Tech (524)
Over the past four years, Africa's startup industry has attracted significant investors. The number of innovations developed is growing with beneficial impacts on the lives of millions of people. Several tech solutions developed by African startups have gained international recognition.
African startups have developed a fantastic ecosystem, according to Arun Venkataraman, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets. Speaking during an exclusive interview, with Ecofin Agency, before the next US-Africa Leaders Summit, the official revealed his country’s admiration of the digital ecosystems developed by African countries.
“The fantastic ecosystems developed by startups in countries like Nigeria and Kenya as well as the innovations that have come out of them” meet the expectations of the creative and forward-looking African youth, who are the core of the demographic dividend, he said.
"If this dynamic is carefully backed by the right policies, it can lead to great success and greater innovation that will benefit every one of us," he emphasized
Arun Venkataraman estimates that digital technology is one of the sectors where Africa and Africans can contribute a lot to their trade relationship with the U.S. "The U.S is looking forward to the innovations and new ideas contributed by Africans. We see Africa not only as a consumption market for U.S. goods and services but also as a key provider of the goods and services the United States needs,” he told Ecofin Agency.
Over the past four years, Africa's start-up industry has indeed undergone a profound transformation. The number of innovative companies created on the continent has increased. The volume of investments they attracted has gone up as well, following a sharp uptrend. According to Partech, African startups attracted US$1.16 billion in 2018. By 2021, that volume rose to US$5.2 billion. Investors committing funds to those innovative companies include American companies such as Bezos Expeditions, Visa, PayPal, Sequoia Capital, and LeapFrog.
For Arun Venkataraman, given the dynamism of its startup ecosystem, “Africa is much more than a commodity market. Even though we have to help it develop strong value-added sectors, we admire the successful ventures noticed because they add value to the U.S., but also the global market as a whole.”
Muriel Edjo
Over the past five years, there has been a steep rise in the volume of investments secured by African startups. All through those years, Nigeria has almost always been the country attracting the most startup investment. Authorities now want to enhance those startups’ capabilities with a dedicated legal framework.
The Nigerian Senate passed Wednesday (July 20), a startup bill first drafted in June 2021. With its bill passing the Senate review, the national startup ecosystem is getting closer to its goal of ensuring “that Nigeria's laws and regulations are clear, planned, and work for the tech ecosystem.” The two steps remaining are validation by the House of Representatives and the signature of the President of the Republic.
The main objectives of the bill are "to provide a legal and institutional framework for the development of startups in Nigeria and to provide an enabling environment for the establishment, development, and operation of startups in Nigeria; Foster the development and growth of technology-related talent and position Nigeria's startup ecosystem as the leading digital technology hub in Africa, having excellent innovators with cutting edge skills and exportable capacity.”
Currently, Nigerian start-ups attract the most investment in Africa. They are thriving thanks to a long battle fought by the private sector. Nowadays, analysts point to their contribution to economic growth in the current digital age, and public authorities are determined to provide a better framework for their development.
In its nascent start-up bill, Nigeria has provided several facilities that will help accelerate the maturation of startups. The facilities include a label entitling to tax incentives, financial facilities through a dedicated seed fund, and customs facilities as well as training.
Once the bill is passed, Nigeria will join the list of the few African states that have adopted specific startup regulations. These include Senegal, Tunisia, and Mali.
Muriel Edjo
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation in most African countries. Nowadays, investments that were previously concentrated in urban areas are increasingly channeled to the development of rural areas, which house most of the population.
Nigerien Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Hassane Baraze Moussa, presided over the launch of the first edition of the Smart Village Innovation Forum (FIVI) last Monday. The forum, which will be concluded tomorrow (July 22), serves as a framework for reflection on rural areas’ digital transformation. Its theme is “Tec4Dev through Carpooling for Development.”
According to Minister Hassane Baraze, the end goal of the reflections will be to help materialize the government’s commitment “to connecting the rural areas by supporting state institutions and agencies.” It will also help “achieve the state agencies and institutions’ strategies, and end the digital isolation of Niger’s administrative villages.” The reflection is also expected to help “promote the use of e-services in urban and rural areas to notably improve financial inclusion, as well as create an ecosystem that is conducive to the development of local digital content and facilitates support to local startups.”
The plan currently set in motion for the digital transformation of rural areas in Niger is in line with the government’s commitments in its Renaissance Program Act III. The program notably provides for the modernization of rural areas by developing production and human capital as well as improving financial inclusion. By leveraging information and communication technologies, the country can quickly reach those goals.
