Author: Akin Naphtal

A leading provider of IT services across West-Africa, Ouranos Technologies has launched Ouranos Labs, a venture studio focused on building the products and solutions that will power the future of enterprise technology in Africa.The Lab is backed by a $2 million investment from Ouranos Technologies and will be led by Olusegun Maleghemi as Chief Innovation Officer. Maleghemi has served as Director of Incubation at The Nest Innovation Technology Park, which provides support for startups building impactful solutions. Making the announcements, Managing Director of Ouranos Technologies Ltd, Joseph Aransiola, said, “Ouranos Lab is a natural next step for our company as…

Kenya’s sole power distributor, Kenya Power, aims to convert its 2,000 petrol and diesel-driven vehicles to electric over the next four years, it said on Tuesday, 7 February. The move is part of a rising trend in the East African economy to take advantage of the abundant electricity supply from renewable sources, and switch vehicle and motorcycle engines to electric from fossil fuels. Kenya Power will phase out its petrol and diesel vehicles by retrofitting electric engines and buying new electric vehicles. Kenya has installed generation capacity of 3,321MW against a peak demand of 2,132MW and off-peak demand of about…

World’s biggest crypto company, Binance has acquired a majority stake in South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Gopax as part of its ‘Industry Recovery Initiative’ (IRI). The investment, the financial details of which are undisclosed, marks the company’s return to the South Korean market after its exit in 2021. Announcing the deal, Binance says that in November, Gopax “halted the withdrawal of principal and interest payments in its decentralised finance (DeFi) service GoFi as a consequence of the upstream challenges experienced by Genesis Global Capital, LLC”. “Since then, Gopax has been working closely with local regulators and industry partners in an effort…

The Tech giant, Google has announced the introduction of its new AI chatbot technology called “Bard”, which will compete directly with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to the tech giant, the launch is powered by Google’s large language model, LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), Bard will be rolled out in the coming weeks and made available to “trusted testers”. The company has decided to launch the technology in response to ChatGPT’s popularity and to maintain its competitive edge in AI. The CEO, Sundar Pichai, stated that the technology will simplify complex topics and provide users with easy-to-digest information from the web.…

Standard Chartered Bank has appointed Divyesh Vithlani as its new group chief transformation officer, based out of Singapore. Vithlani joins the global banking giant from Accenture, where he has spent the last five years. He most recently served as the company’s senior managing director, Southeast Asia market unit lead. He brings more than 30 years’ worth of banking and technology experience to his new role, working for companies in both Singapore and Europe. He previously spent over 16 years with Credit Suisse where he held a number of roles, including managing director – group technology chief operating officer from 2012…

IBM announced IBM Partner Plus, a new program that reimagines how IBM engages with its business partners through unprecedented access to IBM resources, incentives and tailored support to deepen their technical expertise and help speed time to market. The program is designed to fuel growth for new and existing partners, including resellers, hyper scalers, technology providers, independent software vendors and systems integrators, by putting them in control of their earning potential. IBM Partner Plus is central to the company’s Hybrid Cloud and AI strategy and aims to empower partners to help clients automate, secure and modernize their businesses. IBM Partner…

Dell Technologies is the most recent large high-tech company to announce a major layoff, with the hardware maker saying it is slashing 5% of its workforce. In a regulatory filing, Dell attributed the job cuts to a “challenging global economic environment.” Dell Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clark told employees in a letter that the company’s previous moves to reduce its costs “are no longer enough. We now have to make additional decisions to prepare for the road ahead.” The cuts amount to roughly 6,600 people, with Dell saying it has about 133,000 workers globally in its most recent annual report,…

During the Kenya Films and Classifications Board (KFCB)’s Digital Parental Literacy Programme held, Martha Conte, a mother of three admits to struggling with digital literacy. “Children are way ahead in the digital world,” Conte was quoted, a mother to an 18-year-old, 16 and 6-year-old. It is a fact that most parents like myself are very analogue in these digital times. “The six-year-old is smarter than I am when it comes to the digital world. It has even gotten to a stage where he changes screens so fast that I sometimes depend on the siblings to tell me what is going…

With transaction volumes, customer expectations, and competitive threats at an all-time high, banks must adapt quickly to keep pace. To address these challenges, Oracle has launched Oracle Banking Cloud Services, a new suite of componentized, composable cloud native services. The six new services available will provide banks with highly scalable corporate demand deposit account processing; enterprise-wide limits and collateral management; real-time ISO20022 global payment processing; API management; retail onboarding and originations; and new self-service digital experience capabilities. Built on a microservices architecture, they help banks renovate and modernize their business capabilities faster and with less risk. READ ALSO: SAP Partners…

The Digital Cooperation Organization called for global collaboration to bridge the technological divide as it announced its 2030 road map at its second annual general assembly in Riyadh. According to them, the plan aims at an ambitious future in which the digital economy contributes 30 percent to the global gross domestic product, and creates 30 million jobs worldwide. It is designed to promote common interest, advocate for advanced cooperation, build regulatory framework and business environments, and ensure the inclusive and trustworthy nature of the digital economy at local, regional, and global levels. Commenting, the DCO Secretary-General Deemah Al-Yahya said: “The…