Tech (883)
The digital economy is already disrupting the labor market in Africa, where a significant lack of basic, intermediate, and advanced digital skills still exists. To address this skills gap, educational institutions are exploring the educational segment. Additionally, some other companies are also getting involved, albeit for different purposes.
Since its inauguration in October 2021, Orange Digital Center (ODC) has trained 1,900 individuals, including 60% women, in digital skills in Madagascar, according to Frédéric Debord (photo), CEO of telecom operator Orange Madagascar. More than 600 of the learners from this digital skills acquisition center were professionally inserted, we learn. According to Frédéric Debord, the Malagasy-based ODC is the only one in the 15 similar centers across Africa to have achieved such performance.
The executive made those comments at the 12th edition of the Conference on Digital Transformation in Africa (ATDA), held on May 19-20, 2023 under the theme "Human Capital: Catalyst for a successful African digital ecosystem.” During this international meeting, Frédéric Debord called on African digital actors to invest in training nearly 650 million individuals in digital skills on the continent by 2030.
According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), more than 230 million jobs will require digital skills by 2030 in sub-Saharan Africa, which will translate into nearly 650 million training opportunities. The institution points out that digital skills will be among the seven most important skills in the future. Yet the current workforce does not have an adequate supply of these skills, and the gap between supply and demand, which is larger in sub-Saharan Africa than in other regions, is likely to grow.
For now, African education systems are not being reformed fast enough to take those realities into account. However, private training organizations are already moving to meet the needs with fee-based training. Sometimes, the trainings are free, thanks to investments made by companies as part of their social commitment.
For instance, under its corporate responsibility, Orange has deployed 42 women digital centers, in addition to its ODCs. The centers have helped train more than 10,000 unqualified and unemployed women in digital skills. The group has also deployed 240 Digital Schools in Madagascar, and more than 400,000 students and teachers are benefiting from the program, which aims to improve the quality of education, promote equal access to digital education and encourage the use of digital tools in schools.
Over the past five years, Kenya has made significant progress in the ICT field. The country is now a digital hub attracting several multinationals. It still wants to consolidate that position.
On Wednesday, May 10, Kenya signed a partnership agreement with Venom Foundation, a foundation specializing in crypto development and licensed by Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), an international financial center and free zone located on Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Under the agreement, a state-of-the-art hub dedicated to the creation of new blockchain and Web3 applications in Africa will be established in Nairobi.
"The Kenya Blockchain Hub will provide essential tools and resources to support African nations in building a robust foundation for digital transformation. By implementing blockchain-based solutions, we aim to promote transparency, efficiency, and trust throughout the continent. [...] The benefits of this partnership will extend both nationally and globally, improving lives and unlocking potential," the Venom Foundation tweeted.
Blockchain is a storage technology that keeps track of a set of transactions in a decentralized, secure, and transparent manner. It offers high standards of transparency and security, as it operates without a central control body. It can be used in various sectors, including finance. This partnership demonstrates the growing interest that blockchain and related technologies are gaining in Kenya. Global cryptocurrency exchange Binance reports that about 8.5% of Kenya's population (4.25 million people) own digital currencies. This growing craze is currently driving the government's desire to introduce a 3% tax on digital assets in the next fiscal year.
Although there is no national strategy on blockchain and related services yet, the market is growing and changing. The Kenyan government, aware that it cannot curb people's adoption of new technologies because it still lacks the right regulatory framework, has taken security measures by developing a Sandbox through which new technologies, software, and other services can be tested in a safe environment before being made available for consumption.
Before the public initiative with Venom Foundation, an almost similar private initiative had already taken shape in October 2022. That month, the Swiss-based nonprofit NEAR Foundation announced the launch of the Regional Blockchain Hub in Kenya in partnership with Sankore, a NEAR Foundation guild based in Kenya. The Kenya Regional Hub's mission is to accelerate blockchain innovation, education, and talent development across Africa.
