| Conventional thinking about poor and corrupt societies proposes that governments invest in anti-corruption programs and institutional reforms. In this TED talk, Efosa Ojomo, author and innovation researcher introduces a new approach by painting a relationship between innovation and corruption. Using Africa’s telecoms industry as an example, Ojomo submits that scarcity, which is a result of a lack of economic opportunity and development created by innovation, breeds corruption. |
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On Thursday, October 3rd, Idorenyin Obong, a contract Android Engineer at Paystack was stopped and harassed by four officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian Police. Obong shared his story and the horrible experience he went through with TechCabal. The development comes after some of Nigeria’s tech leaders launched the #StopRobbingUs campaign to combat alleged harassment of employees in the industry. The campaign will bring lawsuits against the Nigerian Police Force on behalf of victims who have been assaulted.
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| Logistics startup Bwala Africa has closed an undisclosed funding round. The Nairobi-based startup will invest the money in product development and is also looking to take on the freight logistics market which includes Lori Systems and Kobo360. Bwala describes itself as a crowdsourced logistics marketplace that connects fleet operators with manufacturers, vendors and e-commerce companies. It has begun raising its series A round. |
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| Last weekend, the #JollofRoad team went bar-crawling in Ghana – from a dance club called Afrikoko where people actually tango to Carbon, one of the top three places to explore the nightlife in Ghana. Fu’ad, Toke and Kayode are travelling in a bus through West Africa for 80 days curating their experiences of the food, people and culture. Find out where they will be going next. Go to jollofroad.com to learn about all the great things they are discovering about culture across West Africa. |
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Jack Dorsey, Founder and CEO at Twitter is visiting Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa this November. There’s not a lot of information about his trip but Dorsey says he will spend time with entrepreneurs. They include Betelhem Dessie (Co-founder, iCog Labs) and Noel Daniel (Co-founder, Kudu Ventures).
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Mobile lending startups in Kenya have grown astronomically in the last 10 years and there are said to be about 49 of such platforms. While these platforms appear to have bridged the gap for the financially excluded, they are breeding a debt culture that is causing borrowers to fall into the trap of living on loans and accumulating bad debt. Victor Odundo Owuor, Senior Research Associate at One Earth Future Foundation explores the danger in this article.
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Last month, news broke that the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) will begin regulating online adverts. Businesses are now required to pay a fee to vet their ads and violators will face six-month jail time or a ₦500,000 fine. In a new TechCabal series, Tech Like I’m Five, Abubakar answers the question, Can governments regulate online ads? He also explores why APCON’s approach is an issue.
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| The HNG Internship by Hotels.ng is looking for products to build. The interns participating in the program will build an MVP of your startup idea for a fee. Interested? Get in touch with Mark Essien here. |
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Digital health startups from Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria can now apply to the Healthcare Innovation programme; TeXchange 2020. The programme was put together by the UK-Israel Tech Hub and will focus on areas such as AI and big data in healthcare, early detection of diseases, population health, telemedicine, and diagnostics. Apply here before October 11.
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In 2018, Nigerian software developer, Dara Oladosu built a Twitter bot, Quoted Replies that makes it easy to find all the quoted replies to a tweet. The bot now has users from across the world including Nigeria, India, Philippines, Indonesia, and the United States. In September alone, it had 26.3K followers and over 67K mentions with 25.7 million impressions. The team is now seeking ways to monetize the bot.
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Thanks for reading,
Have a great week.
– Olanrewaju.
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