In Africa, most schools teach lessons in official languages. Practically no courses are taught in local languages. Yet, researches show that teaching courses in local languages can greatly improve academic performance. This partnership may be an interesting experience.
Last Wednesday, Premium content streaming platform Ckrowd and Nigeria's Center synergies in areas of education, technology, and the dissemination and advocacy of knowledge for the Advancement of Education "School on Air (SOA)" signed a memorandum of understanding to offer digital STEM courses in local Nigerian languages, including Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, but also in French.
For Kayode Adebayo (photo, right), CEO of Ckrowd, the MoU is a starting point to "generate synergies in education, technology, dissemination, and advocacy.”
The initiative comes after research results showed that many Yoruba youth increased their knowledge retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects by 65% when studying in their native language. The same is true for Hausa students whose knowledge retention increased by 250% after learning STEM in their native language.
The goal of this agreement is therefore to close the education gap on the African continent and provide opportunities that will help students gain the technical skills, professional knowledge, and attitude needed to excel and function globally with a comprehensive curriculum that will benefit the next generation.
According to stakeholders, the initiative will reach more than 40 million young Africans, particularly in West Africa. It will enable students from different backgrounds to access education, and learning opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Doing so will contribute to sustainable development goal number four which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
Kayode Adebayo explains that the MoU is just the beginning of numerous projects to improve the living conditions of “the next generations of young Africans.”
To fulfill that goal, Ckrowd intends to partner with various parties “to deliver true value to young Diasporans and Africans on the Continent” as well as create “unique and ad-hoc local solutions and innovation to advance African nations and harness the new dynamic of the digital age, content creation, technology, and education.”
Samira Njoya
Human resources are one of the key components for the success of every firm, organization, or institution. However, identifying the best professionals sometimes takes a huge amount of time. With his deep-leaning tool, Mouhidine Seiv shortens the curve.
Mouhidine Seiv (photo) is a Mauritanian entrepreneur and data scientist. In 2016, he founded HrFlow.ai (formerly known as Riminder.net.) to leverage artificial intelligence to help firms hire better human resources for improved efficiency.
HrFlow.ai allows "recruiters to identify three times more talent while interviewing four times fewer candidates by analyzing millions of resumes worldwide. We have developed deep learning algorithms to evaluate and classify every part of a candidate's profile: experience, projects, and education. This technique allows us to achieve unparalleled relevance," Mouhidine Seiv told French magazine Décideurs in 2017.
Beyond its recruitment assistance services, HrFlow.ai also assists companies and vendors in their General Data Protection Regulation, privacy regulations, algorithmic consent constraints, and fairness requirements compliance procedures.
From 2016 to date, through HrFlow.ai, Mouhidine Seiv has helped more than a hundred firms automate their human resources data management. The tech entrepreneur is a former visiting assistant professor of deep learning at CentraleSupélec, the graduate engineering school of Paris-Saclay University. In 2017, Leade.rs ranked him among the eight under-30 emerging entrepreneurs to watch in France. Some years later, he also made it to Forbes’ “30 under 30” list.
Melchior Koba
There have always been debates about the efficiency of mainstream teaching methods in Africa. Some claim that the methods are not efficient since they are tailored to local realities. In Tunisia, a startup is addressing that issue to improve the performance of primary school pupils in a fun way.
Class Quiz is a digital solution developed by the Tunisian start-up Envast, founded in 2016 to make quality education accessible to everyone. The digital solution helps primary school pupils learn while playing.
It has a mobile application, available on Play Store and Huawei App gallery. Its contents are adapted to the requirements of the Tunisian national curriculum and presented in a fun manner to attract children. Class Quiz can be used to revise school concepts or even learn at home under parents' supervision.
To allow access to the quiz contents, Envast charges forty Tunisian dollars (about US12.5) for a 3-month subscription. Envast indicates that its primary target is the African education market, which is expected to grow to US$1.8 billion by 2024. In addition to its services to individuals, it creates content for non-governmental organizations and foundations. For example, it created content for Orange Foundation’s Digital School. It also created content for the French Institute’s "Yallab" project. In 2021, thanks to Class Quiz, the startup was one of the finalists of the accelerator program Emerging Mediterranean.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
According to the United Nations, the infant mortality rate in Mali was 91 deaths per 1000 births, much higher than the Sub-Saharan African average (73). Denko could complement authorities' efforts to reduce that rate.
