A selection of tech news from Nigeria and Africa at large.
ADB Closing Tech Gap | New Whatsapp Features | Nigerian Mobility Fintech Startup | Microsoft Hybrid Cloud | Digital Skills And Literacy Policy
________________________________________________________________________________________
Africa Investment Forum: closing the technology gap promises significant gains for Africa’s creative industries – African Development Bank
Africa’s creative industries have grown rapidly in recent years, as its music(link is external), films and fashion increasingly attract a global audience.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development defines creative industries as comprising a wide range of areas: arts and crafts; audiovisual media (film and TV); design (architecture and fashion); new media (video games); performing arts (musical instruments); publishing (books, newspapers); and visual arts (photography sculpture).
Cultural industries are increasingly intertwined with and dependent on technology and innovation. A striking example is Africarare(link is external), the first South African metaverse, which debuted in October 2021. According to reports, Africarare encompasses a digital world called Ubuntuland that provides an immersive virtual reality experience that includes an art marketplace for non-fungible tokens.
Another example illustrates how creative-sector technologies can be applied in other spheres. Mobihealth—a Nigerian subsidiary of an international telemedicine firm—is rolling out kiosks that incorporate virtual reality technology to offer primary healthcare to underserved Africans, exploiting a market gap. Read more here.
5 WhatsApp Features That Will Soon Be Launched to Improve User’s Experience – Legit News
WhatsApp is set to launch some new updates to improve user experience on the instant messaging platform. The meta-owned app is reportedly working on updates that will increase the current group chat participants limit. Screenshots of images and videos will be reduced to “view once”, giving captions to document sharing, India Today reported
Editing messages after sending: WhatsApp is working on allowing its users to edit messages after they have been sent within a timeframe. Just like Twitter, WhatsApp is currently testing a new feature which will make it possible for users to edit their sent messages within 15 minutes after being sent.
WhatsApp Group participants are to be increased to 1,024
Also, WhatsApp is reported to be planning to increase the number of group participants. The limit of group participants is currently 512, but the meta-owned messaging platform is working on allowing users to add up to 1,024 members in a group. The feature will be available to users on Android and iOS WhatsApp beta testers. Document sharing with captions Very soon, WhatsApp will roll out new updates allowing users to send their documents with captions, unlike before, when it only allows users to send photos, videos and GIFs with captions. Read more here.
Moove, a Nigerian mobility fintech startup, secures $16.8 million in funding – Tech Gist Africa
Moove, a Nigerian mobility fintech startup, has secured US$16.8 million in funding from Emso Asset Management to expand its UK operations after a successful launch in August.
By offering revenue-based vehicle finance to mobility businesses, Moove is democratizing vehicle ownership in Africa. It was founded in 2019 by British-born Nigerians Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi.
The ride-hailing, e-logistics, and instant delivery platforms that Moove integrates its alternative credit scoring algorithm into allow it to leverage its own performance and revenue analytics to underwrite loans to drivers who were previously denied access to financial services.
The company started its global expansion after raising $105 million in a Series A2 round in March that was made up of equity and debt. It later added an additional US$20 million from the British International Investment (BII), formerly known as the CDC Group, a development finance institution (DFI) of the UK government. Read more here.
Liquid Cloud, Microsoft partner to deploy hybrid cloud infrastructure – The Guardian
Through its Africa Transformation Office (ATO), Microsoft is working with Liquid Cloud to enable businesses with cloud services across Africa.
Liquid Cloud will work together with Microsoft to deliver resilient cloud solutions, using its colocation and connectivity capabilities alongside Microsoft Azure Stack HCI (hyper-converged infrastructure) and Azure Arc technology. The result enables customers in markets such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to meet regulatory and data residency requirements, address low latency workloads, strengthen resilience, and enable business continuity.
The hybrid cloud environment extends Azure capabilities, enabling customers to create cloud-native applications faster with Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) and data services such as App Service, Functions, Logic Apps, Azure SQL Managed Instance, PostgreSQL database, and Azure machine learning. As a result, customers will be able to innovate anywhere and use the Azure platform to bring new solutions to life – to solve today’s challenges and create the future. Read more here.
MWC Africa: Policy must integrate digital skills and literacy – Connecting Africa
To leverage the potential of connectivity, investment in digital skills and literacy must be integrated in African countries’ national policies. That’s the view of Rwandan President Paul Kagame who was speaking in a keynote address at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Africa in Kigali this week.
“Digital technologies are a catalytic force for development in Africa. Yet, almost half of adults in low- and middle-income countries do not have access to the Internet, even when living in areas with broadband coverage,” he said.
“Digital infrastructure is key, but it’s not enough.”
This is the first time the MWC Africa conference has been held in person on African shores, hosted by the GSMA and a number of African partners. Kagame said that to speed up prosperity, “technology has to go hand in hand with good governance.” Read more here.
