Cassava Innovation Challenge at the World Economic Forum for Africa.
Natty Ngoy, Inaden et le 100% made in Africa - JeuneAfrique.com. Paytoo et Infenix s’associent pour le transfert d’argent en afrique. Nigeria - SmartFarm : une appli pour un meilleur rendement agricole. 'Shark Tank' Investor Daymond John Interested In African Solar Startup. Daymond John, CEO and Founder of FUBU, told a press briefing at the just ended Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Nairobi, Kenya, that he was interested in a solar energy start-up and would like to come in and help scale it up distribution in the US.
The co-host of ultra-popular US reality TV series ‘Shark Tank’ said he had not been approached by any investors by the time of the press briefing but he had taken keen interest in the solar start-up and was going to pursue them. “I did see one that I did like and maybe I will help once I’m back in the United states. It was part of Power Africa. It was the company that was making solar lamp for about $5 and maybe I can help them with distribution in the United States. But they are doing amazing here already,” John told journalist on the sidelines of GES. He said starting up as an entrepreneur most of his business ideas failed and he believed that failure was part of success and not a reason to give up. Mobile Payments Revolutionising African Lives - The Market Mogul. La bataille du e-commerce en Afrique a commencé ! - JeuneAfrique.com. Faible accès à internet, prédominance des paiements en espèces, soucis logistiques, manque de confiance...
Malgré ces obstacles, les start-up de la vente en ligne entendent bien dépasser les leaders de la distribution en Afrique. À Abidjan, rien ne semble prêt et pourtant tout est annoncé. D’ici à trois mois, Cdiscount, le numéro un français du commerce en ligne (devant Amazon France), débutera ses activités en Côte d’Ivoire. Francophone and Technophile: French-Speaking Africa’s Budding Tech Scenes. The past few years have been replete with media stories of an unfolding “African digital renaissance” and the wonders of the “Silicon Savannah” and other Sub-Saharan African tech hubs, with coverage reaching a fever pitch in the wake of this month’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi.
Yet francophone Africa has been noticeably absent from tech reporting and events in the subcontinent, with the world’s attention largely focused on anglophone countries—most prominently Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana—and disproportionately so, even when accounting for their larger populations. For instance, of the 30 top startups competing in the upcoming DEMO Africa pitch competition, only three are from francophone countries: two from Cameroon (which has a combined francophone and anglophone heritage) and one from Côte d’Ivoire. Les inventeurs Marocains célèbrent l’Innovation. Meet the Trailblazer Who is Revolutionizing Tech and Finance to Empower African Entrepreneurs [Video] - Bold & Fearless. 'Telephone farmers' reaping the benefits of agri-tech. A new breed of tech-savvy farmers is emerging throughout Kenya.
Sometimes called "telephone farmers", they are making use of a growing number of technologies and platforms to help them choose and manage their crops more efficiently. And mobile devices are giving a growing number of them the ability to do this while continuing to live and work in the city. As US President Barack Obama said during his recent visit to the country: "Kenya is on the move. " Cloud farming. Cash is dying in the developing world. Head over to the WIRED Money 2015 hub for more coverage of the thought leaders and innovators speaking at this year's summit.
Ismail Ahmed, CEO and founder of WorldRemit, has serious business to do with the two billion unbanked people in the world. Speaking at WIRED Money 2015, Ahmed explains how mobile money is transforming not only his own company, a platform for families to send money to one another across geographical boundaries, but whole economies. "For millions of people in developing countries, their lives revolve around cash," he says. "People are often forced to save their cash under the mattress.
Technologies : quand WhatsApp bouscule les codes de la communication politique en Afrique - JeuneAfrique.com. Lancée depuis bientôt cinq ans, l’application de messagerie internet WhatsApp a conquis les smartphones de millions d’utilisateurs dans le monde.
Très utilisé en Afrique, l’outil s'installe même au cœur des stratégies de communication des hommes politiques. Africa's impact generation - Africans trade aid for enterprise Africa is on the rise.
