By Modupe Gbadeyanka

From Wednesday, January 28 to Friday, January 30, 2026, several experienced and budding innovators were at the inaugural Innovation Product Demo Day put together by one of Africa’s leading integrated payments and digital commerce companies, Interswitch.

The event was organized as a celebration of ingenuity and a catalyst for collaboration, as well as the company’s renewed commitment to building scalable digital solutions and infrastructure that power Africa’s evolving digital economy.

The programme brought together product managers, software engineers, and developers from across the Interswitch ecosystem, alongside student innovators from select tertiary institutions, to spotlight ideas, experiments, and early-stage solutions shaping the company’s next frontier of growth.

They all converged on the Interswitch Innovation Lab Co-Working Space in Lagos. The firm used the occasion to showcase how innovation is built at Interswitch, through structured experimentation, rapid iteration, and cross-functional collaboration.

Over the course of three days, teams unveiled a wide range of working prototypes, new product features, and emerging concepts, engaging in open dialogue that encouraged idea exchange, integration opportunities, and customer-centric problem solving.

The event also featured student innovators from Landmark University and Redeemer’s University, who presented solutions developed through the Interswitch Discovery Series, an initiative designed to nurture future-ready technical talent and strengthen Africa’s innovation pipeline. The students showcased products built from the skills and insights gained through the programme, underscoring Interswitch’s long-term investment in talent development and ecosystem sustainability.

Each presentation opened the floor for robust discussion, with participants offering feedback, asking critical questions, and sharing perspectives on how solutions could be refined, strengthened, and scaled. This collaborative environment reinforced Interswitch’s approach to innovation as a continuous learning process, grounded in execution, accountability, and real-world impact.

“The Interswitch Product Demo Day is more than a showcase. It’s a space where our teams can test ideas, learn from one another, and see the real-world impact of their work. It strengthens collaboration, builds technical capability, and inspires both our people and the wider tech community to keep shaping the future of technology,” the Chief Innovation Officer, Interswitch, Ms Adaobi Igwe-Okerekeocha, said.

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

A leading telecommunications firm, Airtel Nigeria, has reaffirmed its long-term commitment to strengthening the country’s digital infrastructure and data access to bridge gaps in connectivity and unlock new opportunities in the country.

The company gave this reassurance during a recent inspection tour of its ongoing Nxtra Data Centre at Eko Atlantic, Lagos.

The data centre is being established to deliver hyperscale and edge facilities across key African markets. With a load of 38 Megawatts, the Lagos facility is expected to serve as a major hub for data hosting, cloud services, content distribution, artificial intelligence, and enterprise solutions in West Africa.

“This Nxtra Data Centre in Lagos represents a critical part of our long-term vision for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. Today’s visit allows us to review progress, engage our stakeholders, and ensure that our infrastructure investments continue to meet global standards and local needs.

“This data centre will deliver critical high multi megawatt capacity in line with hyperscale customers and enable high density environment. We are putting the infra to bring the cloud to Nigeria,” the chief executive of Airtel Africa Plc, Mr Yashnath Issur, said.

Also commenting, the chief executive of Airtel Nigeria, Mr Dinesh Balsingh, said, “Since the announcement of this project, our focus has been on building a world-class facility that supports Africa’s digital transformation agenda.

“We are encouraged by the progress recorded so far and remain committed to delivering a secure, energy-efficient, and future-ready data centre for Nigeria,” reiterating that the data centre is progressing steadily towards the previously announced 2028 go live date.

On his part, the chairman of Eko Atlantic, Mr Gabbi Massoud, disclosed that, “Eko Atlantic as a city with high quality infrastructure will contribute positively to boost the economy of Nigeria and is a perfect place for the development of the digital infrastructure of Nigeria.

“The Nxtra data centre reflects the calibre of projects we seek to attract — long-term, technology-driven investments built to the highest global standards.

“Today’s visit affirms the rigour of the planning and execution process by Nxtra, and the commitment of Eko Atlantic to facilitate and promote the Nigeria’s evolving digital ecosystem.”

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

A speech dataset designed to catalyze research and build more inclusive Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies has been launched by Google in partnership with a consortium of leading African research institutions, which are mainly universities.

The main universities involved in the project known as WAXAL are Makerere University in Uganda, the University of Ghana, and Digital Umuganda in Rwanda.

A statement from Google on Monday said the dataset bridges a critical digital divide for over 100 million speakers by providing foundational data for 21 sub-Saharan African languages, including Hausa, Luganda, Yoruba, and Acholi.

While voice-enabled technologies have become common in much of the world, a profound scarcity of high-quality speech data has prevented their development for most of Africa’s over 2,000 languages. This has excluded hundreds of millions of people from accessing technology in their native tongues.

The WAXAL dataset was created to directly address this gap. Developed over three years with funding from Google, the project features 1,250 hours of transcribed, natural speech, and Over 20 hours of high-quality, studio recordings designed for building high-fidelity synthetic voices.

The WAXAL dataset, which is available starting today, covers Acholi, Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dholuo, Ewe, Fante, Fulani (Fula), Hausa, Igbo, Ikposo (Kposo), Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Malagasy, Masaaba, Nyankole, Rukiga, Shona, Soga (Lusoga), Swahili, and Yoruba.

Commenting on the development, the Head of Google Research for Africa, Ms Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, said, “The ultimate impact of WAXAL is the empowerment of people in Africa.

“This dataset provides the critical foundation for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to build technology on their own terms, in their own languages, finally reaching over 100 million people.

“We look forward to seeing African innovators use this data to create everything from new educational tools to voice-enabled services that create tangible economic opportunities across the continent.”

Also commenting, a Senior Lecturer at Makerere University’s School of Computing and Information Technology, Ms Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende, said, “For AI to have a real impact in Africa, it must speak our languages and understand our contexts.

“The WAXAL dataset gives our researchers the high-quality data they need to build speech technologies that reflect our unique communities. In Uganda, it has already strengthened our local research capacity and supported new student and faculty-led projects.”

An Associate Professor at the University of Ghana, Mr Isaac Wiafe, said, “For us at the University of Ghana, WAXAL’s impact goes beyond the data itself. It has empowered us to build our own language resources and train a new generation of AI researchers.

“Over 7,000 volunteers joined us because they wanted their voices and languages to belong in the digital future.

“Today, that collective effort has sparked an ecosystem of innovation in fields like health, education, and agriculture. This proves that when the data exists, possibility expands everywhere.”