In 2021, the country’s internet penetration rate was around 30% with low public services digitization scores. According to UN data, in 2020, it was among the countries with the lowest e-governance index, ranking 188th out of 193 countries. Developing broadband connectivity that supports digital services and information is one of the key requirements for the government of Niger to realize its "smart villages" ambition.
Niger "has a predominantly young population living in rural areas. [..] Our youth are our main asset. By training them and allowing them access to information, we will create better conditions to achieve our development objectives,” said Hassane Baraze Moussa.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Despite the ongoing digital revolution, Africa’s higher education still faces a certain number of challenges. They include access to documentation. However, multifunctional centers are being built to overcome the challenges.
The World Health Organization (WHO) inaugurated, Friday (July 15), a digital information center in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. The infrastructure was inaugurated by Health Minister Gilbert Mokoki during a ceremony attended by Dr. Lucien Alexis Manga, the WHO resident representative in Congo.
The center is aimed at facilitating access to the documentary resources published by the WHO on its information platforms.
"The digital information center will facilitate exchanges between health professionals. It has several rooms, some of which are reserved for WHO teams and their partners. It also has a twenty-workstation multipurpose room that can facilitate online training,” said Dr. Lucien Alexis Manga.
The newly inaugurated infrastructure will promote research and higher education in Congo. It will also serve as a digital library with a collection of audio and video documents that can be accessed remotely. "We formerly had huge libraries that were difficult to peruse. With the [digital information center] initiative, everything is summarized and can be read easily and fast. The initiative must be shared at will so that [the center] can inspire others,” commented Gilbert Mokoki.
The center, equipped with broadband internet, adds to ARCAI, an artificial intelligence research center funded by the UNECA and its partners. The research center was inaugurated in Brazzaville last February.
Samira Njoya
There is a growing number of coding and digital training programs in Africa. The said programs aim to equip the youth with ICT skills that render them competitive in the digital economy.
Last Friday, July 15, on the sidelines of the World Youth Skills Day, the African Development Bank (AfDB) announced the selection of 500 Coding for Employment digital ambassadors “who will lead a peer-to-peer training model.”
The selected digital ambassadors will undergo three months of training in digital skills such as software development, problem-solving, project management, and communication. At the end of the training, they will receive ICT toolkits to “offer the same training” in their local communities to allow access to digital skills for more Africans, in rural communities with limited internet connectivity notably.
For this first edition of the digital ambassador program, AfDB (through its Coding for Employment) and its technical partner Microsoft, received 21,000 applications from all over Africa. In the end, 500 young people from four countries where the AfDB's Coding for Employment program is operational were selected. Those countries are notably Côte d'Ivoire (75 selected), Kenya (100), Nigeria (150), and Senegal (175).
“We are delighted by the enthusiasm and the passion the candidates have shown for the program. We have sifted through all the applications to identify candidates whose backgrounds and qualifications closely match the selection criteria. The 500 candidates will not only acquire skills that can help them find work but will also be able to create their jobs while also training others," said Hendrina Doroba, the AfDB’s Head of Education and Skills Development.
Coding for Employment, launched in 2018, is one of AfDB’s programs to achieve the goals of its Jobs for Youth in Africa (JfYA) Strategy. It aims to enable the youth “to bring about economic and social transformation in the digital age.”
With the JfYA strategy, the AfDB wants to create 25 million jobs in key sectors and increase the employability and entrepreneurial success of some 50 million young people by training them in hard and soft skills.
Samira Njoya
Water scarcity affects 40% of the world's population. To address the situation, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs developed the World Hydrological Cycle Observing System (WHYCOS), which uses satellite technology to improve “basic observation activities,” strengthen international cooperation and promote free data exchange in the hydrogeology sector.
Ghana will use space technology to monitor and protect its water resources. The plan was announced by Ghanaian vice-president Mahamudu Bawumia, last Thursday (July 14), while addressing the 5th International Conference on the use of space technology for water resources management (the conference ended on Sunday, July 17).
“Water resources management is an integral part of national development and there is an avenue for space technologies to be used to monitor and evaluate water resources,” he said.
According to the government official, water resource management is a pressing issue for Ghana, whose abundant water resources are threatened by human activities. He indicated that the government would soon pass the Ghana Space Policy, which would expand the missions of the Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute (GSSTI). The new policy will transform the GSSTI into a full-fledged space agency that will leverage space technology to improve the efficiency of the national fight against uncontrolled exploitation, which affects the quality of its water resources.