The continent’s GDP has quadrupled since 2000 and, with 6 of the 13 fastest-growing economies in the world, its reputation is changing from aid recipient to investment opportunity. Despite this progress, many challenges remain: 48% still live on less than $1.25/day, only 16% are in stable employment and just 7% have access to higher education. Sustaining growth will thus require entrepreneurs to create companies that can both make a profit and deliver positive social, economic and environmental impacts to their communities. Who Is Imagining Africa? Opinion By Okello Oculi The Heads of State and Government of the African Union met in South Africa from June 6th to 9th, 2015.
The Group of seven richest capitalist countries also held a parallel meeting in Germany. The din of publicity given to the G7 by the media they own and direct gave a hint that there was some intent to hit back at South Africa as host for its membership of the rival BRICS club of economies that is an irritant to G7 leaders. The G7 countries met as thousands of young Africans were drowning in the Mediterranean Sea while being exported to Europe. As AU leaders met, Donald Kaberuka left the presidency of the African Development Bank. Railway lines in Africa have ran on a colonial model of hauling raw minerals and agricultural products to sea ports that served both landlocked and coastal countries.
African Governments Invest in Skills in Sciences, Engineering, and Technology. Johannesburg, June 29, 2015— A high-level gathering including H.E.
President Macky Sall of Senegal and government and business representatives from several African countries, met to discuss greater support for Africa’s skills needs. President Sall officially launched the Regional Scholarship and Innovative fund on June 13, 2015, with initial seed money of US$5 million contributed by African governments. The Fund is a key initiative under the Partnership for Skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (PASET), which is facilitated by the World Bank Group. “Increasingly, Africa sees the need to depend on science and technology to increase industrial and agricultural productivity, guarantee food security, tackle diseases, ensure a safe water supply, and reduce the energy deficit,” said President Sall. 10 numbers that show how a few African nations are winning - or can top - the race to be very rich. IT seems that every day, a new road is being commissioned or built in Ethiopia; the country is on a massive infrastructure-building spree.
Although hard data is scanty on just how many new roads, ports, houses and bridges have been built in the past few years, it can be inferred by looking at cement consumption per capita. Before 2010, the country’s cement consumption per capita was just 35kg/year, very low indeed by international standards; the global average was 390kg/year. Clients the big winners in Africa’s digital banking boom - Graphic Online. The growth of the digital economy is creating a watershed moment for the banking industry and changing the equation of how clients are served.
Significantly, African clients are at the forefront of these changes, particularly driven by high mobile penetration. Clients are now increasingly getting access to services of all types via mobile devices. And their expectations of how banks and other businesses serve them are increasingly set by digitally native technology players like Alibaba and Apple. Seamless client experiences; a must to build loyalty While clients are still predominantly using banks for the vast majority of their financial needs, from deposits to home loans to credit cards and payment services, the competitive battleground is on how clients are served.
Payments, for example, comprise a significant portion of a client’s interactions with their bank. It’s about clients being offered the most relevant savings and credit card mix based on their past usage. How African countries stack in technology rankings. Dr Robert Pepper* Last Updated: 31 May 2015|20:21 GMT Source: Wikimedia Thirty years ago a UN commission published the Maitland Report, proposing that by the early 21st century, every individual on the planet should “be within easy reach of a telephone” given its economic benefits. That was interpreted as being within a one-day walk of a phone. Anyone suggesting back then that over 90% of the global population would be covered by mobile cellular signals, and over half of the world’s population would have a phone in their pocket, would have been labelled a crazy optimist.