Denko Kunafoni is an eHealth solution developed by Malain startup OSI Tech. It allows pregnant women to monitor their health status during pregnancy and receive health tips. It also helps the women keep a tab on numerous doctor appointments and book one if necessary.
The eHealth solution has a mobile app (currently available for Android devices only) available on Google Playstore. Through the app, pregnant women can learn everything they need to know about pregnancy and maternity. They can also anonymously ask questions and receive answers from medical specialists, as well as receive daily tips to improve their lifestyle. In addition, Denko gives mothers developmental milestones to efficiently monitor their children’s development up to three years of age.
To access all those services, mothers and mothers-to-be have to register by providing a set of information for personalized assistance during and after pregnancy. With its feature allowing communication in local languages, Denko is accessible to everyone, even the illiterates. In 2019, the solution won Orange Mali’s social entrepreneurship competition.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Digital trust is an important component to boost the adoption of digital services. In Morocco, where digital transformation is ongoing for years now, a legal framework was approved governing digital trust in the country. It paved the way for startups like DamaneSign to enhance trust in the digital sector.
DamaneSign is a Moroccan digital trust solution. It helps users digitize their signatures and authenticate them. The solution was developed by a startup, founded in 2021, months after a national law on digital trust. So, it was highly welcomed in the local tech ecosystem.
“The product is a SaaS (online) solution that allows you to sign and have documents signed securely. We act as the trusted third party between companies and their customers, allowing them to sign different contractual documents. We also help manage transactions with multiple signatories or sign multiple documents,” explains Zouhair Hamdaoui, founder of the startup that developed DamaneSign.
When required, the startup sends emails to every signatory inviting them to sign required documents as needed. Those signatories also receive authentification codes via SMS. “An agent readies the documents (contract, quote, invoice...) for electronic signature on the DamaneSign platform. The signatories receive those documents in their e-mail, read them, and sign,” Zouhair adds.
The startup offers two subscription packs to its users. The first pack costs MAD 300, allowing the user to send 25 documents to signatories for signature. The second pack costs MAD3,999 allowing, the subscriber to send up to 500 documents for signature.
Let’s note that DamaneSign stores users’ data in a data center located in Morocco. To sign documents, signatories must also have an account with DamaneSign or register one. For companies, the required information is the name of the entity, the number of the company, the professional information of the person registering the account on behalf of the company, and his/her professional email.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Retail business is the most popular activity in Africa. However, the daily management of the transactions carried out by such shops can prove difficult for owners. Weebi, a Senegalese startup wants to ward off those difficulties.
Weebi is a fintech solution launched in 2015, by an eponymous Senegalese startup. It is a multilingual tool that allows users (retail businesses mostly) to manage sales, supplies, payables, and receivables.
The solution was launched because “we noticed that merchants needed tools to efficiently and transparently manage their cash register,” indicates Cheikh Sene, one of Weebi's co-founders.
“Weebi streamlines commercial exchanges. It helps manage the cash register and clients’ transactions securely and fairly. Weebi ends disputes involving clients’ transaction history,” added Kande Diaby, another co-founder.
The solution is delivered to users as a kit composed of a tablet computer and a printer. Using the dedicated tablet, Weebi’s paid users can create separate sheets for each of their clients. On the sheets, clients’ purchases can be listed and the type of transaction (paid in cash or on credit).
Weebi also allows its users’ clients to load dedicated wallets that can be debited for each transaction made. In case of problems, the startup’s team is usually available to go on the ground to assist merchants. For paying users, its subscription ranges from XOF99,900 and XOF149,000 for a computer tablet, an anti-theft device, a printer, and the bookkeeping app.
The solution has won several awards since its launch. These include the Digital Innovation Award in January 2017 (Tigo / Reach for Change), the Digital Africa Challenge in 2017 (French Development Agency / BPIFrance), and the Arbre à Palabre hackathon in December 2017 in Abidjan (Société Générale). In the coming years, its developers intend to deploy it in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gabon, Angola, and Ethiopia.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Nigeria is considered the African country hosting the highest number of scammers. However, sometimes the scammers tarnishing its image are based abroad. Hence, to extend their capacity to effectively deal with the issue, national authorities bet on international cooperation.
