Technology
9 Nigerian Firms for World Bank’s 20 Top African Start-Ups Digital Course
By Dipo Olowookere
No fewer than nine firms linked with Nigeria have been shortlisted among the 20 most promising African digital start-ups to partake in the XL Africa residency, the flagship initiative of the business accelerator launched last April by the World Bank Group’s infoDev program.
From November 6-17, 2017 in Cape Town, the entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to learn from their mentors and peers, increase their regional visibility, and get access to potential corporate partners and investors.
The residency will conclude with the XL Africa Venture Showcase, a regional event organized in association with the African Angel Investor Summit, in which the entrepreneurs will present their business models to a select audience of corporations and investors.
With support from African investment groups, XL Africa will help the start-ups attract early stage capital between $250,000 and $1.5 million.
Selected from a pool of over 900 applicants, these start-ups specialize in digital solutions for the African market, including fin-tech, transportation, health care, education, human resources, and B2B. All companies provide a digital product or service currently available in one or more African markets and show potential to scale across the region.
“We are pleased by the interest infoDev and XL Africa generated across the continent in just a few months,” said Klaus Tilmes, Director of the Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice at the World Bank Group. “XL Africa attracted firms with high-growth potential; many have female co-founders, have already raised early stage investment, and have demonstrated significant market traction. The number and quality of applications received are a clear testament to the competitiveness of African start-ups and the key role they play in Africa’s growing digital economy.”
The selection for XL Africa was conducted by a panel of industry experts from the International Finance Corporation (IFC); implementing partners IMC Worldwide, Koltai & Co, and Venture Capital for Africa (VC4A); as well as investors from prominent African funds, including Knife Capital, 4Di Capital LLP, Singularity Investments, TLcom Capital LLP, Goodwell Investments, Nest Africa, and Africa Tech Ventures.
“We encountered very strong companies, particularly in the transportation, HR, and data analytics sectors,” said Danai Musandu, investment associate at Goodwell Investments. “We also observed signals of a nascent pipeline of digital companies beyond the traditional hot spots of Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. These talented entrepreneurs are among those who are going to drive innovation on the continent and offer great opportunities for investors looking at African markets.”
The selected start-ups participating in the event are Aerobotics (Data, South Africa); Asoko Insight (Data, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, United Kingdom, and Nigeria); Coin Afrique (Marketplace, Senegal and Benin); Edgepoint Digital (Jamii) (FinTech – Insurance, Tanzania); Electronic Settlement Limited (FinTech, Nigeria); Lynk Jobs Ltd. (HR, Kenya); MAX (Transport, Nigeria); ogaVenue (Venue Platform, Nigeria); Ongair (SME Services, Kenya); Pesabazaar.com (FinTech, Kenya); Prepclass (EdTech, Nigeria); Printivo (Printing, Nigeria); and Rasello Company Ltd. (SME Services, Tanzania).
Others are Rensource (Energy, Nigeria); Sendy Ltd. (Delivery, Kenya); Snapplify (Publishing, South Africa and Kenya); Sokowatch (Delivery, Kenya); TalentBase (HR, Nigeria); Timbuktu (Travel, South Africa); and Tizeti Network Ltd. (Connectivity, Nigeria).
XL Africa is funded by the governments of Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and administered by the World Bank Group with implementation support from IMC Worldwide, VC4A, and Koltai & Co.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing firm, NVIDIA, has made an undisclosed investment in Cassava Technologies.
NVIDIA joins Cassava’s impressive roster of investors comprising Econet Group, British International Investment, DFC, Finnfund, Fund for Export Development in Africa (Afreximbank/FEDA), Gateway Capital, Google LLC, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Public Investment Corporation and Royal Bafokeng Holdings.
Cassava operates across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America through a strong portfolio of business units comprising Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Africa Data Centres, Liquid C2, Cassava.ai, and Sasai Fintech, all of which are leaders in their respective sectors.
The organisation will continue collaborating with its partners and customers on the continent and beyond, establishing it as a leading technology company of African heritage.
“Cassava is Africa’s leading technology company, driving the continent’s digital transformation with digital infrastructure and digital services.