This year’s Global Information Technology Report, and chapter 1.2 in particular, details this history of information and communications technologies (ICTs) as a powerful driver of economic growth and reviews the remaining barriers to more inclusive prosperity. For Sub-Saharan Africa, the new report highlights the region’s overall stable performance since 2012 in its ICT ecosystem. African Banks Eye Cellphone Services To Lock-In Customers. Afritorial.com It is not a secret any more that Africa is leading the world over in mobile banking services that allow subscribers to perform banking and payment operations on their mobile phones. There is however another revolution that is just about to change the way mobile banking is done in Africa. After being outsmarted by telecoms when they introduced money transfer services, commercial banks across the continent have woken up to the realization that they cannot dissociate their businesses from providing cellphone services. « Nous voulons être la plus grande plateforme de petites annonces d’Afrique »
Young CEO (22yrs) from Egypt invents navigational technology for the blind. Twenty-two-year-old Khaled Shady is the Egyptian entrepreneur behind Mubser, an invention that assists the blind and visually impaired to identify and navigate around everyday objects. Shady’s inspiration behind creating Mubser came from wanting to help a close friend who lost his eyesight in an accident at the age of 15. 10 Africans Who Founded Million-Dollar Internet Companies. The number of millionaires springing up from digital ventures has grown tremendously in the past two decades, as the world increasingly embrace the potential of knowledge technologies, information and social media to produce economic benefits , employment and enable globalisation. From Mark Zuckerberg to Sergey Brin, Lawrence E.
Page and YouTube partners: Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, the world has witnessed a new breed of entrepreneurs who have charted a new course in business while making a fortune at it. The good news – Africa is not lagging behind. Innovative minds in the motherland have cited and exploited opportunities in the knowledge economy, which has become more prominent as the internet usage and importance increased over the years. Africa’s Low-Carbon Revolution. Banking in Africa: 'We need to be innovative: mass adoption, then profit' Sub-Saharan Africa may lag behind much of the rest of the world when it comes to the number of people with a bank account – 66% of its population do not have one, according to the World Bank – but there is huge potential for technology to be used to deliver financial services to those living in communities that banks traditionally wouldn’t touch due to high operating costs for a low profit return.
Indeed, while the 2015 World Bank Findex report found only 2% of people have a mobile money account worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa is the global leader in this field with 12% of adults having access to one. At a roundtable discussion in Cape Town, South Africa, hosted by the Guardian in association with Visa and Barclays, against the backdrop of the World Economic Forum on Africa, a panel of experts discussed which countries and markets on the continent had the conditions most conducive for connecting people to banking for the first time.
Hajo van Beijma, founder and director, TTC Mobile. Des cabines solaires spécialisées pour fournir de l’électricité. Is this the solution for future fuel crises in Africa? A simple convenience most of us take for granted. But when the sun sets in Africa and darkness falls, many are forced to live through an overnight blackout until the next day dawns. A staggeringly low 24% of the sub-Saharan population have access to electricity with some 25 nations suffering rolling blackouts due to the ongoing energy crisis on the continent, according to the World Bank. More recently, Makhtar Diop, the global financial institution's vice president for Africa, called on his African compatriots to do more to solve the continent's energy struggles. Kenya to launch space centre. The country is in the final stages of establishing a space centre, the equivalent of National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) agency, a project that will propel Kenya to the elite club of a few countries in the world that own earth observation satellites.
Untitled. Congo Basin Institute. Trestor Partners with Cameroon for New Currency Ecosystem. Moving towards its mission to create an efficient money, payment, and market system for the unbanked, Indian startup Trestor has partnered with the Cameroon government. With this partnership, Trestor aims to deliver last mile services in the southwest African country. Is this man Africa's answer to Richard Branson? A lot, it transpires. Technology to tame Africa's deadly transport chaos.
Nairobi's roads are renowned for their chaos. Cars, lavishly decorated buses, reckless matatu minibus taxis, and daredevil motorbike riders intermingle with the odd herd of cows to create a gridlocked maze, and a nightmare for the commuter trying to get home. Africa discovers the power of crowdfunding. Budding South African film producer Meg Rickards was struggling to raise the money for her new feature film, Whiplash, when she came across the idea of crowdfunding.
"We had about 70% of the budget and were battling to raise the rest," she remembers. Meg decided to try local South African crowdfunding site Thundafund, and launched a campaign to raise the rest of the cash for her feature film project. Delivering low-cost, solar-powered Internet access to rural Kenya. Students in Kenya, where Microsoft and its partners are delivering low-cost, solar-powered Internet access to parts of the country.
