TechCabal Daily – With 5,000 agents, Copia is rethinking e-commerce

While African e-commerce giant, Jumia has closed shop in Tanzania and Cameroon, Copia is growing its business through a focus on low-income earners

What’s the scoop?

The six-year old logistics company, which has now raised $26m in a Series B funding round has a 5,000- strong agent network of mostly shopkeepers who earn commissions acting as delivery centers. 

What’s Next?

The company is looking to expand into other countries in East Africa

Further reading:

You can deepen your understanding of the company’s agent model here.

Kenya’s Civil Aviation Authority is considering lifting an existing ban on drones. 

What are the existing regulations?

Anyone caught flying a drone would either be jailed for up to a year or receive a fine of up to KSh100,000 ($975).

What is changing? 

“The Director-General of KCAA, Gilbert Kibe, said they are close to completing the draft of the regulations which will be presented to parliament for approval in order to end the ban on the use of drones”

Read all about it here.

Investors, regulators and entrepreneurs were at the “Edtech and the future of work town hall” on Friday and it was our most interesting town hall yet. 

What went down?

Panel sessions, lightning talks, production demos, exhibition, startup-investor matchmaking session… the whole nine yards! 

Some highlights?

Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji fired up the first panel session with this prediction: “The future success of Edtech in Nigeria is dependent on politicians.” 

Read a rundown of the panel session here. 

Imisi 3D, ScholarX and STEM Mets provided some pretty interesting product demos, be sure to look them up!

Bonus: AfriLabs announced a collaboration with Global Edtech Hub, the world’s largest education technology research and innovation project at our Town hall.

Thanks to last week’s personality quiz, I know the Tech Boss I am. 

I’m Odun Eweniyi, who are you?

Take our quiz now to find out if you’re Victor Asemota, Odun Eweniyi, Jason Njoku or Adia Sowho. You also get to find out what this means about your leadership style. 

Don’t be the person who takes this quiz, enjoys it and doesn’t share it with friends. Sharing is caring, remember?
 

Our market was selling this week, so we were at the French Connexion event for a panel session for professionals. 

When Technology meets artistic creation

The event was organised by the French Embassy and had the French Ambassador to Nigeria in attendance. Our managing editor, Aanu Adeoye moderated a few panel sessions at the event. 

Catch up with our live tweets of the event here. 

The jollof road crew are in Burkina Faso as their journey hits day 71. 

What’s the latest with jollof road?

The crew found rice and stew for the first time in 60 days, traveled their longest single stretch and found an artisanal market in Ouagadougou.

If you’re not already living vicariously though them, fix up now! 

AWS Startup days, a free event for early stage founders, developers and investors that aim to help early-stage founders build quickly with AWS services is coming to Lagos, Accra, Nairobi and Johannesburg. 

What’s the summary?

There are massive, untapped opportunities in these African cities and their ecosystems will benefit from citywide digital initiatives.

Read all about it here.