Applications for Leadtech Incubation program extended to 20TH May 2020

April 23, 2020

Leadtech Incubation program powered by AWIEF and Mohammed IV Polytechnic University

Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) has extended the deadline for applications into the Leadtech Incubation program to 20TH May 2020.

The LeadTech Incubation is open to female digital startup leaders who are 18 years of age or older and residing in any African country.

In light of the ongoing developments and challenges around COVID-19, the Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) has extended the deadline for applications for the LeadTech Incubation Program to 20th May 2020. LeadTech is run in partnership with Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Morocco.

AWIEF founder and CEO, Irene Ochem says “We fully appreciate the uncertainty, disruptions to business and need for flexibility during these difficult times, and hope that this will relieve some pressure for those who would like to submit an application. This global pandemic serves to highlight the importance of innovations in health, education, agriculture, finance and environment in Africa, and LeadTech Incubation offers a unique opportunity for women tech and digital startups to test, develop and grow their innovative solutions in a time calling for creative and collaborative solutions to global problems”.

Selected participants will gain access to:

Tailored training and capacity-building
A 3-week residency at UM6P in Morocco
Space and infrastructure (Living Labs, Digital Lab, Data Center, Prototyping Labs)
World-class mentors and experts to work with you
5-months virtual incubation
Venture showcase at AWIEF2020 (2 – 3 December, Johannesburg, South Africa)
Funding opportunities

Eligibility Criteria

LeadTech Incubation is open to female digital startup leaders who are 18 years of age or older and residing in any African country. You have an innovative, scalable offer that integrates digital technologies into the process. You are passionate, committed, and have the capacity to engage fully in the program.

For more details and to apply, please follow this link: https://leafunder.um6p.ma/leadtech

Mastercard Offers Free Online STEM Lessons to Children, Teachers and Parents

passyjango

April 23, 2020

Mastercard extended access to its signature STEM curriculum, Girls4Tech™, through a suite of new online, creative educational resources. The program has been designed to help parents and teachers engage and inspire kids, ages 8-12.

Through the newly launched website Girls4Tech Connect, as well as through activities made in collaboration with our education partner Scholastic, teachers and parents can download lessons to help students learn about STEM topics, from the comfort of their homes or anywhere around the world.

These activities are built on global science and math standards – and incorporate Mastercard’s deep expertise in payments technology and innovation – to enable children to discover a range of STEM careers, such as Fraud Detective, Data Scientist and Software Engineer.

Now in its sixth year, Girls4Tech has engaged more than 800,000 students across the globe through inquiry-based activities and real-world challenges, all with the goal of inspiring more girls to pursue STEM careers and reduce the gender gap in these fields.

“We know that these are challenging times for parents and teachers on many fronts and hope that these learning resources are a fun way to engage and inspire kids about STEM while at home,”

says Ifeoma Dozie, Director, Marketing and Communications, Mastercard Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The easy access to the website enhances what we’ve done in so many workshops. We look forward to building on both efforts when it’s once again safe to gather in person.”

Beginning this week, new activities will be posted on a weekly basis at the Girls4Tech website, Facebook page and Twitter (https://bit.ly/3buJQby) handle. Lessons are currently available in English, with additional Spanish and Chinese language content to follow in the coming weeks.

While all lessons are designed for students to work independently, materials are also available for teachers to guide online sessions.

Impact Highlights from the First Six Years

To date, Girls4Tech has reached more than 800,000 girls in 27 countries and on 6 continents.
The program has engaged more than 4,400 employee mentors worldwide.
Mastercard has partnered with Scholastic, Be Better China, Major League Baseball, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), R&A and YCAB in Indonesia to further scale the program and offer STEM skills in unique ways to girls ages 8-16.
As technology skills evolve, a new curriculum was launched in 2019 to give students deeper exposure to the growing fields of cybersecurity and AI – Girls4Tech Cybersecurity & AI.
Girls4Tech programs also extend to girls ages 13-16 with Girls4Tech 2.0, as well as a 20-week coding program, Girls4Tech & Code for girls 8-10.