Samira Njoya
Competition is intensifying in Africa's rapidly growing data center market. Both local and foreign companies are increasing their investments in infrastructure to meet the rising demand for cloud services across the continent.
An agreement was signed on Monday, May 8, to secure land for the construction of a large-scale data center in Egypt. Khazna Data Centers, a company specializing in data center construction and operations based in Abu Dhabi, has partnered with the Egyptian ICT company, Benya Group, to carry out the project. The agreement was signed by Ahmed Mekky, CEO of Benya Group, Hassan Al Naqbi, CEO of Khazna Data Centers, and Amr Aboualam, chairman of Maadi Technology Park.
Under the agreement, Khazna Data Centers and Benya Group will build a $250 million data center at Maadi Technology Park in Cairo. The center will have a capacity of 25 megawatts (MW) that is expected to double to 50 MW as expansion plans are implemented. The goal is to meet the region's underserved data markets. Construction works are expected to begin later this year and be completed within three years.
The new agreement marks Khazna’s entrance into the Egyptian market. The company plans to expand into three other MENA markets, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Morocco.
According to Ahmed Mekky, Khazna's expansion in Egypt "will contribute to attracting more investments for business sectors involving intensive operations, supporting cloud computing and content system operators” and “encourage major commercial companies to join these giant digital clusters that rely on the latest cloud computing applications, digital technology, and big data."
Samira Njoya
Lillian Barnard has been the managing director of Microsoft South Africa since 2019. Kalane Rampai will replace her.
Microsoft appointed South African Lillian Barnard (photo) as president of Microsoft Africa. The US tech giant announced on May 2.
Barnard has been working in the ICT industry for more than 25 years. She has held local and international leadership positions at companies such as IBM and Vodacom before becoming the CEO of Microsoft South Africa in 2019. She held the position since and will now be replaced by Kalane Rampai.
The appointments align with Microsoft's digital transformation efforts in Africa. The tech behemoth opened its Africa Transformation Office (ATO) in November 2021 and put it under the leadership of Nigerian Kunle Awosika. Microsoft's investments in Africa include digital infrastructure, connectivity, training, cybersecurity, cloud, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and startups. According to an International Data Corporation (IDC), Microsoft and its partner ecosystem will spend about $3.7 billion in Africa on services and products over the next three years.
“As African organizations of all sizes, and across every sector, pivot and adapt to changing business and customer needs, they are looking for partners who can accelerate their agility, flexibility, and competitiveness, while also cutting costs and driving efficiencies. I am deeply passionate about unlocking the growth potential, using technology to deliver real impact for businesses, communities, and economies across the continent,” says Barnard.
Isaac K. Kassouwi
He has over 12 years of experience in various fields such as humanitarian aid, finance, and entrepreneurship. With Naledi Services, he supports SMEs and start-ups in their digitization process.
Patrice Binwa Aganze (photo) is a Congolese entrepreneur who graduated from the University of Goma in 2011 with a degree in finance and financial management services. He also holds certificates of Professional Competence from Trust Merchant Bank and HavardX. He is renowned as the founder and CEO of tech company Naledi Services.
The company was founded in DR, in 2014. It develops custom web and mobile apps, and offers and maintains security systems, among other things, to help entrepreneurs in their management tasks.
"Naledi Services was created to provide solutions that improve the management of SMEs and startups. Our slogan says it best: “Think IT, Get IT”. We have noticed that many people start their businesses with the buzz around entrepreneurship, but the vast majority of Congolese SMEs do not have management tools adapted to their business," said Patrice Binwa Aganze on what prompted him to create the company, during an interview with TechCabal on May 2, 2023.
The digital solutions he provides SMEs and startups include Reflet, a store management software that offers the possibility to create loyalty programs to reward customers when they visit points of sale. There is also Akiba, a savings management software designed for microfinance institutions and establishments.
Naledi Services is also a communications agency that offers its clients advertising, media, print, marketing, press, and public relations management. It also manages professional and leisure events. To date, Naledi Services has 2,351 active users and has worked with over 375 SMEs and NGOs.