Nigeria recently took a major step forward in its fight against cybercrime. The country officially joined the list of the 66 countries that signed the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, National Security Adviser (NSA) Babagana Monguno announced on August 24.
According to his statement, the convention is signed weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari authorized it (on July 6), following the approval of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on June 29.
Nigeria is actively engaged in the fight against cybercrimes. In 2015, it passed the Cybercrime Act providing an “ effective, unified and comprehensive legal, regulatory and institutional framework for the prohibition, prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of cybercrimes in Nigeria.”
Six years later, the federal government elaborated the National Cyber Security Policy and Strategy (NCPS 2021) and established the Nigerian Computer Emergency Response Team (ngCERT) and the National Digital Forensics Laboratory.
Thanks to the Budapest Convention, it will "support and be part of international cooperation in addressing the menace of cybercrime. This is considering the cross-border nature of cybersecurity threats and the dire need for synergy as well as effective collaboration with the international community to tackle the ever-increasing challenge,” indicated Babagana Monguno.
The Budapest Convention, also known as the Convention on Cybercrime, is the first international treaty to combat Internet crime by harmonizing national laws, improving investigative techniques, and enhancing cooperation among nations.
Samira Njoya
With the boom of the digital economy, new professional activities have surfaced, bringing new legal, tax, and ethical challenges. The legal framework being planned by Algeria aims to prevent possible abuses in the country’s digital economy.
Yacine El Mahdi Oualid (photo), Algeria’s Minister of Knowledge Economy and Startups, recently provided more information on the entrepreneurship law being elaborated by his Ministry. On August 18, 2022, he took to his Facebook page, explaining that the law would not govern liberal professions, already regulated activities, or artisans. It will regulate new economic activities that emerged in the wake of the digital economy, he explained.
The economic activities included in its scope are namely web influencing, e-marketing, app and web development, information design, etc.
According to the government official, the law (which will soon be submitted to parliament) will introduce numerous incentives like online registration, streamlined accounting, preferential tax regimes, and social security coverage. It will also allow the professionals covered to open business bank accounts and register their home address or co-working spaces as their domiciled address.
The draft project of the said law was approved during a ministerial council on July 13, 2022. It aims to prevent possible abuses by web entrepreneurs. Indeed, on August 9, 2021, Algerian courts sentenced four web entrepreneurs to 6-month imprisonment for scam and criminal association in the case dubbed Future Gate, involving a fictitious agency that claimed to offer technical support to students who wish to go to school in foreign universities.
The new law will encourage digital entrepreneurship, and help the youth employ themselves, therefore reducing the unemployed population. It will also facilitate the exportation of Moroccan digital services and contribute to the national economy, Yacine El Mahdi Oualid added.
Muriel Edjo
In Africa, biometrics adoption is rising steadily. A growing number of countries are getting interested in biometric technologies because of their effectiveness to combat fraud.
The Togolese National Social Security Fund (CNSS) recently launched Biosecu, a facial recognition web application to attest that its beneficiaries (pensioners and annuitants) are well alive at specified dates.
With Biosecu, the CNSS wants to allow its beneficiaries to perform those mandatory checks remotely. That way, they will no longer be obliged to reach out to dedicated CNSS agencies.
"Facial recognition allows us to confirm that your face perfectly matches the biometric information held by CNSS Togo," explains the social security institution.
In recent years, the country has introduced several reforms including the payment of social benefits in the beneficiaries’ bank accounts. There was also a reform to check whether the beneficiaries (both within and outside the national territory) were alive as of a set date. This operation carried out bi-annually was aimed at preventing fraud.
According to a statement by CNSS director general Ingrid Awadé, the operation, which was previously suspended, in compliance with Covid-19 barrier measures, has resumed and will run from August 16 to December 31, 2022, for pensions and annuities to be paid during the first half of 2022.
"As of January 1, 2023, payment will be suspended for beneficiaries who have not performed the check, per the social security code,” she stressed.
In Togo, the CNSS is the pioneer of digitalization. It was the first to launch dematerialization with online form-filling and payment. With its facial recognition platform, it is innovating once again by leveraging technology to allow its beneficiaries to easily carry out its mandatory processes but at the same time combatting fraud.
Fiacre E. Kakpo
In 2014, she decided to relocate to Morocco and contribute to the development of her native country. The choice has proven judicious since the healthtech solution she introduced won her national and international awards.
