Digest

TechCabal daily: Your employer did what?

By Mobisola Atolagbe Feb 24, 2017

…I told you they would

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First off, major stuff happening

1. Your employer did what? – I’m sure you can still remember the drama on twitter about how internships in Nigerian startups are mostly scams. That resulted in this spreadsheet where people anonymously filled information about their experience working for startups. It has now finally culminated in Jobpalava – “the Glassdoor for Nigeria” – where employees can anonymously review their former or present employers. Lots of people (*cough* Glassdoor *cough*) had something to say when we tweeted the news. Lol.

2. “Ah” – That’s what somebody said after seeing the news that Kinnevik sold half of its 13% stake in Rocket Internet. Kinnevik said the stake sale was part of a move to slim down its holdings but everyone is looking back to that time when the two companies clashed over the valuations of some of their joint investments. Meanwhile, Rocket Internet’s shares have fallen by more than 9% after the sale. It remains to be seen whether Kinnevik will sell its remaining stake in Rocket.

3. Jubilee devs – Ghana wants to celebrate its 60th birthday with new mobile apps. The Anniversary Committee has launched the Jubilee Innovation Challenge (JIC) for young people aged 18 to 35. The winner of the competition will get 100,000 cedis for building an innovative mobile app that will help shape business in Ghana.

4. IBM wants to help revolutionise female owned ICT businesses in South Africa. Selected SMEs will get business development and entrepreneurial growth support. If you fit the bill, express your interest here.

5. Day 39 – Internet connectivity has been shut off in Anglophone Cameroon for 39 days. #BringBackOurInternet.

You can now apply for Ventures Platform‘s (VP) accelerator program. It’s a 4-month program that’s designed to support startups at the MVP stage with mentorship, business re-engineering, work space, living space, back office support, shared services and seed funding. Link.

What else is going on?

+ What do you get when you combine machine learning and human trolling? Horror.

+ This February is DevCenter’s Women in Tech month and they’re doing a lovely series on female developers in Nigeria. Latest post by Funmi is on 5 Amazing Apps built by Nigerian women.

+ Nigerians are peculiar people. Nosa & Folly of Eat Drink Lagos reviewed a restaurant and people decided to be petty and uncouth in the comments section. See for yourselves. I can’t.

+ Can you solve these 6 riddles?

+ OotheNigerian on how Andela and the devalued Naira will make it difficult for local startups to attract Dev talent. Link.

+ Is your startup ready for funding? Use this checklist from Starta to decide.

Hot topic(s) on TechCabal Radar

+ We’re rescheduling our AMA session with Fola Olatunji-David, Ventures Platform’s Incubation Manager. It will now happen on Thursday, March 2nd at 2pm (GMT +1). If you’d like us to send you a reminder when the session is about to commence, let us know here.

+Do n’t put C4 in phones.

Applications close today for Lagos Angel Network’s (LAN) Startup DealDay for the first quarter of 2017. Startups that have been operating for 2 – 5 years with paying customers and good financial track records are invited to apply. The event is scheduled for March 24 and selected startups stand a chance to receive between N25 – N50 million in seed funding. Interested startups can apply here.