Africa Tech News

inDrive has responded to calls for its banning in Botswana following complaints by local public transport operators. The taxi association claimed that inDrive, launched in Botswana in December 2019, is operating without the necessary licences. The taxi association argues that inDrive operators should be subject to the same regulations; the DRTS confirmed that it is investigating the complaint. InD...

The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, met with M.M. Tripathi, the Director-General of India’s National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. The meeting was aimed at fostering a deeper understanding of the Indian digital economy and exploring avenues for knowledge sharing and collabor...

MTN has launched payments and remittance features within its MoMo app, doubling down on its fintech and mobile money play in South Africa. The services will enable MTN users to send cash abroad and businesses to accept payments at a 4% service fee, which the company claims is half of what incumbents currently charge. It has partnered with fintech platform Clicksendnow to provide the service in Zam...

The United States Millennium Challenge Corporation has signed a $60 million deal with Kenya. The agreement, known as the “Kenya Urban Mobility and Growth Threshold Program,” will support four mobility projects: the Integrated Transport Planning project, the First and Last Mile Connections project, the Detailed Land Use project, and the Bus Rapid Transit project. The US will also finance the purcha...

The Nigerian government, through the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, plans to team up with the Nigerian Exchange Limited to encourage startups to go public on the new NGX Technology Board. The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, called for more investments in these startups, saying Nigeria has been too cosy with oil, and it’s time...

East Africa’s private equity market has experienced significant growth in recent years. Per the East Africa Venture Capital Association, a total of 478 deals worth $8.6 billion closed over the past decade. The region also recorded a jump in exit activity in FY 2022, marking the highest numbers in a decade. The financial services sector recorded 14 exits, while the healthcare and energy sectors had...

Amazon has agreed to invest up to $4 billion in the AI startup Anthropic as the e-commerce group steps up rivalry against Microsoft, Meta, Google and Nvidia in the fast-growing sector that many technologists believe could be the next great frontier. The e-commerce group says it will initially invest $1.25 billion for a minority stake in Anthropic also operates an AI-powered, text-analyzing chatbot...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required a human safety operator to be present any time a self-driving truck operated on public roads in the state. The win for the autonomous trucking industry comes after the California Senate passed the bill in mid-September. The bill would have effectively banned driverless autonomous heavy-duty trucks from operating in the way they we...

South Africa’s electricity utility Eskom has stated that loadshedding is projected to be worse than it has ever been over the next 52-week period. Eskom’s Week 36 system status report that the South African power utility projects that over the next 52-week period, rolling blackouts, known as load-shedding, will be much worse than it has ever been. The report states that electricity generation capa...

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema declined to order a Justice Department official to stay out of the government's advertising antitrust lawsuit against Google but said the department should think about it. Google asked the Justice Department to consider requiring Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general in charge of antitrust, to recuse himself because of his work for a long list of Google cr...

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan it plans to invest $2 billion in Turkey. Michael Evans, president of Alibaba, made the comments in a meeting with Erdogan, according to a statement from the company's Turkish unit. It did not specify when the investment would be made. Evans says Alibaba has invested $1.4 billion in Turkey through its unit...

TikTok has been fined 345 million euros for breaching privacy laws regarding the processing of children's personal data in the European Union. Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner says the Chinese-owned short-video platform breached a number of EU privacy laws between July 31, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020. The DPC says TikTok's breaches included how in 2020 accounts for users under the age of 16 were...

Kenyan mobile money provider Safaricom is working on a partnership with Apple Inc. to integrate MPESA. M-Pesa executed a similar move by integrating with the American payment platform PayPal, enabling customers to deposit funds from M-PESA into the American payment system. Users had the option to transfer funds from PayPal into their M-PESA accounts. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www...

Ethiopia has partnered with Madras Security Printers Private Limited to produce new digital IDs, known as Fayda, for its 120 million people. The government initiated Fayda ID enrollment last year, and since then, over 1.4 million Ethiopians have registered. Fayda IDs will incorporate biometric information, ensuring secure access to various public services and streamlined identity verification when...

Flutterwave has launched Swap, a new product that will digitise the process of getting foreign exchange for Nigerians with the backing of the CBN. The fintech is leveraging a partnership with Wema Bank, a commercial bank, and Kadavra BDC, a bureau de change, to provide liquidity and foreign exchange for the product. Mr Folashodun Shonubi, the acting governor of the CBN, says that Swap could solve...

Elon Musk has confirmed that he in essence scuttled a Ukrainian military strike on Russia by refusing to allow Starlink to be used in the process. The billionaire claims the decision was made to avoid being complicit in a major act of war,but it also raises serious questions regarding the role of oligarchs in military matters. Musk says when Ukraine made an emergency request to activate it, he ref...

Flutterwave is teaming up with India’s IndusInd Bank to launch its Send App remittance product right into the heart of India. IndusInd Bank boasts an impressive 35 million customers. This strategic alliance is all about connecting Flutterwave which already has a firm footing in 30 African countries to the economic powerhouse that is India. Flutterwave has been on a roll, securing a payment service...

California is set to pass the country’s first legislation that aims to increase diversity in venture capital. The bill requires venture capital firms operating in California to report the diversity breakdown of the founders they fund to the state; this includes reporting on the gender and ethnic and racial background of the founders, in addition to the dollar amount given to them. Senator Nancy Sk...

Google is updating its political content policy to include a new mandate. The search giant announced on Wednesday that all verified election advertisers are to tell people if their ads use artificial intelligence (AI) in campaign content. Starting mid-November, election advertisers must tell people if their ads use artificial intelligence (AI) to create images, videos, or audio that look real. T h...

Kenya’s Communications Authority is addressing the regulatory challenges of emerging technologies. The CA has suggested establishing regulatory sandboxes to oversee new technologies like digital currencies. A regulatory sandbox is used to assess technological services under supervision before they are fully integrated into the regulatory framework to ensure compliance and assess potential risks. W...

The Kenyan Film Classification Board urged TikTok to disable the live feature to stop the growing trend of content creators making explicit sexual content on TikTok Lives at night. Kenya’s House of Assembly received a petition from a concerned citizen calling for a TikTok ban due to the trend of explicit sexual content on the platform. President Ruto however says an outright ban is not the solutio...

Globalstar, a satellite network operator backed by Apple, has purchased launches from SpaceX worth $64 million. The launches, which are scheduled for 2025, will send at least 17 new satellites to low Earth orbit to replenish Globalstar’s existing constellation. Globalstar entered into a $327 million purchase agreement with MDA for those satellites in February last year, with Rocket Lab acting as s...

Tesla just chopped $3,000 off the price of its “full self-driving” beta software. The 20% cut brings the cost of FSD down to $12,000 in North America. The automaker charges $6,000 for what it calls “Enhanced Autopilot,” which introduces some extras to help with parking, as well as pulling the vehicle out of tight spots via a smartphone app. Tesla owners can buy FSD, which includes all the enhanced...

MIT economists Arnaud Costinot and Iván Werning discuss the potential impact a proposed 'robot tax' could have on automation and jobs Arnaud Costinot and Iván Werning say their findings suggest that taxes on either robots or imported goods should be pretty small. Costinot says Although robots have an effect on income inequality they still lead to optimal taxes that are modest Prominent figures, in...

Egyptian payments provider Fawry, will be turning its online payment portal—myFawry—into a digital bank to provide financial services including payments, consumer lending, savings, and investments, by the end of 2023. The company’s head of investor relations, Hassan Abdelgelil clarified that the decision to launch a digital bank is yet to be finalised. The Central Bank of Egypt issued rules for li...