Zineb Drissi Kaitouni (photo) is a Moroccan entrepreneur and trained financial analyst. In 2014, she co-founded healthtech DabaDoc with Driss Drissi Kaitouni to facilitate access to healthcare and improve the management of medical appointments. Her startup has close to eight million users in several African countries. They use DabaDoc platforms to set appointments with over 10,000 health professionals specialized in more than 100 medical specialties.
DabaDoc was “initially developed to help health professionals manage their agenda and digitize patient pathways. It now helps digitalize patients’ records and offers a reliable and secure video consultation platform to doctors who have adopted this cutting-edge tool,” Zineb told Moroccan media La Nouvelle Tribune in March 2022.
The tech entrepreneur started her professional career, in 2003, as an analyst for Goldman Sachs. In 2012, she co-founded Ruby’s in London, before relocating to Morocco, in 2014, to contribute to the development of her native country.
She chose the health sector when she found out how challenging it was for the population to access healthcare because of factors like unavailable assistants, and poor appointment management leading to crowded offices. She decided to address those challenges with technology.
Her choice proved to be a good bet because, thanks to DabaDoc, Zineb has received several national and international awards. She for instance won the first prize in the Global Innovation for Science and Technology in 2014. She also won third prize in the SeedStars World competition the same year.
In 2015, Aspen-Blackstone selected DabaDoc as one of the top 10 startups in the MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) region. Four years later, Zineb was nominated as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and even won the Endeavor Entrepreneur award.
In April 2021, Orange Middle East and Africa entered DabaDoc’s capital. The operator also introduced its payment services to make DabaDoc’s services more accessible and add new services. Thanks to that partnership, the startup launched its services in Côte d’Ivoire, in June 2022.
Melchior Koba
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The coronavirus pandemic triggered a surge in remote work. Companies are now more open to hiring remote talents. Talenteum wants to facilitate the process by allowing access to a remote African talent pool.
Talenteum is a digital solution developed by Mauritian organizational development firm Talenteum Group. The solution allows companies to hire their workforce from a remote African talent pool. It also allows African professionals to join its talent pool to seek employment.
The platform boasts an active community of African professionals, from accountants to project managers. By subscribing to its monthly or yearly membership, companies can access that pool and launch recruitments. To launch those processes, companies have to fill out dedicated forms giving relevant details on the skills desired. Once those steps are completed, Talenteum takes over by posting relevant job ads, gathering resumes, and carrying out initial interviews.
In 2019, Talenteum made it to MyAfricanStartup.com's annual list of the 100 African startups worthy of investment. The following year, it was one of the finalists of the World Summit for Migration and Development, enabling its founders to present the solution during the Migration Challenge led by the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) and Seedstars.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The appointment is the culmination of an extensive experience in the digital sector and several fellowships.
On August 16, 2022, Nigerian social entrepreneur Gbenga Sesan (photo) was selected among the ten members of the inaugural leadership panel to steer the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) up to 2023.
Reacting to his selection among the inaugural team, Gbenga “welcomed the appointment saying he was honored and looking forward to serving the world alongside the high-level leaders and also influence digital policy globally,” informs a release by Paradigm Initiative - which the Nigerian entrepreneur serves as an executive director.
The Nigerian social entrepreneur was selected following “an open call for nominations,” we learn. This experience will add to the skills he acquired working, between 2008 and 2012, as a member of the UN Committee of e-Leaders for ICT and Youth. During his time as a member of that committee, he “Worked with selected young experts from various regions of the world to discuss youth input in the global ICT space” while still assuming his normal duties as the executive director of Paradigm Initiative.
In Nigeria, Gbenga served as a member of two presidential committees. They are namely the Presidential committees on Harmonization of Information Technology, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Sectors (2006) and Roadmap for the Achievement of Accelerated Universal Broadband Infrastructure and Services Provision (2013).
From 2020 to 2021, he has been a non-resident scholar at Standford University’s Digital Civil Society Lab. He also received several fellowships including the Cyber Stewards Fellow, Crans Montana Forum Fellow, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow.
All those fellowships and nominations are the culmination of an extensive experience in the IT sector. He started his professional journey in 2001 with the Nigerian branch of Junior Achievement Worldwide, a global network dedicated to empowering students in financial literacy, work readiness, entrepreneurship, and digital literacy. During his time with Junior Achievement Nigeria, he led the Lagos Digital Village, a joint project with several partners including Microsoft and the Lagos Business School. In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, he advised the World Health Organization on data privacy. He is currently advising the World Economic Forum on its Trust Operationalization Project to develop a rights-based data policy for businesses.