According to USAID and Sustainable Water Partnership, “Ghana has abundant water resources and is not considered water-stressed overall.” However, the resources are increasingly threatened by activities like illegal gold mining that contaminate municipal water sources with heavy metals, particularly in the Pra Basin. Municipal, domestic and industrial wastes also contaminate 60% of surface waters and degrade ecosystems and biodiversity, especially downstream of Kumasi and Accra.
By protecting its water resources, the government wants to guarantee their quantity and quality but also avert water shortages. It will also reduce the financial resources needed to treat water for mass consumption.
Samira Njoya
The tech sector is booming in most African countries. To improve its impact on the continent, two countries have decided to join forces and conquer other markets.
Rwandan technology park kLab and Gabon Digital Incubation Company (SING S.A) plan to develop an exchange program. For that purpose, last Wednesday (July 13), kLab’s general manager Yeetah Kamikazi (photo, right) and Yannick Ebibie Nze (photo, left), CEO of SING S.A, signed a partnership agreement. The exchange program aims to support the two countries’ startup ecosystem and financing sources to quickly achieve conclusive results.
Under the terms of the agreement, SING S.A. (which has already incubated 53 startups, including eight with tremendous growth) will facilitate the exchange program development.
“We can build on the results achieved by kLab as a non-profit organization in Rwanda over the past few years. In Gabon, we have a different model [Ed. note: SING S.A is a for-profit organization] and I believe it will be great for kLab to also find ways to secure additional financing outside traditional sources like the government and international partners,” explained Yannick Ebibie Nze.
For Yeetah Kamikazi, the Gabonese market is a prospective market for Rwandan startups, given the small size of her local market. She also added that Gabon needs Rwanda’s expertise in the e-transport and e-governance sectors.
In Rwanda, the government is committed to making the country an African IT hub. Also, for years now, Kigali has been the host of the tech hubs of major international firms. In December 2021, coworking space and investment fund Norrsken Foundation launched an entrepreneurship hub in Kigali, to welcome 1,000 entrepreneurs by the end of 2022. To date, the country’s startups have raised US$23 million, including US$17 million in 2021.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Africa has the lowest internet penetration rate with just 22% of its population currently connected. To remedy the situation, countries are implementing various projects.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the common Eastern and Southern market COMESA signed an agreement letter last Wednesday (July 13). According to a release published by COMESA, the agreement letter concerns a US$550,000 grant to be provided by AfDB to fund the feasibility studies of COMESA’s Africa Cloud Ecosystem (ACE) project.
According to the release, the AfDB grant will “support the first phase; Market Analysis (Pre-investment study) which will assess the market for the ACE project and examine the bankability of the project including testing of the concept in the COMESA region.”
For AfDB Zambia country manager, Dr. Raubil Durowoju, “the Africa Cloud Ecosystem project will be a first of its kind, laying the foundation to facilitate the African continent to undertake this shift in the key sectors of the economy: education, government, agriculture, and health through the provision of a reliable ecosystem of datacentres.”
It aims to contribute to the installation of a state-of-the-art facility that will provide essential and sustainable ICT infrastructure services to the 21 COMESA member states and the African continent as a whole.
It is also expected to facilitate regional integration by taking full advantage of technology and laying the foundation for a duty-free and quota-free zone “which goes beyond the data-only aspects.” Its development should also “increase the sustainability and viability of information and provide a pivotal way of transitioning Africa’s community into a digital economic community.”
“Besides significantly lowering the cost for hosting services, identified as the main reason African businesses host their services overseas, the project will also remove barriers faced by African enterprises by promoting intra-regional trade and boosting innovation,” COMESA explains.
Once launched, ACE will improve Africa’s positioning in the global ICT landscape.
For COMESA secretary-general Chileshe Kapwepwe, once completed, the project will “enhance competitiveness by fostering regional connectivity and deepening continental integration.”
Samira Njoya
The e-visa platform aims to facilitate visa application processes, rendering the country attractive.
Togo announced, Monday (July 11), that it has updated and re-launched “Togo Voyage,” its digital visa issuance platform. Unlike its previous version launched in August 2020, the new platform now integrates an online visa application and Covid-19 processes, greatly facilitating the application process.
“I am pleased with the Voyage Togo platform because it is revolutionizing our work methods. We now have access to a unique and virtual database of travelers coming in and moving out of the country, making it a hundred times faster to process and allowing our national security services to deliver more efficiently,” commented Minister of Security and Civil Protection Yark Damehame.
