transparent profitability but, it will also reduce physical records by digitizing hard copies,” the government estimates.
The plan unveiled last Friday is the result of an instruction given by President Félix Tshisekedi during the March 18, 2022, Ministerial council. During the council, he pointed out the importance of digitalization and tasked Adele Kayinda to make sure every firm concerned urgently elaborates its digitalization roadmap. The project is in line with the state firms’ modernization program presented by the government in 2019.
Ruben Tchounyabe
In Nigeria, a new trend is developing with the booming e-commerce market. That trend in social commerce encourages social interactions and good bargains.
Fintech platform PocketApp recently secured an Approval in Principle (AIP) from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to become a mobile money operator. The approval was announced, Monday (June 27), by Piggytech Global Limited. It is the first step before the obtention of a mobile money license.
“For the last 18 months, we have been focused on building the core infrastructure that will enable us to secure social commerce and payments at scale. We believe that social commerce will thrive better in a more trusted environment. So we added escrow to our payment infrastructure, protecting buyers and sellers and many other features, ensuring a smooth shopping experience on the app,” said PocketApp COO Patricia Adoga.
PocketApp was launched, in 2021, as Abeg App. It was then specialized in money transfer but, over the months, it shifted to connect buyers and sellers in Nigeria. To date, it has two million users. It intends to add new features and target the whole African market.
Thanks to the mobile money license, PocketApp will be able to create and manage mobile money portfolios, issue electronic money, and payment cards as well as every other service authorized by the CBN.
According to Research&Markets, Nigeria’s social commerce industry would grow by 82.4% annually to reach US$1,003.8 million by end 2022 and US$23,817.4 million by 2028.
Muriel Edjo