9. Nigeria’s Skrife has officially launched to help entrepreneurs and startups produce quality content for their audiences
After months of being in private beta, Nigeria’s Skrife has launched to help entrepreneurs, brands, digital agencies and startups produce quality content for their audiences. Skrife’s vision is to train aspiring writers and connect them to paid writing jobs all over the world. So far, Skrife has completed over 150 requests for 20+ clients from 7 countries. Some brands currently using Skrife include ALU Education, Paystack, Ingressive, and Tress.
Read more about it here.
8. Ringier and One Africa Media are closing down Cheki sites in Zimbabwe and Zambia
According to this report by TechMoran, Ringier and One Africa Media are closing down more Cheki sites across the continent in a bid to become more profitable. The cars classifieds website will now operate in only Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. TechMoran says the news should be announced in the next 48 hours.
More information here.
7. Kaduna-based coworking space and innovation hub, CoLab, is offering female developers free full access
In exchange for this opportunity, the women have to organise programmes that will encourage more women to go into tech. This is CoLab’s way of encouraging women’s participation in tech. Interested female developers in Kaduna are encouraged to get in touch with the hub.
Read all about it here.
6. Healthcare company, Novartis, has partnered with the Kaduna State Government and Vodacom to launch a mobile-based healthcare program
The program is tagged SMS for Life 2.0 and it aims to increase the availability of essential medicines and improve care for patients across the region using technology. Local healthcare workers will be able to track stock levels of essential antimalarials, vaccines, and HIV, TB and leprosy treatments, and send notifications to district medical officers when stock levels are low using smartphones and tablets. A training component is also included in the program.
Read all about it here.
5. SA’s Standard Bank has acquired a major stake in Firepay
Firepay is the parent company of mobile payments platform, SnapScan and Standard Bank has reportedly acquired a major stake in it. The details of the deal are still unknown, according to TechCentral.
More information here.
4. Nigeria’s central bank will license telcos to provide mobile money services but it doesn’t know when that’ll happen
The Central Bank Governor was speaking at a financial inclusion summit where he said the bank “would eventually license telecommunication companies to provide mobile money services.” Mobile money in Nigeria is currently led by banks resulting in very low penetration. Switching to telcos will surely see a rise in mobile money users since the telcos are more widespread than banks.
More information here.
3. Flutterwave has partnered with Stellar to simplify payments to Kenya
Flutterwave’s integration with the Stellar open platform is mainly to support cross-border payments to Kenya’s M-Pesa. MPesa users who were previously limited to transacting in Kenya can now send payments regardless of whether they are based in Kenya, Ghana or Nigeria. But that’s not all, the integration also means that Flutterwave now has access to all the other organisations in the Stellar network.
Read all about it here.
2. SA’s Telkom is moving to a data-led approach since “voice is dead”
The sentiment was echoed by the telecom provider’s CEO, Sipho Maseko, who said the company is now focused on data-led value propositions. They recognise that customers now use voice a lot less preferring whatsapp calls or Voice-over-LTE/IP services. The approach is already yielding results – Telkom was able to significantly grow the number of its mobile subscribers over the past year.
Read more on this here.
1. Here are the winners of the 2016 African Entrepreneurship Award
This is the second edition of the award sponsored by Moroccan commercial bank, BMCE Bank, and it saw the 10 winners go home with cash prizes totalling about $850,000.
Read all about it here.
