Africa Tech News

Alerzo, a technology platform that caters to retail stores, has laid off at least 400 people. The new layoffs come after the company laid off hundreds of employees in August and September 2022. The company says due to this increased digitization, some roles that were previously required no longer are necessary, specifically for our internal warehouse operations.” As part of the new round of layoff...

Osun state officially cancels right-of-way fees, allowing telecom companies and internet providers to lay fibre optic cables for free. Ademola Adeleke, the governor of Osun state, disclosed the cancellation of ROW fees today as part of a digital economy policy. The state is betting that cancelling right-of-way fees–a contentious matter between state governments and Nigeria’s telecommunications com...

TikTok has been banned from government-issued mobile devices in Canada, the country’s Treasury Board announced Monday. The European Commission issued its directive to remove TikTok from government devices late last week. Treasury Board President Mona Fortier says the decision to remove and block TikTok from government mobile devices is being taken as a precaution, particularly given concerns about...

Meta is testing AI-powered tools for its products. Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the company is building a new top-level product group to integrate generative AI into its services used by billions of users. Zuckerberg says the team will focus on building creative tools at first, but its long-term goal is to create “AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways. The company, however, h...

Snapchat announced that it’s launching “My AI,” a new chatbot running the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology that it has customized for its users. My AI is now available as an experimental feature for Snapchat+, the social network’s $ 3.99-a-month subscription service. The company says My AI can recommend birthday gift ideas for your BFF, plan a hiking trip for a long weekend, suggest a rec...

Nokia announced plans to change its brand identity for the first time in nearly 60 years, complete with a new logo, as the telecom equipment maker focuses on aggressive growth. The new logo comprises five different shapes forming the word NOKIA. The iconic blue colour of the old logo has been dropped for a range of colours depending on the use. Chief Executive Pekka Lundmark says there was an asso...

Citizens of Kenya will be able to buy government securities from a digital platform known as DhowCSD, instead of its current USSD system from March, The DhowCSD is a mobile app and will be available on Android and Apple stores. It is supposed to fill the gaps in the current USSD system of buying and selling securities, treasury bills and bonds. TrendsKe says the digital platform will also enable t...

The global watchdog for money laundering and terrorist financing, the Financial Action Task Force has placed Nigeria on its grey list. The FATF has 40 recommendations that provide guidelines for a country’s financial system to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorist organisations. The watchdog currently has two lists that point out countries with weak laws to prevent money launderi...

Facebook-parent Meta has launched a subscription service, called Meta Verified, that will allow users to add the coveted blue check mark to their Instagram and Facebook accounts for up to $15 a month by verifying their identity, its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says tapping a new revenue channel that has returned mixed success for its smaller rival Twitter. Meta will allow users to verify their...

Nigeria’s data protection authority Nigeria Data Protection Bureau is investigating over 110 companies, including banks, telecom firms, and gaming companies, for data breaches. Those found guilty will face civil or criminal liability, and even the Nigeria Police Force is involved in the investigation. The data controllers are also being investigated to check that they are performing due diligence...

Education in Africa is still not where it needs to be for the continent to cater to its bustling young population. In solving the education problem in Africa, Co-Creation Hub with its presence in Nigeria and Kenya is launching an accelerator with a focus on ed-tech. The accelerator which will be called the EdTech Fellowship Program will commit $15 million to support 72 startups in Nigeria and Keny...

South Africa mobile network operator Telkom Group, which has operations in numerous other African countries, has released its financial results for the four months period ended 31 December 2022, showing impressive top-line growth in most of its verticals. The company’s mobile data traffic and subscribers are up 25.6% and 12.9% year-on-year to 309 petabytes and 18.6 million subscribers respectively...

The supervisory board of the e-commerce company, Jumia, has now appointed Francis Dufay as the company’s CEO. Dufay was announced as the acting CEO after the exit of Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poginonnec as Co-CEOs. The exit of both CEOs came after a decade where Jumia was pressed to move towards profitability and was unable to. Jumia says the executive search that was being conducted has now been co...