To learn more about Girls4Tech and access the online lessons, please visit www.Girls4Tech.com.

Palmpay launches Palmpay Cares, pledges NGN 100 million to Support against COVID-19

O. Christopher

April 22, 2020

Palmpay launches Palmpay Cares, pledges NGN100 million to support against COVID-19

Palmpay is one of the fintech startups that came out from the core of Africa, and they have decided to give back in this pandemic time.

The company just launched a new arm that they have dubbed Palmpay Cares – and they will be giving an NGN100 million support to the government of Nigeria to fight against the novel coronavirus.

The money has also been segmented so that it can be used well and not squandered. With that plan, we have the scheduling of some to go to frontline healthcare workers in providing them with all that they need to fight the virus effectively. Some of this will also be going to the provision of relief and care materials to the members of the general public.

In a nice move, the company will also insure its customers that contract the virus with up to NGN100,000 out of its pocket. The same plan will be put in place for communities that have been badly hit by the effects of the virus and will need some help in rebuilding.

Finally, Palmpay has ensured that all money transactions on their app across Nigeria at this time comes at no extra charges. Thus, you can just make your transactions and not have to worry about the transaction fees that comes with them.

From our end, this is a really laudable move from the company – and we know it is one that they won’t be forgotten for.

Goatti is investing in physical infrastructure development for its livestock platform

O. Christopher

April 21, 2020

Goatti is investing in physical infrastructure development for its livestock platform

Goatti is a Nigerian startup in the agricultural scene, and they have made some moves in the past years to ensure that the platform stays as profitable as can be.

They started with a physical livestock farm before they moved to a virtual model that allowed people to invest in units and get dividends at a given time. The service has been running smoothly since its inception in 2017 – but it is about to get even better.

For now, they operate their business virtually and are able to meet the needs of their consumers and investors. However, they have to scale up the business if they will accommodate mor investors. That is why they are looking in invest in more physical infrastructure.

As of the time of this writing, Goatti has been able to get five heavy duty trucks to its side. This will help them to move livestock from its many farms to Lagos – and perform such other logistics too. In line with that, they will also launch physical meat shops of their own in the country.

With their brand name, it would be easy to sell their premium quality meat to the market at a good level of trust. With such moves, they can expand their operations base faster and wider while also offering juicier rates to investors.

Facebook’s COVID-19 information Centre reaches 17 more counties (includes Nigeria)

O. Christopher

April 14, 2020

Facebook’s COVID-19 information Centre reaches 17 more counties (includes Nigeria)

Facebook knows that one of the best ways to beat the current coronavirus pandemic is by providing the people with the right news and quelling fake news. That is why they have started setting up information centers in different countries.

While the social media giant has already started such moves in Africa too, they recently expanded to 17 more countries.

The aim of the information centers will be to work with trusted authorities where verified news and first hand information can be obtained. That will then be relayed to the general public who want to know what is going on locally as regards the pandemic.

With that, the people can also have a verifiable source to look to for all their news items rather than believing everything that comes their way.

On the Facebook app, the COVID-19 information Centre can be seen at the top of the normal news feed. Here, users will get real-time updates from local and national health authorities, as well as global ones like the WHO.

The countries that have just been added to the list are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Togo.

Patent: Microsoft Surface tablet might come with a triple screen option soon

O. Christopher

April 3, 2020

Patent: Microsoft Surface tablet might come with a triple screen option soon

Different brands have started trying to get into the foldable market in diverse ways, and Microsoft has shown that they will not be left behind here. That is evident from a patent filed by the company which shows a device touting up to three screens on it.

This won’t be a smartphone either and could well be the next Surface product to come out of the Windows OS-owner. Note that this is not the first time that the company will have more than one screen on a unit, seeing as we had the Surface Duo launch before this time. However, they are pushing the limits with three screens that will all work in the same single hinge mechanism.

According to the patent, the third screen has been labelled Control Logic. If that is to be taken literally, we can infer that this will be a smaller screen where control options will be located. It could be the one for utilities while every other part of the screen is used for the proper work.

