TechCabal Daily – Keeping classes going in a pandemic

Edtech tools like uLesson and eLimu whose platforms have always substituted or worked alongside regular school curriculum are coming in handy at this time. On eLimu for instance, learners seem to be spending more time on the platform and requests for uLesson’s tools have warranted it spreads its reach more broadly across the continent.

While online learning tools are showing their usefulness, keeping students engaged and ensuring full participation is even more difficult when you have to conduct a class online. But the pandemic is also quite readily teaching us how to effectively incorporate and broaden the reach of digital tools and literacy into the education sector to ensure learning can go on at any point in time during a school calendar year regardless of physical disruptions.

The AfDB has secured a US$3 billion three-year bond to help alleviate the economic and social impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on livelihoods and Africa’s economies. The AfDB is moving to provide flexible responses aimed at lessening the severe economic and social impact of this pandemic on its regional member countries and Africa’s private sector.

In South Africa, hackers aren’t taking a break

South Africans have one more thing to contend with in addition to the COVID-19 outbreak keeping most of the world indoors. Hackers. According to cybersecurity company, Kaspersky’s statistics, hackers attacked up to 310,000 devices during the week of March 15, by far outstripping the weekly average of 20,000 to 30,000. Kaspersky is now offering a six-month free subscription to its digital security services for healthcare institutions.

Unsurprisingly. With cash transactions increasingly being discouraged because of their ability to harbour and spread germs, traditional banking institutions are pushing for more digital transactions with a marked increase in numbers.

A FREE gift to you this Monday

TechCabal’s The State of Health Tech in Nigeria report which we released last year is a deeply researched report examining general health indicators and challenges in the healthcare sector and how technology companies are looking to solve some of them using digital tools. We are making a part of our dataset publicly available for FREE.

The report profiled 75 innovative startups working to find technology solutions to Nigeria’s health-related problems. We are releasing our dataset of telemedicine, health logistics and public health startups (29 in all) for everyone looking to work with them or investors/NGOs interested in funding them to tackle COVID-19 pandemic.

We believe that telemedicine startups including Wellvis, SwiftCheckup & Oncopadi hold the promise to meet some health needs while people are on lockdown. For their part, health logistics startups including LifeBank and RedBank will take essential life-saving materials to where people need them. Public health startups including EpidAlert could contribute to preventing the spread of the virus.

Download our app at www.kwik.delivery – Lagos’ best last-mile delivery service!

A COVID-19 presidential gesture

President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana has added 3 months of his presidential salary to a special coronavirus fund to be administered by an independent board of trustees led by former Chief Justice, Sophia Akufo. The financial facility looks to mitigate the effects of Ghana’s coronavirus outbreak which is the second highest in West Africa at the moment.

3,600 schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo will receive 12-months of high-speed internet from Eutelsat Communications (ETL) through its subsidiary Konnect Africa.

“I can reserve a space in the library using online tools, I can get unlimited research papers and books from almost all publishers. I can communicate with my teachers online and even tick my attendance in class by scanning a QR code.”

Other things we’re reading:

+ Yuval Noah Harari on the world after coronavirus

+ How do you regulate okadas in a megacity?

+ Can emojis be used against you in court?

+ Nigeria’s social media bill suffers its biggest defeat yet

+ Sir Tim Berners-Lee on making the internet safer for girls and women