Author: Akin Naphtal

Nigerian startup CutStruct Technology has raised a US$$600,000 pre-seed funding round to assist in the development and scaling of its B2B construction procurement product LiveVend. Founded by John Oamen and Tayo Odunsi, CutStruct has built LiveVend, a construction procurement platform that allows buyers like real estate developers and contractors to engage vetted vendors while enjoying other services such a transportation, goods-in-transit insurance and trade credit. “We connect construction vendors to buyers. All the complex work takes place in the background. The vendor vetting, sorting out the appropriate logistics, ensuring the goods are insured, guaranteeing fulfilment and securing financing – these…

As world leaders convene to take urgent action at the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference, a talented group of secondary students in Egypt are supporting their endeavours by raising climate awareness amongst their peers. Refugee and host community students supported by Instant Network Schools (INS, Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency’s digital education programme) have taken part in a series of competitions to build awareness around climate change, its consequences and how everyone can contribute to a more sustainable way of life. With support from the Ministry of Education, over 360 students worked individually or in teams to…

Clickatell, the Chat Commerce and business messaging leader, announced the results of its latest Chat Commerce Trends Report: Retail Edition, which reveals new findings about how today’s consumers prefer to communicate and make purchases with retail companies through mobile and chat messaging conversations. The report, which fielded responses from over 1,000 participants, found that 95% of customers now make retail purchases on their smartphones and 78% of consumers want to use mobile messaging with retail companies for convenience. To better understand how consumers communicate with retail brands, Clickatell’s new research found considerable interest in personalized and convenient commerce experiences through mobile…

Launched by J.P. Morgan Payments and Mastercard, Pay-by-Bank is an ACH payment that uses open banking, which enables consumers to permission their financial data to be shared seamlessly between trusted parties to let them pay bills directly from their bank account with greater security. No longer will they be faced with the tedium of typing in routing and account numbers each time they need to pay a bill. For billers and merchants, it automates consumer onboarding and reduces the risk and cost of storing bank account information. Pay-by-Bank holds huge potential for billers to take the pain out of recurring payments such as rent, utilities, payments to government, tuition, insurance, and health care where…

Pan-African payment technology company Cellulant, has been granted a Payments Systems Operator license by the National Bank of Uganda in line with the National Payments System Act, 2020. The Act provides guidance in streamlining operators in the burgeoning fintech space in Uganda. Cellulant Group founded in 2003, has a history of delivering inventive technical and financial solutions implemented with a seamless user experience. The company today powers collections and payouts for thousands of businesses in various sectors across 35 countries in Africa. Cellulant launched operations in Uganda in 2009 and through its single API payments gateway – Tingg – enables global,…

Ericsson, China Mobile and Tencent Cloud have teamed up to reduce network latency and improve the reliability demanded in time-critical applications and services. With the 5G Time-Critical Communication Enabled Remote Control, the three partners can predict and preempt sudden latency lags to improve the data transfer in 5G networks. The joint solution has been recognized as one of the World Leading Scientific and Technological Achievements at China’s prestigious World Internet Conference (WIC) 2022, earning the world-leading internet Scientific and Technological Achievement award. The award follows recognition at MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2022, where Ericsson’s Time-Critical Communication was a recipient of…

Ericsson and Technical University of Sofia have partnered to launch the “Ericsson Educate: 5G University” program in Bulgaria in order to raise digital skills, knowledge, and awareness of 5G and emerging technologies among university students. Bulgaria is the first country where Ericsson implements its global 5G University program as an optional subject in the curriculum of 3rd and 4th year bachelor students, as well as 1st year master students. It provides a 64-hour in-depth training on 5G technology and standards. It will be held in Bulgarian by professors from the Faculty of Telecommunications based on Ericsson learning materials covering 5G…

Africa Data Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies, a pan-African technology group, has announced that enterprise cloud services provider Unitellas will be bringing Zadara’s global federated edge service to its new facility in Lagos, Nigeria. Unitellas is a Nigerian-based full-stack managed infrastructure-as-a-service provider and distributor of “Zadara” – a renowned global leader of Edge cloud services. According to Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres: “West African enterprises are looking at cloud technology, but it will be vital to build trust to mitigate concerns around data sovereignty, security, and privacy. Addressing these issues will be vital if we are to onboard…

IBM announced at the IBM Quantum Summit 2022 that Vodafone Group is collaborating with IBM on quantum-safe cybersecurity, and also joining the IBM Quantum Network, which will give the company cloud access to IBM’s advanced quantum computing systems, as well as IBM’s industry-leading quantum expertise. Vodafone will work with IBM to help validate and progress potential quantum use cases in telecommunications. As part of this collaboration, Vodafone will explore quantum computing for a variety of telco use cases. The company will also advance their employees’ skills in quantum technology through iterative prototyping led by IBM, as well as actively recruit quantum computing…

Vodafone Group Plc (“Vodafone”) has announced that it has entered into a strategic co-control partnership with a consortium of long-term infrastructure investors led by Global Infrastructure Partners (“GIP”) and KKR (together the “Consortium”) for Vodafone’s 81.7% stake in Vantage Towers AG (“Vantage Towers”). Vodafone and the Consortium have created a joint venture (the “JV”) which will hold Vodafone’s 81.7% stake in Vantage Towers. Vodafone will contribute its shares in Vantage Towers into the JV by way of a capital increase against new JV shares. The Consortium will obtain a shareholding in the JV of up to 50% by acquiring JV…