Its founder, Patrice Binwa Aganze, is a UN Capital Development Fund Business Development Support Expert since 2020. He entered the professional world, in 2009, by joining Radio Kivu One as a columnist. At the same time, he was working for APROFIME (Action pour la promotion de la fille-mère) as a senior accountant. He was also a customer service agent for Trust Merchant Bank from 2013 to 2014.
Melchior Koba
In recent months, various accusations have been leveled against social media giants in Africa. This could take another turn with the birth of an African union of moderators.
On the sidelines of labor day, last May 1, more than one hundred and fifty employees of subcontractors of Meta, OpenAI, or ByteDance met in Nairobi, pledging to create the first African union of content moderators, several media outlets reported.
The new union aims to address issues that these workers regularly complain about, including poor working conditions, pay that is sometimes less than $2 an hour, and the impacts of content moderation on their mental health.
"There have never been more of us. Our cause is right, our way is just, and we shall prevail. I couldn’t be more proud of today’s decision to register the Content Moderators Union," said Daniel Motaung, a former content moderator who was fired after he decided to register a content moderators’ union.
The unionization efforts began three years ago after several contested terminations, including that of Daniel Motaung employed by Sama, the company responsible for Facebook content moderation in East and South Africa since 2019.
Another issue that led to the creation of the union is the low budget dedicated to “the rest of the world.” In 2021, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that Meta's Facebook was spending 87 percent of its disinformation resources in the United States and Western Europe at the time, leaving the rest of the world vulnerable to the dangers of misinformation.
By setting up the African Union of Moderators, the professionals who work or have worked for Facebook, TikTok, or ChatGPT hope to give workers more bargaining power, which can translate into higher wages, better working conditions, and more benefits.
Samira Njoya
In Africa, the lack of financial resources is not the only factor that affects access to education. The social environment can sometimes also be an obstacle. In those conditions, the well-directed use of ICT tools can address the issue.
ICT tools can be beneficial in many ways for children’s education, according to the World Bank. The international institution makes this assumption based on the experiment it facilitated, between 2018 and 2020, in the States of Kano and Jigawa, in Northwest Nigeria. The experiment involved 9393 rural households whose children aged 6 to 9 and their parents were subjected to two digital learning approaches. The approaches led to a 42% drop in the nonenrolment rate.
The baseline sample selected by the World Bank included 2,335 households in 32 communities that received only aspirational videos for parents to change their mindset and wish for better for their children. Also, 2,345 households in 32 communities received aspirational videos, and 40% of them also received a smartphone with educational content. 4,713 households in 64 communities served as a control group.
The results, documented in the “Improving Enrollment and Learning through Videos and Mobiles Experimental Evidence from Northern Nigeria” policy research paper demonstrate that aspirational videos alone reduced girls' aspirations to marry at the ages of 15 to 18. The videos had the greatest impact on the girls' parents. In households that received the aspirational videos and the smartphone, children's literacy and numeracy skills improved by 0.46 points and 0.63 points, respectively, compared to the control group.
According to the World Bank, no evidence of heterogeneous effects by gender was found overall, "highlighting the potential of edtech to also effectively reach girls in conservative settings, where girls' seclusion or a strong bias towards boys’ education may prevent girls from accessing formal schooling."
"Our heterogeneous analysis by gender shows that the interventions worked for both girls and boys and that the magnitude of treatment effects across gender were generally similar for the main outcomes (school enrollment, and literacy/numeracy skills),” the research paper informs.
Social pressure, a barrier to education
The research reveals that since smartphones are often used by multiple household members in low-resource settings, the resources provided for the experiment improved the literacy and numeracy skills of older, non-targeted siblings, reduced early parenthood among adolescents living in targeted households, and reduced early labor market entry.