Recently, I returned to Nanyuki, Kenya to check on the progress of a unique project Microsoft launched with Mawingu Networks, Jamii Telecom Limited and the Kenyan Ministry of ICT to deliver low-cost, solar-powered Internet access and device charging to rural Kenya. The project, launched two years ago, utilizes ‘white spaces’ – TV frequencies assigned to broadcasters but not used locally – that could be used to provide wireless, broadband access to the 80 percent of Kenyans who do not have access to the Internet. The project is already reaping measurable benefits. Just ask Steven Mwaniki from the Gakawa Secondary School in Nanyuki, which is located on the equator in the foothills of Mt. Moroccan villagers harvest fog for water supply.
Les premiers prototypes de Cardiopad bientôt vendus. This Two Kenyans Manufacture Pencils From Recycled Newspapers - TechMoran. African Billionaires Join Together To Launch African Energy Group. Qui sont les particuliers utilisateurs du bitcoin ? - Les Echos. Africa's first ever air race has been hosted in Tunisia. L’Afrique à la recherche du prochain Einstein. Nigerian student Ufot Ekong solves 30-year-old maths equation and breaks academic record at Japanese university - Africa - World - The Independent.
TU Delft Developing A Network Of 20,000 Weather Stations to Track Climate Change in Africa. Pay-as-You-Go Solar Panels Offer African Communities a Cheaper Energy Alternative. Ushahidi Unveils Revolutionary BRCK Portable Router that Works in the Remotest of Locations. Cargo drones in Africa: Going the last mile? Drones for Development by J.M. Ledgard and Scott MacMillan. Paper test cards pick out fake malaria drugs. Facebook’s free internet limits poor users. Africa’s Maker Movement Offers Opportunity for Growth. Afrimakers: What Is Africa's Maker Movement All About?
Her Ingenious Solution Is Helping Curb Female Drop-Out Rates In Africa. Facebook and Google scramble to bring the internet to Africa - Newsnight. Securing the future of drone journalism in Africa. Thomas Mensah: First African inducted into US Academy of Inventors. Prepaid Meters Scupper Gains Made in Accessing Water in Africa. Innovative Aquaculture Farming Technology in South Africa. Perspectives on Africa - 4 young entrepreneurs talk about Africa, Youth and Entrepreneurship.
Le chercheur marocain Adnane Remmal lauréat du Prix de l’innovation pour l’Afrique. Monnaie alternative - Kenya - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Charbon de Typha - Mauritanie - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Charbon de Typha - Mauritanie - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. SMS budget - Liberia - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique.
Médicaments - Togo - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Diffuseurs d'eau - Tunisie - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Diffuseurs d'eau - Tunisie - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Monnaie alternative - Kenya - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Produits agricoles - Sénégal - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Energie et microfinance - Cameroun - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique - Rwanda. Sac à dos bio - Ethiopie - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Sacs plastiques - Burkina Faso - 100 innovations pour un développement durable pour l'Afrique. Constructions - Niger │Forum 100 innovations pour l'Afrique.
Sagcot - Tanzanie │Forum 100 innovations pour l'Afrique. Why solar power is spreading so fast in Africa. L’innovation numérique bouillonne en Afrique - #Tech24. L’innovation numérique bouillonne en Afrique - #Tech24. African Union banks on ST&I to fast-track development - SciDev.Net Sub-Saharan Africa. DivSeek project aims to uncover crops’ hidden genetic data.
Debate Africa’s knowledge economy. African governments advised to promote biotechnology - SciDev.Net Sub-Saharan Africa. Ranks of super-rich Africans on the rise. Telecom: Invention du MATLOOP par un africain pour les africains. Tech startups are making it easier for entrepreneurs to connect in Africa. High Tech: Developing better solutions for Africa - #TECH24. Innovate Africa - Science Africa.