Author: Akin Naphtal

A cyber rapid-response team (CRRT) is being deployed across Europe, after a call for help from Ukraine. The newly formed team of eight to 12 experts, from Lithuania, Croatia, Poland, Estonia, Romania, and the Netherlands, has committed to help defend Ukraine from cyber-attacks – remotely and on site in the country. According to a CRRT official, “we can see that cyber-measures are an important part of Russia’s hybrid toolkit”. It comes after the UK and the US blamed Russia for cyber-attacks earlier this month that temporarily took a small number of Ukrainian banking and government websites offline. The Lithuanian Ministry…

Ten game development studios in Africa have come together under one umbrella, the Pan Africa Gaming Group (PAGG), in an effort to unify the continent’s gaming sector, which is currently fragmented. The association is further envisioned to drive the uptake of gaming in the continent, and grow developer talent. The announcement was made today against the backdrop of the Africa Games Week 2022, which is taking place in Cape Town, South Africa. The PAGG said they aim to grow the industry by two times annually, and to put Africa “on the map of the global game industry.” The gaming studios…

In the past one decade, a $1 billion jobs market — microwork — has emerged around technologies that split activities into piecemeal tasks to be completed by many people over the internet, mostly using mobile devices. The allure of microwork opportunities has grown to capture the interest of Africa’s youth, who stand to earn up to $7 per day, against a daily urban income rate of $4.35 urban earning average for low-income groups, according to a study conducted in Kenya by Mercy Corps Ventures (MCV), the impact investing arm of global development agency Mercy Corps. Microwork has the potential to create jobs…

TradeDepot, a B2B marketplace that connects micro-retailers with distributors and manufacturers of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), has acquired Green Lion, its competitor in Ghana, for an undisclosed amount, paving the way for its growth, and the delivery of its services across the West African country. The acquisition involves a full take-over of Green Lion’s assets, relationships in Ghana and its employees. Green Lion had developed fintech solutions to enable traders access financing, and a digital ledger Wysr, which retailers use for stock monitoring and bookkeeping. Green Lion was co-founded by Jorge de Rojas, Enrique Moreno de la Cova and Miguel de Rojas in 2018. Green Lion has…

The global chat commerce’s total addressable market is worth an estimated $80 billion and is seen as the third big wave of digital commerce after e-commerce and app commerce markets. As the largest digital platform in the world with more users than the internet’s 4.7 billion users, it only makes sense for businesses to communicate and transact with consumers through chat channels. Founded in 2000, Clickatell is a pioneer in this mobile communications and chat commerce space. The company helps businesses communicate with their customers via mobile messaging platforms and today is announcing that it has raised $91 million in a new financing round.…

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has indicated that the introduction of the electronic levy (E-levy) for revenue mobilisation to improve the economy was a better option than going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance. The E-levy, he said had the potential of raking in GH¢7 billion for the country if it had commenced this year, a figure which according to him was higher than what the country received under the last IMF intervention in 2015. “What will the IMF give you, the last time they did it was a billion dollars in a three-year programme which was…

Bosch is increasing its previously stated investment in semiconductor production in order to stay on top of the ongoing chip shortage. The company is adding an additional $296 million, on top of the $473 million Bosch already pledged to spend in 2022 last year, to new manufacturing facilities. Most of last year’s capital was earmarked for Bosch’s new 300-millimeter wafer fabrication facility in Dresden, with about $57 million set aside for Reutlingen, near Stuttgart, where Bosch began production in December. This new funding will go almost exclusively to Reutlingen to create new production space and a total of 44,000 square…

MarketForce, the retail B2B and end-to-end distribution platform founded in Kenya, has raised $40 million in Series A funding for its merchant inventory financing and expansion across Africa. MarketForce, which was launched in Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda last year after growing beyond Kenya and Nigeria, plans to introduce buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) options to help merchants access fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCGs) on credit. It also plans to enter additional markets in East and West Africa. Through its merchant super app RejaReja, informal traders can source goods (hundreds of SKUs) directly from manufacturers and distributors, make and pay for orders digitally, accept payments for utility bills and…

Google in Africa says the increase in software development in Africa has increased tremendously, with Nigeria adding 5,000 new professionals in 2021. According to the Managing Director, Nitin Gajria in a statement pointed out that the rise was impressive in spite of the pandemic and global economic challenges the continent’s developer experienced. Gajria stated that its findings were based on the Ecosystem Report 2021 conducted across 16 Sub-Sahara African countries. The Managing Director reiterated that the findings came through fielded and analysed surveys of software developers as well as interviews with local experts. He continued that with the use of internet by small and medium…

Orange, one of the world’s leading multi-service telecommunications groups with a presence in 18 African countries, along with its subsidiary Sonatel, the leader in Senegalese telecommunications solutions, will partner with SES, the leader in global content connectivity solutions, to deploy and manage the first O3b mPOWER gateway in Africa, allowing the African continent to enjoy easy access to high-performance and low-latency connectivity services. The three companies announced that the gateway for O3b mPOWER, SES’s next-generation medium earth orbit (MEO) communications system, will be located at the Sonatel teleport in the Senegalese territory of Gandoul among other local satellites antennas This very first O3b…