Health and biotech company 54Gene has raised $500,000 for a fund aimed at improving Nigeria’s capacity to carry out tests for COVID-19. The money raised for the Nigeria COVID-19 Testing Support Fund will ramp up testing for the disease by up to 1,000 additional tests a day, the company said. The improved capacity will be […]
With major sports events canceled, how are online betting companies faring and will their customers consider virtual bets?
The initial plan at Paystack, the Nigerian fintech company, was to run a 100% remote situation where staff will not be allowed into their physical offices this Friday. All staff were to work from home as a test scenario. The purpose was to provide guidance on how to operate should a shutdown become necessary, according […]
African research labs, innovation hubs and venture capital firms are putting money on the table to support solutions targeted at better handling the COVID-19 pandemic. In Senegal, a collaboration between Institut Pasteur de Dakar, a Dakar-based research lab and a UK company could produce a $1 test that carries out a coronavirus test in 10 […]
For the first time in 23 years, South Africa’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) plunged by more than 9% at the close of trading on Thursday, thanks to coronavirus. The most notable slumps happened to shares of the country’s biggest technology companies. MTN Group plunged 13.9% to R54.39 ($3.36) per share, Vodacom was 5.3% lower at […]
In a six-person office on the first floor, staff from the ICT and corporate communications units critique aspects of the coronavirus website that had just gone live. “The highlights are long, they need to be spaced out if we want people to read them,” a member of the comms team says. It is a Tuesday […]