For the World Bank, this is bonanza. In its 2019 Reading and Access Research Activity report, the institution revealed that northern Nigeria was significantly behind the national average in terms of education. Less than 3 percent of second graders in public elementary schools could read Hausa text with 80 percent or better comprehension. In the northwest, only 29 percent of women aged 15-49 and 59 percent of men were literate. Only 40 percent of 30-34-year-olds were educated in the northeast and northwest zones, compared to 90 percent in the southeast and southwest regions of the country.
The study believes the situation in the northwest is due to the strong adherence of the population to traditional norms. The formal legal institution of Sharia law, which applies in most northern states and covers social, civil, and criminal matters, has reinforced social norms that encourage early marriage among adolescents and thus early pregnancy. All of this represents additional barriers to education. The emergence of the militant terrorist group Boko Haram, which translates to: "Western education is forbidden," has created an additional barrier to school enrollment and attendance in the north of the country.
According to the World Values Survey 2017-2021 cited by the World Bank, 42 percent of respondents in Nigeria believe that college is more important for a boy than a girl and 41 percent believe that preschoolers suffer when mothers are employed. These norms contrast with those observed in other countries such as Kenya, where the proportions of the population holding these views are 18% and 23% respectively.
Over the past five years, financial support for African technology startups has increased. Confidence in local innovators continues to grow and attract investors who are aware of the opportunities in the African digital economy.
Launch Africa is one of the most active investors in the African startup ecosystem, according to Africa: The Big Deal. Since launching operations in mid-2020, the pan-African venture capital fund has invested more than $31 million in 133 deals, averaging more than one deal per week. The check size of most of its deals ranges between $100,000 and $300,000, with a median check of $250,000.
So far, it has focused on 22 countries. Startups in four countries in particular Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt have alone attracted $21 million of its overall investments (in 89 deals).
Five other markets have attracted more than $1 million. They are namely Ghana, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire (in West Africa) as well as Tanzania and Tunisia. The investment team also went off the beaten path by identifying investments in often overlooked countries such as Togo, Sudan, and Angola.
Fintech was the sector in which Launch Africa invested the most with 42 deals (32%) valued at $11 million (36% of its overall investments) across 13 markets. In Nigeria, fintech attracted 13 deals.
Other sectors that attracted heavy Launch Africa’s investments were marketplaces, logistics, big data, and healthtech, each of which attracted between $3 million to $4 million in 15 to 20 deals. Transactions in marketplaces, logistics, and big data were made in about 10 markets. On the other hand, support for healthtech focused on 5 markets, with 7 transactions in South Africa.
Muriel Edjo
They are among the 18 finalists nominated out of hundreds of applications received by JFD, a network of women entrepreneurs. They were nominated in the Entrepreneur, Intrapreneur, and Junior categories in Africa.
On Monday, April 17, the women entrepreneurs’ network Journée de la Femme Digitale (JFD) unveiled the list of the winners of the 2023 edition of its “Les Margaret Awards.”
Of the 18 finalists in the three categories of the competition, three were African entrepreneurs. In the “Margaret Entrepreneur Europe & Africa” category, Cameroonian entrepreneur Nelly Chatué-Diop (co-founder & CEO of EJARA) was one of the two winners.
Ghanaian-born Rhoda Oduro, the Business Development & Operations Manager of Developers in Vogue, was one of the two winners in the “ Margaret Intrapreneur Europe & Africa” category.
In the Junior category, Melissa Djouka, another 17-year-old Cameroonian, won the award for the African region, thanks to her project Immo'Sure, a platform aimed at securing the real estate market and protecting its actors in Africa.
For one year, the winners will receive unique and exclusive opportunities to support and accelerate the development of their projects. They will be mentored by companies like La Poste, Google, Axa France, and Universal Music France. They will also receive support from some of the world's largest accelerators, such as the Transatlantic Fund of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Canada.
For the African winners, CIO Mag, Affectio Mutandi, and Gabon 24 will offer targeted training worth €20,000. Africa Mutandi will also allow them access to its investors' network.
"For more than 10 years, we have been working with our partners to accelerate the growth of the Margarets and to reveal the economic and social potential of these future leaders to as many people as possible. This year, we are taking a new step by opening up completely new financing and outreach opportunities for them, " said Delphine Remy-Boutang, founder of JFD & Business Angel.
