Hey there! Today’s TechCabal digest is brought to you by Tizeti; they are offering Lagos residents unlimited internet for N5,000, and you can sign up for that here. Here’s everything interesting in African technology today. If you’re reading this, you’re probably not subscribed to TechCabal’s daily digest. Click here to get this goodness in your mailbox every day at 7am (GMT +1).
Today is Monday…
1. And Anglophone Cameroon still doesn’t have internet. It’s been 41 days, people.
2. While we’re on the matter, Qz made some interesting charts out of that A4AI report from last week that show how African governments are holding their citizens back from the true potential of the internet. 1 gigabyte of data represents almost 18 percent of the average African’s monthly income.
3. But never fear, Don Jazzy is here! With a free WiFi network. The superstar music producer has teamed up with a Nigerian technology entrepreneur to create Flobyt, something that looks a lot like Facebook’s Express Wifi, except that it’s “free”…there’s going to be ads, and who knows what else going forward. Flobyt is currently rolling out in Lagos. Link.
4. A South African billionaire’s investment company is acquiring a 10 percent stake in TYME, a South African mobile money company that got acquired in 2015 by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Link
5. The Nokia 3310 is back. Feel free to spazz. And show your age.
6. Guess who isn’t back? Nigeria’s president. Man has been gone almost as long as Anglophone Cameroon’s internet. In fact there’s now a website that’s been counting for how long, right down to the second. You might get an insecure site warning, but if you’re THAT curious, well, here you go.
HEY, you. Yes, YOU. You can STILL 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 you might have missed over the weekend…
+ Asoko Insight’s sector brief on Kenyan e-commerce. Registration required to read the full report. Link.
+ While you weren’t looking, social media became the media in Africa. Link
+ Elon Musk, our son (sorry, I couldn’t resist), is about to slay us again. Link
+ The Nigerian Internet Exchange and MainOne are forming voltron. Good. Link
+ South African xenophobia and Nigerian reprisals. Sad. Link
+ Paga got recognition from the Central Bank of Nigeria and NIBSS for its role in driving cashless payments. Congrats, Tayo!
+ Shameless plug alert. Afope, a Big Cabal intern in whom I’m well pleased is learning apace, and she’s blogging what she’s learning. Last week, she wrote about APIs. Kawaii x10. Link
Hot topic(s) on TechCabal Radar
+ There’s going to be an AMA session with Fola Olatunji-David, Ventures Platform’s Incubation Manager 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.
Upcoming events…
London: Tech in Ghana conference, by the UK Ghana Chamber of Commerce and TEDx Accra is…today, whoa! Link
Lagos: Social Media Week begins this week. Drop everything. (Nubi, please come and collect your t-shirt, abeg). Link
Lagos: Comic Connect is on the 4th of March. I’m looking forward to the Nigerian take on cosplay. Link
Lagos: Leadspace Happy Hour, 24th February. Link.
Please help our events aggregation algorithm get smarter! Add your event
Upcoming application deadlines
TEEP: The Tony Elumelu Entrepreurship Programme application deadline is the 1st of March. Link
Have a great Monday!
Keep in mind that work expands to fill the time allocated to it. Like this newsletter that’s going out ten minutes behind schedule (no vex abeg), so don’t be lazy this week, challenge yourself! (Prosper would be so proud of my motivational ginger right now.)
If you liked today’s digest, epp your people and share. We love you.
I’m all caught up on African tech news, get it here!