Melchior Koba
The funds will help build customer loyalty and boost retention. It will also help launch regional expansion.
Nigerian B2B platform Omnibiz announced, Friday (August 19), it completed its pre-series A round, raising US$15 million. The platform will use those funds to accelerate its growth, win customer loyalty and retention for more revenue.
The round, led by Timon Capital, had Ventures Platform, LoftyInc Capital Management, Chapel Hill Denham, Chandaria Capital, and Musha Ventures as participating investors. It consisted of US$5 million as equity participation and US$10 million as debt investment.
“We believe the smart informal retailer – not shopping malls - is the future of modern retail in Africa. By providing the capital, tools and logistics, we will enable retailers to offer great merchandising at an affordable price point to win their customers’ trust. This funding will allow us to quadruple the profitability of our retailers, build a scalable and profitable business, and take us one step closer to transforming African retail,” said Omnibiz co-founder and CEO, Deepankar Rustagi.
According to Techcrunch, Omnibiz will use the funding to double down on winning the loyalty of its retail customers and drive client retention.
Meanwhile, Disrupt Africa explains that by “employing its holistic strategy to become the primary B2B operating system for retailers – helping with last mile delivery, procurement, working capital, inventory management and operational tools for tracking sales, cost, prices and profit – Omnibiz projects a 4x revenue increase for its retailers.”
The company will begin its regional expansion this month, we learn.
Omnibiz was founded in June 2019. It allows retailers to place orders and have those orders delivered to their doorsteps free of charge. Retailers can place their orders via the company’s mobile apps, by chatting on Whatsapp or by calling a dedicated support number.
To date, the e-commerce platform connects retailers in Nigeria and Ghana to more than 200 brands while the goods are delivered by its network of over 70 logistics partners. More than 3,000 retailers use its platform daily, Omnibiz claims. With the information provided by the platform, retaillers can view inventory in real-time and avoid buying products that may prove difficult to resell.
For Nikos Katsaounis, Timpon Capital Partner, the Fast-moving consumer goods “ supply chain is fragmented, inefficient, and opaque. Omnibiz tackles all of these problems and addresses them with an efficient software layer that provides much-needed data on this otherwise obscure market and supply chain.”
Samira Njoya
During his presidential term, which started in April 2013, the outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta, initiated a set of projects transforming Kenya into a tech powerhouse. His successor plans to build on his achievements to make the country a digital transformation reference.
On August 15, William Ruto was declared the winner of the last presidential election in Kenya, one of Africa’s leading tech powerhouses. In his manifesto, the incoming president promised to implement projects aimed at accelerating the digital transformation initiated by outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta.
One of his plans is to add 100,000 kilometers of optic fiber cable to the existing 9,000 km network in the next five years. The aim is to achieve universal broadband availability during the period. He also wants to increase the rate of public services digitization and automated critical government processes to 80 percent.
According to the manifesto, broadband and digital transformation will “play a critical role in enabling [Kenya] to make tremendous achievement in the other four pillars of Health, Agriculture, MSME and Financing as well in enhancing revenue collection via automation of VAT systems.”
In recognition of the digital sector’s impact on job creation and poverty alleviation, William Ruto also announced his plan to reduce internet costs to facilitate access to internet for Kenyan youth, therefore giving them the possibility to learn, get crucial information and do business.
He also promised to establish an “Africa Regional Hub” and promote “the development of software for export.” Similarly, the incoming president plans to develop the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry into a major export and job creation sector.
“The administration will strengthen Konza Technopolis to bring together industry, academic institutions and other innovators to co-invest in emerging technologies to create high-quality jobs that leverage on artificial intelligence, robotics and other technologies and thus enhance our regional and global competitiveness,” the manifesto reads.
The projects are aimed at making Kenya a digital transformation reference on the African continent by 2027 and guaranteeing effective human, economic and social development. The investments required to carry out those projects are estimated at Ksh40 billion (US$334 million), to be financed by the Universal Service Fund. The fund, managed by the Communications Authority (CA), is made up of taxes levied on licensees, government appropriations, grants, and donations.
Muriel Edjo