As a reminder, the Margaret Award was launched in 2013 by JFD. Each year, it rewards African and European women entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs whose projects and innovations address major societal challenges. The award honors Margaret Hamilton, former director of the software engineering department at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory that developed the embedded software for NASA's Apollo space program.
Samira Njoya
The labor market is undergoing a profound transformation as digital technologies keep growing. While many jobs are disappearing, more are being created and their requirements are changing. In that context, the government needs to urgently take appropriate measures to anticipate and find solutions to help fill the vacancies that are opening.
South Africa will soon launch a nationwide training program to equip the unemployed youth with digital skills, President Cyril Ramaphosa (photo) recently announced. In his weekly newsletter published on Sunday, April 17, he explained that ZAR800 million ($43.6 million) will be invested to fund this new youth initiative led by the National Skills Fund.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), “South Africa is projected to see the highest jobless rate globally. As the most industrialized nation on the continent, unemployment is estimated to hit 35.6% in 2023.”
This is due to a number of causes. They include low economic growth that has led to fewer job opportunities, a mismatch between education and skills that makes it difficult for many people to find work, and structural problems like unequal access to opportunities. There are also concentrated ownership, a limited domestic market, and a rigid labor market with labor laws, regulations, and collective bargaining agreements that limit access to employment, particularly in the SME segment.
As the digital economy creates new high-potential occupations, the government sees the retraining or reorientation of some South Africans as a way to respond to the new labor market realities brought about by the accelerating digital transformation. The project to equip the unemployed with digital skills is one of the many development initiatives taken by the government, since 2020, to prepare the country for the fourth industrial revolution.
Over the past three years, many international and local companies specializing in digital services or broadband connectivity have increased their investments in South Africa. New companies have expressed interest in the market. The various investments are expected to create thousands of specialized jobs, which the South African government wants to prepare the local workforce for.
Muriel Edjo
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The coalition was founded in December 2022 to bridge the digital divide in Africa. To achieve this ambition, it focuses on universal acceptance.
The Coalition for Digital Africa announced, Thursday (April 13), the launch of a new initiative to strengthen Internet infrastructure across the continent. The initiative aims to prepare the websites, applications, and email systems of African higher education institutions to support all domain names and email addresses.
It is supported by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and conducted in collaboration with the Association of African Universities (AAU). In its framework, the Coalition for Digital Africa will educate African higher education institutions on Universal Acceptance (UA), one of the foundations of a multilingual Internet that allows users worldwide to access websites in local languages.
It will provide training to help the targeted institutions configure their websites, applications, and email systems to make them AU-compliant and integrate AU concepts into their curricula.
The project is part of a series of initiatives announced by the Coalition for Digital Africa when it was founded, in December 2022, to ensure the safe and stable growth of the Internet in Africa and close the gap between communities and economies.
The initiative highlights an important step to building more useful and empowering websites and digital apps in Africa: expanding the choice of languages and scripts.
“This work truly lays the foundation for a more inclusive Internet. [...] By enabling the use of local languages and scripts, users here in Africa and around the world will be able to more readily access important content online – from within the continent and beyond – for academic purposes,” said Professor Olusola Bandele Oyewole, Secretary General of the AAU.
Let’s note that in Africa, some 1,000 to 2,500 languages are spoken, according to the Education for All Global Monitoring 2005 report published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In Africa, poor access to financing remains an obstacle to the development of startups operating on the continent. VC Funds are being launched to address that issue and help them grow in underserved markets.
Dutch investment firm Goodwell Investments and Dutch foundation Oxfam Novib announced, Friday, the launch of "Pepea", a joint €20 million ($21.7 million) fund focused on financing early-stage East African startups, specifically in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia.
According to the statement released by Goodwell Investments, the fund will focus on companies in the sustainable agriculture, energy, mobility, logistics, and waste management sectors.
