Author: Akin Naphtal

Global digital economy-focused publication, Digital Economy Magazine has unveiled its Top 20 Digital Economy Leaders who are at the forefront of digitalization in Kenya. Dubbed “Kenya’s Top 20 Digital Economy Leaders”, the list showcases digital economy personalities who are changing the course and the face of Kenya and Africa’s digital economy landscape. The list was compiled with a distinct focus on excellence in leadership and performance, professional journey, company transformation, personal accomplishments, and other various factors. Listed in the Top 20 are seven females and thirteen males which includes; the CEO Huawei, Kenya, Will Meng, Group CEO of Cellulant Kenya, Akshay Grover, Managing Director of Oracle…

Facebook parent Meta lost almost two-thirds of its value in 2022 as year-over-year revenue fell in consecutive quarters, leading the company in November to cut 13% of its workforce. Snap’s stock plummeted 81% as growth dipped into the single digits, and the company opted not to provide a forecast for two straight periods. In August, Snap said it was laying off 20% of its employees. Following a brutal 2022, investors are starting to return to the online ad sector before a rebound in financial performance that’s expected at some point in 2023. They’re hoping for some signs of a recovery…

London-based fintech company, Raylo has secured a £110 million debt financing facility from NatWest and Quilam Capital to drive its business expansion. Founded in 2019, Raylo provides consumers with “affordable” access to high-value tech products on a monthly subscription basis. It also offers Raylo Pay, a checkout integration for merchants. With the new funding facility, Raylo plans to grow both its direct-to-consumer channel as well as its Raylo Pay offering. It claims the number of retailers using Raylo Pay has grown 10x in the last six months. The firm will also put some of the cash towards building out its…

UK fintech HyperJar has announced the appointment of Rob Rooney as its new CEO, three months after he joined the firm’s board of directors. Rooney joined HyperJar after spending 32 years at Morgan Stanley in various roles – as CEO of Morgan Stanley International, co-global head of fixed income and most recently as global head of technology, operations and firm resilience. In his new role, Rooney will be tasked with scaling HyperJar’s B2C and B2B offerings “at speed”. “The closer I get to the team and the product, the more I see HyperJar’s potential to help millions of people and…

Baidu, the largest search engine company in China, is set to introduce a new AI chatbot service similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT in March, according to recent report. The application will be initially embedded in the main search services and will provide conversation-style search results. The tool’s foundation will be Baidu’s Ernie system, a large-scale machine-learning model trained on data over several years. A Baidu representative declined to comment on the development. According to current sources, Chat GPT reached a million subscribers barely five days after it was established in November 2022. This is a remarkable accomplishment, particularly in light of…

Zipline, the global delivery company famed for its use of drones to deliver healthcare products has successfully completed test flights in Kisumu County, Kenya. This comes as the company finalizes plans to launch operations in the Kenyan market. Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Zipline and the County Government of Kisumu, Zipline will deliver more than 200 medical products, including COVID-19 vaccines and blood products, to over 400 health facilities across the county. This is a significant step towards the County’s universal health coverage goals. Winfred Njeri, General Manager of Zipline, Kenya said, “Our instant logistics system will…

Fourteen startups from across the continent have been selected to Pitch Live at Africa Tech Summit, which will host its fifth edition on February 15-16 at the Sarit Expo Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. Africa Tech Summit Nairobi provides insight and networking with the African tech ecosystem. bringing together tech leaders, MNOs, banks, international investors, entrepreneurs, governments, trade bodies, media and leading ventures to drive investment and business in African tech. Every year, startups present their products and services to the audience of investors, corporates and other stakeholders as part of Pitch Live, and this year organisers received more than 250…

Colorado-based Marygold & Co, a fintech company developing a new mobile banking and financial services app, has named Timothy Rooney as its new president. Originally hired to set up and lead the investment advisory arm of the firm, Rooney will now be responsible for Marygold & Co’s overall “vision and strategy” and tasked with ensuring the successful launch of the firm’s upcoming app. READ ALSO: Web3 Infrastructure Startup Spatial Labs gets $10M in Seed Funding Marc Huffman, CEO of Blackline Becomes Digital Economy Personality of the Week Tesla defeated by Mercedes in self-driving skills as it becomes first certified Level-3…

The conversational AI tool ChatGPT which has been created by Open AI has accomplished a significant milestone in its brief existence. OpenAI is a research firm specializing in artificial intelligence and a few months earlier it unveiled ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot, for public testing as per the company’s claims researchers have taught the ChatGPT to converse with users in a “conversational style,” opening it up to a larger range of users. According to current sources, Chat GPT reached a million subscribers barely five days after it was established in November 2022. This is a remarkable accomplishment, particularly in light of…

Digital banking capabilities have been steadily growing over the past decade. Indeed, what started with a website then extended to mobile, and today people use their smartphones as the norm. There is demand for robust and customer centric user experiences that are omni and opti-channel as a standard part of the service. Expectations are reflected in broader life! People enjoy personalised and tailored suggestions from Netflix and Amazon. They want to have a frictionless experience when they deal with products and services and have come to expect that they can deal with any given service provider over a channel of…