A selection of tech news from Nigeria and Africa at large.
Cowry Card Rail Payment | Google Unlicensed Loan Apps Ban | Digital Entrepreneurship Upskilling | 3 African Agri-Tech Startups Scoops USD1.5 | Elon Musk’s Starlink In Nigeria
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Firm launches card payment for Lagos rail – The Punch News
Touch and Pay Technologies, a fintech company, has announced that rail passengers across Lagos can access the newly launched Blue Rail Line using its contactless Cowry card.
According to the firm, its partnership with the Lagos State government would enable individuals to use the Cowry card across the 13 kilometres of track proposed for the project.
It stated that the first phase of the track from Marina to Mile-2 would support 200,000 daily passengers, who can now enter and exit stations through TAP’s state-of-the-art turnstiles.
In a statement, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Touch and Pay Technologies, OlamideAfolabi, said, “We are thrilled to be facilitating and digitising payment on behalf of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority. We have deployed our NFC payment solutions on BRT buses, ferries, and now trains.
“Our contactless payment solutions have been a huge success. We have created a 21st-century solution for today’s passengers. Up until now, train fares typically worked on low-value cash transactions, whereas most electronic cards don’t allow for payment below $10, which was problematic for many passengers. Read more here
Google to ban unlicensed loan apps in Kenya as new rules take effect – TechCrunch
Google’s new policy requiring digital lenders in Kenya to submit proof of license to operate in the East African country takes effect today. The policy aims to clamp down on rogue loan apps, which are pervasive in the country. This means that only providers with licenses from the country’s pinnacle bank, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), will be listed on Play Store, Google’s digital distribution service.
Digital lenders whose applications are yet to get a green light from the CBK, and can produce evidence of the same, will also obtain Google’s interim approval, but it will only be valid for 45 days. Once this period elapses, the unlicensed providers will be required to resubmit the declaration form attesting that the approval from CBK is still pending. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that if the application for license is rejected during the 45 days, interim approval will be immediately rescinded. Read more here
Foundation empowers women on digital, entrepreneurship skills – TheGuardian
As part of efforts targeted at making women tech-savvy and contributing to nation-building, a non-governmental organization, Wives roundtable Foundation has embarked on a two-day training to empower them with the latest ICT skills to boost their businesses or careers.
Founder, Wives roundtable Foundation, Amaka Chibuzo-Obi, while speaking at the event in Surulere, Lagos, disclosed that the project aims to empower women positively in the digital spaces, impact the family, improve the society and boost the economy. At the second edition of the ICT programme, which was intensive and free of charge to all participants, Obi said the two-day training was borne out of a desire to help middle aged women to become tech savvy and assist themselves and children to be relevant in the social media.
She added that the training would boost both their on -line and off line businesses, confidences and ensure they never remain stuck to their existing businesses.
She also added that the àim was also to make a decent living and earn money to enable them to gain financial freedom. Read more here
3 African agri-tech startups winners of $1.5m AYuTe Africa Challenge – Disrupt Africa
Three African agri-tech startups – ThriveAgric of Nigeria, Kenya’s DigicCow and Botswana-based Brastorne Enterprises – have been named winners of the AYuTe Africa Challenge, securing shares of US$1.5 million in grant funding and access to expert advisors.
Organised by Heifer International, the AYuTe Africa Challenge aims to support agri-tech innovators on the continent, and is part of Heifer’s commitment to support young entrepreneurs developing affordable tech innovations as they work to scale their businesses.
ThriveAgric is a fast-growing startup boosting farmer incomes and production with its breakthrough “agriculture operating system”; DigiCow is an agri-tech firm using digital tools to modernise production on small-scale dairy farms; and Brastorne Enterprises has developed digital technology for feature phones that is narrowing Africa’s rural digital divide. Read more here
Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service launches in Nigeria – TechinAfrica
A few months after signing a contract with the Nigerian government to provide the service to the West African nation. SpaceX, an Elon Musk-founded space technology company, said that Starlink, its satellite internet service, is now commercially available in Nigeria. The service is now online in Nigeria, the first African nation to do so. According to our research, the 46th country overall. The firm announced this in a tweet on Monday.
With more than 400,000 users globally and permission to operate on all seven continents, the service can deliver internet speeds of up to 200 Mbps to any location in the world.
According to information from Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index, as of December 2022, Nigeria’s fixed broadband download speed was 11.40 Mbps, and upload speed was 9.87 Mbps, while its mobile internet download speed was 21.54 Mbps and upload speed was 10.10 Mbps.
According to Speedtest Intelligence, MTN and Airtel, Nigeria’s two leading telecom providers, have median download speeds of 21.71Mbps and 22.42Mbps, respectively. Other ISPs, like ipNX, advertise speeds of up to 150 Mbps for their fiber-optic service for residential clients and up to 500 Mbps for their service for commercial customers. Their monthly rates range from 40,000 to 160,000, with the cost of the hardware ranging from 45,000 to 70,000. Read more here
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Image Credit: Akingate Design Studio
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