"We acknowledge the challenges faced by SMEs in the region (especially those that are women-owned) in accessing fine-tuned patient capital and we now want to play a role to address those needs," said Tamara Campero, investment manager at Oxfam Novib.
In an analysis published on June 14, 2022, Africa: The Big Deal informed that East Africa was one of the regions with a sufficiently developed venture capital ecosystem on the continent. It attracted nearly 23% of the funds raised by African startups since 2019. Kenya alone attracted most of the funding, nearly $1.9 billion in two and a half years.
By launching "Pepea," Goodwell Investments and Oxfam Novib want to further develop the region and support startups that are generating revenue but have not yet raised funds. Pepea will ensure that the companies it selects have the right structures and systems to attract more financing.
Samira Njoya
With African countries progressively moving towards the fourth industrial revolution, businesses need to adopt digital solutions in their development strategies since such tools are crucial to making them sustainable.
IT solutions provider ZTE Corporation and South African systems integrator BCX recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement to promote the deployment of digital solutions in South Africa.
The agreement, signed on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress 2023 (MWC 2023), was disclosed in a release published by ZTE last Thursday.
“BCX takes a deep dive into Africa and the Middle East, and has made great achievements in regional digitalization. The strategic cooperation between ZTE and BCX can achieve complementary advantages. ZTE and BCX will bring about more changes and market opportunities in the industry’s expansion and help accelerate the regional digitalization process,” said Zhang Wanchun, SVP and General Manager of the Wireless Product Operation Division at ZTE.
In recent years, digital solutions have become essential to pinpoint consumers’ interests and developing businesses. According to a McKinsey & Company report on the future of work, “digitization and automation could result in a net gain of up to 1.2 million jobs in South Africa by 2030.”
Through their strategic agreement, BCX and ZTE aim to cooperate to further develop the digital infrastructure in South Africa, including servers, storage, private 5G, data center infrastructure, and private clouds. With this agreement, BCX becomes an official channel partner of ZTE in the South African enterprise network market.
Samira Njoya
Agrifoodtech: The mechanization segment raised lower funding in 2022 despite its importance (Report)
In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic highlighted problems in the African food supply chain. It then sparked strong investor interest in technology as a potential solution to satisfy consumers in an increasingly digitalized world.
In 2022, African agrifoodtech startups attracted $640 million in investment, up 22% from 2021 when the volume of funds attracted was $536 million. The figures are disclosed in a report released by venture capital fund AgFunder, in collaboration with Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek.
During the period, the mechanization segment attracted the lowest amount in that category. Indeed, startups in agricultural robotics, mechanization, and equipment that integrates connected tractors, drones, and automatic agricultural machines attracted only $10 million. That is 1.56% of all investments mobilized by African agrifoodtech startups.
Investment by start-up category in 2022 ($)
Source: AgFunder
Yet, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agricultural mechanization is essential in Africa because it alleviates tedious tasks, increases agricultural productivity, improves income, and contributes to food security. In 2019, the organization lamented that 65% of smallholders were still using human muscle power to prepare soils while 25% of them were using animals against only 10% using mechanized means for the task.
In comparison, in South Asia, human muscle power use has already fallen to 30 percent for land preparation work, compared with 40 percent for motorized machinery, while in Latin America and the Caribbean motorized machinery was used by 50 percent of farmers.
Investment in mechanization by region in 2022 ($)
Source: AgFunder
According to AgFunder, four agrifoodtech segments captured the bulk of the sector's funding in 2022. In-Store Retail & Restaurant Tech startups attracted $197 million. Midstream Tech startups, which operate in the food safety, traceability, logistics, transportation, and processing segments, among others, have raised $170 million.
Meanwhile, start-ups offering marketplaces and financing solutions attracted $131 million, while start-ups specializing in cloud computing technologies that produce, among other things, ghost kitchens and autonomous delivery robots raised $44 million. These are much larger sums than those raised by startups that offer production improvement tools.
Muriel Edjo