Blockfinex, a Barbados and Seychelles-registered crypto exchange company, has acquired a 100% stake in Nigerian crypto payment gateway startup, Fluidcoins for an undisclosed sum. Danny Oyekan, the founder and CEO of Blockfinex says the acquisition was driven by a decision to venture into Wallet as a service business and crypto payment processing and scale it across the world. Oyekan says the acqui...

Yahoo has announced that it is laying off 20% of its staff, or about 1,600, becoming the latest technology company to trim down its headcount in what has become somewhat of a daily trend. The company’s legacy ad tech division, Yahoo for Business, will be overhauled and transformed into a new division called Yahoo Advertising. Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone stressed that unlike with other big tech layoffs o...

Apple released a new version of the iPhone and iPad’s operating systems to fix a vulnerability that hackers were exploiting in the wild, meaning they were taking Apple credited an anonymous researcher for the discovery, and also thanked Citizen Lab for their assistance. Apple’s spokesperson Scott Radcliffe says that the company has nothing to add apart from what’s in the release notes. Since Janua...

YouTube announced its new marketplace, Creator Music, is now fully open to all YouTube Partner Program participants in the U.S. The online destination offers a large catalog of songs that creators can browse, search through, and purchase where the terms of the music rights are spelled out in plain language, so creators can understand the costs involved. In addition to being able to purchase licens...

Mobile games and interactive content publisher, Carry1st has acquired Gebeta a Qene Games product that portrays African culture for an undisclosed amount. This comes weeks after Carry1st announced a $27 million raise. The deal is the first exit for Qene Games, the company behind the smartphone games Kukulu, Gebeta, Feta, and Tras. Qene Games will continue collaborating with Carry1st to help Gebeta...

Kenyan business publication Business Daily reported that the telco had acquired the necessary spectrum in Kenya, and is planning to introduce 5G network in high-income neighbourhoods in Kenya. Airtel Africa CEO Segun Ogunsanya, says the service will be launched in selected cities where Airtel recognises enough devices and enough purchasing power to really enjoy the benefits of 5G. He believes that...

Neobank Be Mobile Africa has announced the launch of a crypto trading platform which will allow enabling individuals in South Africa to buy and trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana as well as USD stablecoins such as USDC using South African rands. Dr. Cédric Jeannot, CEO of Be Mobile Africa, says enabling their users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies easily and securel...

Ethiopia’s government seeks to sell 40% of its stake in state-owned Ethio-Telecom. The Ethiopian Ministry of Finance touted Ethio-Telecom’s near monopoly of Ethiopia’s The Ministry of Finance says the Company’s robust infrastructure coupled with its strong financial performance will offer significant competitive advantage to any investor. Ethiopia is looking for investors who can add value to the...

Google has announced the introduction of Bard, the company’s experimental conversational AI service which is powered by the Language Model for Dialogue Applications. Google has described Bard as a conversational AI service that combines the depth of the world’s information with the power, intelligence, and creativity of its large language models to help deliver answers to inquiries. Similar to Cha...

SoftBank Group’s investment vehicles posted a loss of nearly $6 billion in the quarter that ended in December as the Japanese tech investor continues to bleed through the market downturn and significantly pares back new backings. This is the fourth consecutive quarter in which SoftBank Group has lost money, prompting many to challenge the fundamental thesis of the giant, which has deployed more ca...

India is moving to block 232 apps, some with links to China, that offer betting and loan services in the South Asian market to prevent misuse of the citizens’ data. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is in the process to enforce an emergency order to ban 138 betting and gambling apps and another 94 that provided unauthorized loan services in the interest of protecting the count...

Gokada, one of Nigeria’s most prominent last-mile delivery companies, reportedly considered selling the business to a competitor, Kwik Logistics, in 2022. Ultimately, the deal did not go through and it is unclear why those talks broke down. Gokada recently set its valuation at $10 million as it tried to raise $100,000 through crowdfunding. Gokada recently laid off at least 20 employees in November...