The platform, available in French and English, also offers travelers the possibility to store their data in user accounts to avoid entering them again for every application.
Payments have also been fully digitized (either via bank cards or mobile money) while cash payment is simply prohibited.
The e-visa project is one of the many reforms on the Togolese government’s 2025 agenda. A few months ago, the government announced the digitization of every public service to become more conducive to business operations and provide efficient public services to the population.
The new version of Togo Voyage was developed by Togo Digital Agency (ATD), and created by the government to steer the country’s digital transformation process. By the end of this year, the platform will be extended to include land and sea borders.
Samira Njoya
The connected object industry has expanded quickly over the past ten years. Thanks to the new usages allowed by the 5G, it will grow further, becoming an important source of employment in Africa, where there is still a lack of skilled labor in advanced technology sectors.
Four partners will launch a 3-year online Internet of Things (IoT) training program next September. The four partners are notably the virtual universities of Mali, Senegal, and Tunisia and the Franch National Institute of Applied Science (INSA), through its virtual academy OpenINSA.
According to a release, dated June 23, announcing the training program, it will include courses on the security and architecture of connected objects, the architectural maintainability and reliability of a connected object, the development of digital apps to interact with connected objects, and the basics of data science.
"The resources developed in the framework of this partnership are placed under a Creative Commons license. They are accessible to project partners’ teacher-researchers in the research section,” indicated Jean-Yves Plantec, the director of OpenINSA. For the director, the main strength of the education project announced is its ability to federate a strong community for its implementation.
The four partners started developing the project in 2019, in the framework of the Support for the development of French Higher Education in Africa (ADESFA). The project entered a new phase between 2020 and May 2022 when the partners focused on the development of an online program accessible primarily to second-year undergraduate students, but also to employees and those seeking professional retraining. At the end of the 3-year training, the learners will constitute a high-quality labor force for innovative sectors.
The connected object industry has expanded quickly over the past ten years. Connected wristbands, watches, speakers, and similar tools have become part of our daily life. According to Banque des Territoires, between 2018 and 2019, 2.5 billion connected objects were sold worldwide.
Samira Njoya
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The digital payment switch was developed by the government, thanks to the technical expertise of the Nigerian firm eTranzact. It demonstrates authorities’ ambition to boost financial inclusion.
Cameroon’s Minister of Telecommunications, Minette Libom Li Likeng, officially launched the National Digital Payment Switch Infrastructure (NPSI) in Yaoundé, yesterday (July 5). The payment switch, accessible via the USSD Code #237#, is a government initiative to ensure the traceability of electronic payment flows, therefore facilitating the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing and promoting the digital economy. It is hosted at the Cameroon Postal Services (Campost) thanks to the technical expertise of the Nigerian firm eTranzact.
According to Campost MD Pierre Kaldadak, the NPSI will promote equal access to interconnection, reduce the cost of value-added services and help trace all the bank and non-bank transactions. He also informed that the telecom operators that are active in the country and about forty firms have already joined the payment switch. Meanwhile, a significant number of firms are still awaiting connections.
The NPSI, whose development was launched in 2018, was inaugurated on June 30, 2020. For Minette Libom Li Likeng, it will help reduce cash dependence, boost financial inclusion, and stimulate innovation with the development of public and private-sector applications and startup promotion. The digital infrastructure is "a key [...] tool for digital systems and payments in Cameroon,” she added.
Samira Njoya
The center will help boost access to quality digital education and offer employment opportunities and innovative solutions in Senegal.
IT company Atos and 01Talent Africa launched Monday (July 4) a collective intelligence center in Dakar, Senegal. The center will offer digital training, starting from September 2022.
During the launching ceremony, Alpha Barry, Head of Atos Africa, elaborated on why Africa is the perfect continent to develop the collective intelligence center project. “With an average age of 19, Africa is the youngest continent in the world and will represent 40% of the world's population by the end of the century. By working with 01Talent in Africa, we are giving these young people the opportunity to unleash their creative potential to contribute to the innovation and digital transformation of the continent," he indicated.
“This initiative is part of a strategic partnership that aims to accelerate the digital transformation in Africa, by enabling the massification of world-class digital skills through an innovative and inclusive training of excellence on the continent,” the two partners inform.
For 01Talent Africa’s strategic director, Karim Sy, “this strategic initiative confirms the commitment of 01Talent and Atos to the creation of an African technology ecosystem strengthened by the training of world-class talent, essential to the accomplishment of the continent's digital transition.”