“Securing this investment is an important milestone that we expect to unlock additional value from and catalyze the further expansion of our digital infrastructure and services to bridge the digital divide on the continent,” the chief executive of Cassava, Mr Hardy Pemhiwa, stated.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
To deepen access to smartphones and digital services for underserved communities, Airtel Africa Foundation has joined forces with others to train some persons in Rwanda.
This aligns with Rwanda’s ambition to become a knowledge-based economy and complements national programmes such as Connect Rwanda.
The organisation is collaborating with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA) and Cisco on capacity and digital skills development under the Digital Transformation Centres (DTC) Initiative.
The parties will bridge the digital divide and promote digital inclusion by providing free Internet connectivity and digital skills training to underserved communities in the country, in connection with the advancement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
ITU will provide digital skills training content to the DTCs under the Initiative along with other ITU regional capacity development activities. In addition, ITU will facilitate networking opportunities related to promoting digital literacy and inclusion, which will enable access to expertise and best practices.
It was disclosed that Airtel Africa Foundation, through Airtel Rwanda, would equip DTC locations with routers, Wi-Fi and data packages at no cost, ensuring the effective rollout of training and access to digital educational platforms.
According to the chief executive of Airtel Rwanda, Mr Sujay Chakrabarti, the collaboration marks a significant step forward in bridging the digital divide and empowering Rwandan youth with digital skills.
He described the partnership as “a powerful example of what happens when government, private sector, and international organizations come together to empower communities.”
“This partnership reflects our commitment to supporting national development goals and closing the digital divide through meaningful collaboration,” said the Head of Programs at Airtel Africa Foundation, Ms Esi Asare Prah, said on behalf of the chairman of the foundation, Mr Segun Ogunsaya.
“We are honoured to partner with ITU to bring this vision to life and contribute to Rwanda’s journey toward becoming a digitally empowered society,” he added.
Also, the Regional Director for International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Mr Emmanuel Mannaseh, said, “Our partnership with Airtel Africa Foundation begins in Rwanda, where we are joining forces to strengthen digital skills in underserved communities to advance connectivity. This initiative lays the groundwork for broader regional collaboration, as we aim to expand this work to other Digital Transformation Centres across Africa.”
On his part, the chief executive of Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA), Mr Antoine Sebera, said, “What we are seeing here today is partnership in action. Statistics show that 900 million people in Africa remain unconnected, extra effort needs to be made to make sure that no one is left behind.
“This positions Rwanda a step ahead by being intentional to involve the youth. These centres are going to play a transformative role in educating the youth to leverage AI. Digital Transformation is driving the world and Africa or Rwanda cannot be left behind.”
By Faridat Yusuf
OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, has launched a new web browser called ChatGPT Atlas, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and is said to be a big competition to Google Chrome and other browsers.
The new browser, which was announced on Tuesday, aims to change the way people search and browse online. Instead of typing keywords like on Google, users can just talk to ChatGPT inside the browser, and it will summarise information or even do tasks for them.
According to Reuters, OpenAI already has about 800 million weekly users on ChatGPT, and with Atlas, the company is now trying to bring AI into people’s daily internet use.
Atlas allows users to open a ChatGPT sidebar in any browser window to summarise web pages, compare products or even analyse data from websites.
Business Post gathered that there is also an “agent mode” for people who pay for the premium version of the service. This feature lets ChatGPT perform online tasks, to make “improvements that make it faster and more useful by working with your browsing context.”
During the demo, OpenAI developers showed how ChatGPT used Atlas to go on the Instacart website and add items to the cart all by itself.
For now, the browser is available globally on Apple computers (macOS), but OpenAI says it will soon release versions for Windows, iPhones, and Android phones.
Experts say Atlas could become a serious challenge to Google Chrome, which currently controls about 71.9 per cent of the global browser market. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, saw its shares drop by 1.8 per cent after the announcement.
Google, which has majority of the online search market share, has also been trying to improve its browser using its Gemini AI model, which is now part of Chrome for US users.
Analysts believe OpenAI’s new browser might later start showing ads, which could make it compete directly with Google’s advertising business.
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