| Last week, Kay and I visited Uyo, South-South Nigeria for #StartupSouth5. We discovered a number of interesting things about the city. First, we couldn’t hail a Bolt ride at the airport when we arrived Uyo because the taxi union didn’t let them operate. And when we ran out of cash, it was difficult to find a bank or an ATM. Enter, mobile money agents. Their proximity made it easy not to mind paying double the amount one would pay as ATM transaction fees. Kay has the full story here in what is the first from a short series of stories from #StartupSouth5 and South-South Nigeria. |
|
| ProfitShare Partners, a Johannesburg-based fintech company, has secured R25 million (US$1.69 million) from Edge Growth Ventures’ Vumela Fund. ProfitShare wants to use the investment to increase the number of SMEs it supports. Founded in 2017, the fintech company provides short-term funding solutions to SMEs. |
|
| Andela has launched its fully remote centre in Egypt in partnership with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA). The centre will hire and outsource senior developers from the North African country. News about the expansion to Egypt first came out when Andela put out a call for senior developers in Cairo about a year ago, Muyiwa writes in this TechCabal article. Andela recently laid off 420 junior developers across its locations due to increasing demand for more experienced developers. |
|
| The International Trade Center is receiving applications to its #FastTrackTech Africa initiative. Idea stage and growth-stage tech startups in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia are eligible to apply. Learn more and get in here before November 18. |
|
| Join Tolu Agunbiade, General Manager – Nigeria, ALX at TC Townhall: Edtech & the Future of Work. ALX is a leadership and talent development platform for the top 5% of professional talent globally.
TC Townhall Edtech & the Future of Work will hold on November 29, 2019. We are bringing together regulators, government agencies, investors, entrepreneurs, NGOs, social enterprises and schools to set a strong agenda about how to use technology to leapfrog Africa’s education challenges and prepare our citizens for future jobs. Buy your tickets here. To enjoy our early-bird discount, click here or use the code TCEDTECH at checkout. Further discounts apply for companies/individuals buying at least 5 tickets. Please click here to enjoy our corporate discounts.
We are also putting together a map of the African edtech industry. If you have an edtech startup or you are a technology company doing significant work in the industry we would like to hear from you. Please fill this form.
|
|
| Airtel Nigeria has continued growing its internet subscribers on a monthly basis, according to the latest numbers by the National Communications Commission. Its total number of subscribers has now hit 33.1 million. Airtel last saw a decline in its internet subscribers in 2017 when it lost about 15,900 subscribers. In contrast, indigenous telco, Glo lost about 155,000 internet subscribers in September 2019 while pan-African giant, MTN lost over 379,000 subscribers between July and September. Airtel Nigeria has been branding itself as the smartphone network in the past few months with TV ads positioning it as first choice for data services. |
|
| GreenTec Capital is looking for early-stage, impact-driven African startups to join its #Results4Equity portfolio. Apply here for a chance to get in. |
|
| The Rwandan government is working on digitizing its public transport system. According to Eng Emmanuel Asaba Katabarwa, Head of Transport at Rwanda Utilities and Regulation Authority (RURA) they are “working with partners who are developing apps that will give people information.” The project which has been named Generation 2 will use GPS to track vehicle activity, providing residents with information that they can use to plan their commute around the country. Generation 2 is expected to go live in 2020. |
|
Nigerian civic-tech startup, BudgIT has started an SMS service that allows citizens to track monthly allocations to their local governments. Local governments in Nigeria are the least scrutinized when compared to the federal and state governments. Users can text “civichive LGA to 34461″ to use the service. The service is only available on the MTN network.
Side – Lookout for this week’s #MyLifeInTech entry about BudgIT’s Founder, Seun Onigbinde, later today. |
|
| There’s no bridge between Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. The #JollofRoad team (Fuad, Toke, Kayode, Tosin and Captain Taiwo) had to be ferried across a river to get into Bissau. A lot of the buildings in the country look like something you’d see while travelling across Europe, except this time, there’s a lot of dust and Jollof Rice, Fuad writes. It’s Day 45 of 80 and the team has visited 7 countries so far. Visit jollofroad.com every day to catch up on all the stories from the road! Join the conversation on Telegram and Whatsapp. |
|
|
Thanks for reading,
We’ll be back tomorrow!
– Olanrewaju
Remember to share TC Daily with your friends!
|
|
|
|
|
|