For those who have come across the MacBook Pro with a touch bar, this might be the answer of the Surface tablets to a touch bar, so to speak.

WhatsApp to rollout multi-device functionality soon

O. Christopher

April 3, 2020

WhatsApp to rollout multi-device functionality soon

WhatsApp has grown to over 2 billion users, which is an impressive figure by far. However, the platform has been missing some features for a while now that they now seem interested in addressing.

For one, the service has been restricted to one device only for a long time. This means that you cannot have the same WhatsApp account on a phone and tablet at the same time, or multiple phones. This is not impressive in an age where other IM apps like iMessage will allow you switch seamlessly between the iPhone, iPad and even Macbooks they have on offer.

To combat that, the company is now working on an update that will see the app work in multiple devices.

To forestall issues of privacy and security, there will most likely be a feature that alerts users when a new device is logging into their WhatsApp. This will most likely be like how your email notifies you of unusual activity from your primary device.

Likewise, WhatsApp has mentioned wanting to explore the option of expiring messages too. Even though they have rolled out this feature in the past for group chats, they will now bring it to individual chats.

Knowing WhatsApp and their beta tests, though, now might not be a good time to jubilate. The company might just decide to ditch the project after the first beta test – but we hope they don’t go down that path.

Lagos state executives adopt digital meeting over Zoom amid COVID-19 concerns

O. Christopher

April 2, 2020

Lagos state executives adopt digital meeting over Zoom amid COVID-19 concerns

The current COVID-19 pandemic that is being dealt with by Nigeria has forced the country to take certain measures, one of which is limiting the congregation of people so as to stall the spread of the virus. However, some activities and meeting still have to take place, especially for parastatals as important as the government.

In an interesting turnoff events, the Lagos state government has become a trailblazer by being the first in the country to hold an executive meeting online.

The meeting had in attendance the governor and deputy of the state, as well as other executive members too.

Holding via Zoom – a cloud meeting platform that allows up to 100 participants – everyone was able to follow the government guidelines on avoiding gatherings of more than 20 people. Now that some states have been declared to be on total lockdown, such meetings over digital spaces will become more and more important.

Computer Village to be shut down to help curtail spread of coronavirus

O. Christopher

March 28, 2020

Computer Village to be shut down to help curtail spread of coronavirus

In the whole of Nigeria, the Computer Village of Ikeja has come to be known as our own little Silicon Valley. It is the hub of tech stuff in the country and it sees a swarm of people daily. Starting today, though, we might not be seeing that much activity in the area anymore.

Seeing as this Ikeja location is one that almost never sleeps, that will be shocking to many. However, it would help to curb the spread of the n-COVID which is ravaging different countries from all around the world as of the time of this writing.

The government, through the NCDC, has advised that people practice social distancing and isolate themselves when they start feeling symptoms. That is the only way to ensure that the spread of the virus is curtailed and no more cases are recorded. However, that is not going to happen if spaces like the Computer Village keeps getting as crowded as they can be.

The government is also ready to throw some bodies behind this move, helping to ensure that no one enters or leaves the premises throughout the time that this lockdown will last.

Jumia ready to donate face masks, delivery network to fight COVID-19

O. Christopher

March 25, 2020

Jumia ready to donate face masks, delivery network to fight COVID-19

Jumia, the pan-African ecommerce company, has shown that they know of the recent COVID-19 issue and are willing to help the government to fight the disease before it becomes widespread. Should the government find the assets that are within the reach of this company needful, Jumia has committed itself to helping.

One of the laudable moves from the company is the promise to donate free face masks to no less than six different African countries. These will be certified face masks that will be sourced internally from the partners of the company in all of Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ivory Coast and Morocco. The company has also promised to divert its delivery network for the cause of the affected countries should they need to transport supplies, medicine and equipment from one place to the other.

In these times of uncertainty, it is nicer to note that companies are stepping up this way to ensure the case is killed before it becomes more serious than it already is. While this is underway, we also hope and pray that the world recovers and heals from the ills that the virus has caused already.

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