“This is a huge opportunity to create jobs for young people and value for local businesses. Everyone becomes an actor of change,” he stresses.
The collective intelligence center baptized Zone01 will be inaugurated in September 2022, welcoming the first cohort of 120 young talents selected during a competitive stage. After Dakar, the two partners intend to launch a new Zone01 in Egypt, Morocco, and Mauritania.
Samira Njoya
The lab hosted by Orange Digital Center is an opportunity for project developers and companies to test the quality of their tech products and services. It will let them carry out small-scale tests before the launch.
Orange inaugurated, Thursday (June 30), its first African 5G Lab in Dakar, Senegal. The 5G Lab is dedicated to the experimentation and development of 5G-compliant products and services. The lab was ianuguared by Sékou Dramé, CEO of Sonatel Group, and Michaël Trabbia, Orange Chief Technology and Innovation Officer.
According to Michaël Trabbia, 5G is a tool that can be leveraged to boost companies' and nations’ growth. This is why Orange is committed to a co-innovation approach to help create futuristic products. "Territorial anchoring is key in the Orange 5G Lab program to support the digital transformation of economic players, and help everyone take advantage of the potential of the 5G," he said.
Orange 5G Lab Dakar is housed at the Orange Digital Center in Dakar in a 108 m² room with several sections that can be used as demonstration space for virtual reality and augmented reality services, a gaming space, or a co-working space. The space has case studies carried out in several areas (e-Health, smart port, smart édu, smart Agri) in partnership with technology providers Huawei and Nokia. It also has innovation demonstrations carried out by Caytu in partnership with the Dakar American University of Science and Technology (DAUST) and Senvital in partnership with Sonatel corporate medicine.
Orange 5G Lab Dakar is the 14th technology space of its kind to be inaugurated by the French telecom group in all its markets. Apart from Senegal, Orange has 5G Labs in France (10), Romania (1), Belgium (1), and Poland (1). More than 1,200 companies and local authorities have already benefited from the technology space, 114 of which have been able to experiment with their products and services.
In Senegal, the introduction of 5G combined with new technologies such as Big data, AI, and augmented reality aims to stimulate the transformation of the Senegalese society and economy in key areas such as agriculture, public health, education, entrepreneurship, and youth employability.
Ruben Tchounyabe
Since 2016, Cameroonian tech entrepreneur Vincent Onana Binyegui has multiplied actions to improve education access, in rural zones notably. The flagship product he developed, Teachmepad, allows access to educational content offline. The assembly plant is the next step in his project.
Teachmepad Mobile Limited, the developer of the solar-powered educational tablet Teachmepad, seeks €5 million to set up an assembly plant in Cameroon. For that purpose, it launched a pre-series A round last Friday, June 1. The capital sought will be divided as follows: €420,000 in equity crowdfunding and €4.573 million in loan crowdfunding. The pre-series A round will be closed on June 1, 2023, we learn.
The project has been reviewed by the national investment corporation SNI’s technical teams, revealed Teachmepad Mobile Limited founder Vincent Onana Binyegui at the end of a work session called by the Ministry of Economy.
The plant, dubbed Teachmepad Mobile Industry, will create 200 direct jobs, the founder stresses. In the framework of the project, Teachmepad Mobile Limited will acquire a unit, whose daily production capacity is 5,000, from China. In its first year of operation, the plant will operate at 20% of its capacity with 10 employees and progressively go at full throttle with a team of 205 people.
During the work session, SNI suggested the government should provide support to scale the project and make it bankable for additional technical and financial support. SNI also suggested a partnership with a technical partner, a mobile components manufacturer preferably, to guarantee the supply of needed components.
In 2021, Teachmepad Mobile Limited concluded a funding round launched in 2020 by raising about €1.219 million from Cameroonian and French investors. With the funds secured, it acquired a 5-hectare plot that will host the assembly plant, carried out 3D printing of the commercial prototypes, and performed some administrative tasks and the studies required for the plant installation project.
Teachmepad is an educative tablet that allows access to educational content, like Wikipedia, offline. It was developed to boost education in rural areas with poor internet and electricity access and a low number of teachers. The tablet has received the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI)’s patent.
Currently, Vincent Onana’s goal is to make TeachmePad the choice tablet in African countries for easy data collection, general census, and related works since the tablets can function in “remote areas with electricity and internet access problems.”
Ruben Tchounyabe