In Africa, the stigmatization of HIV-positive people hinders the effective control and prevention of AIDS. In Nigeria, where nearly 1.9 million people are HIV-positive, technology has demonstrated its ability to improve their care.
Nigeria’s institute of human virology (IHVN) and healthtech startup Vantage Health Technologies revealed, Thursday (June 2), their successful implementation of an AI-powered project to keep HIV-positive people on effective and sustained treatment. Thanks to an AI-powered solution developed by Vantage, the IHVN was able to predict and “positively influence the behavior of high-risk HIV/AIDS patients.”
“The Patient Retention Solution is an AI-driven model that uses data from patient history to predict if patients will miss their next clinic appointment with the assumption that missing the appointment means the patient will drop off treatment as they are not present to collect their medication,” explains Annika Lindorsson Krugel, Solutions Manager of Vantage Health Technologies.
Once the prediction is completed, a list of the patients most likely to miss their appointments is transmitted to clinical staff who would then take action to prevent the likely outcome. They for instance call or send SMS to patients, and even visit the patients that do not have phones. Interviews are also carried out to provide psychological support to every at-risk patient before an appointment.
For Mercy Omozuafoh, Programme Manager for Care and Support with the IHVN, “the project has demonstrated the effectiveness of proactive tracking of Patients Living with HIV (PLHIV).” It “has made us understand the importance of interventions we are implementing,” she adds.
“The predictive model was rolled out to about 30,000 patients at the General Hospital Kudwa at Bwari in the Federal Capital Territory, the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital in Lafia in the Nasarawa State, and General Hospital Ahoada in the Rivers State,” a press release informs.
“Our estimate shows that between 1.8 to 1.9 million Nigerians are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Of this number, 1.6 million are already on treatment. So, we have 300,000 more to go,” the national AIDS control agency NACA’s boss Dr. Gambo Gumel Aliyu told The Guardian ahead of World AIDS Day 2021.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), one of the challenges in combating the epidemic in Africa remains keeping HIV-positive people on sustainable treatment. Also, according to a case study by Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, the main barriers to treatment adherence “included stigma, side-effects, logistical challenges, economic barriers, and forgetfulness.”
“The study found that caregiver support, peer support, and understanding one’s status helped patients overcome these barriers,” it concluded (according to a release published by Vantage Health Technologies).
Ruben Tchounyabe
The fintech’s mission statement is “to enable lenders to unlock economic inclusion for African businesses and consumers.” With the funds secured, it plans to further the mission.
Nigerian fintech startup Indicina announced, Monday (June 6), the successful completion of a US$3 million seed funding round to accelerate African expansion. Led by tech investment firm Target Global, the operation had Greycroft and RV Ventures as participating investors.
According to Indicina co-founder Yvonne Johnson (photo), the Nigerian fintech wants “lenders to be better informed about the decisions around credit so they can go to market faster with their digital products.”
“So we’ve never had a business model that included our balance sheet, which we’ve always worked with the lenders,” she told Techcrunch.
Indicina was founded in 2018 by Carlos del Carpio, Jacob Ayokunle, Yemi Ajao, Yvonne Johnson. Apart from Nigeria, it is also present in Kenya. It offers machine learning solutions that improve individuals' and businesses’ chances to get access to credit. As company insight platform Crunchbase puts it, it “provides analytics-driven credit decisions for lenders.”
The fintech claims more than 100 active clients (lenders), which it helped process over NGN3 billion (US$7.2 million) loans and disburse over NGN700 million. Since its launch in 2018, Indicina has raised some US$7.2 million to upgrade its technology and hire more talents.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The agency is created to improve the coherence of digital transformation projects ongoing in the country. The decision will help optimize resource utilization, they hope.
The Republic of Benin officially created, Wednesday (June 1), its national information technology development agency. The new agency, called ASIN -Agence des systèmes d’information et du numérique- is the result of the merger of four dedicated agencies. Those agencies are namely the digital development agency ADN, the information systems agency ASSI, the national cybersecurity agency ANSSI, and the Universal Service of Electronic Communications and Post (ABSU-CEP).
According to the government, the agencies were merged to answer optimization needs, in preparation for the operationalization of Société béninoise d’infrastructures numériques -the national digital infrastructure management firm-for improved efficiency, and for more rationality and coherence in state actions.
ASIN will pursue the actions carried out by its predecessors since its creation in 2016. It will notably implement digital projects like broadband and ultra-wideband deployment, dematerialization, cybersecurity, network extension, and the development of internet adoption in rural areas.
Placed under the dual supervision of the Ministry of Digital Affairs and Digitization and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, ASIN will be headed by André Loko (photo). Its board chairman is Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni.
Ruben Tchounyabe
The digital platform boasts of thousands of monthly users, therefore improving the visibility of registered artisans and informal workers.
In 2018, a new startup appeared in the Ivorian startup ecosystem networking users with artisans and informal workers. Dubbed “Mon Artisan” (Which literally means ‘My craftsman’ in French), it was founded by Kevin Sesse (photo), a business law graduate.
The startup specializes in household emergencies and renovation works, including interior design, plumbing, and gardening.
"My team and I give visibility to artisans and informal workers. We also help them access better work opportunities,” Kevin explains. The latter is a member of the Ivorian tech consortium Côte d'Ivoire Innovation 20 (Ci20) and a winner of the 2010 Gifted and Talented Pupils and Students IQ Award for his academic career. He began his professional career in July 2015 as a research assistant at Ipsos Abidjan. From February to August 2016, he was a trainer in the framework of Orange Côte d'Ivoire's Digital Homes program. Currently, he is a managing partner at consulting firm Social Tech Group.
His entrepreneurial career earned him several awards. In 2017, he was awarded the Alassane Ouattara Emerging Young Entrepreneur Award and the MTN Y'ello Start-up Award. The following year, he received the Deloitte Innovative Start-up Award, the Prix Jeunesse de la Francophonie in the technology category, and the African Entrepreneurship Award for Innovation. In 2019, he also won the RFI Challenge App Africa award.
Melchior Koba
With that offer, Kenya hopes to support bitcoin miners’ green transition. According to Ecofin Agency, several crypto mining firms have already contacted KenGen with power requests.
Parastatal power producer Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) invites bitcoin mines to settle operations in Kenya. According to Ecofin Agency, which revealed the information recently, the power producer thus intends to monetize its geothermal power surplus and promote green crypto mining.
“We’ll have them here because We have the space and the power is near, which helps with stability,” said Peketsa Mwangi, KenGen’s geothermal development director.
Mr. Mwangi also revealed that some bitcoin mining companies have already approached the Kenyan company. "Their power requests vary, some of them had asked to start with 20MW to be later graduated... crypto mining is very energy-intensive," he added.
According to Kenyan news outlet The Standard, KenGen hopes to install bitcoin mining farms around its main geothermal power plant near Naivasha (123 km west of Nairobi). The country is Africa’s largest geothermal energy producer. Its production potential is about 14,000 MW but its installed capacity is 863 MW. Meanwhile, crypto mining firms are under pressure due to their high carbon emissions as they require an outstanding volume of energy to run their mining computers and equipment. Last year, several mining companies were expelled from China. Some of them are still looking for countries with excess supplies of renewable energy.
To add value to its economy, Morocco seeks new partnerships with international partners. Its agreement with HCL is highly strategic given its reputation as the best destination for outsourcing.
Indian multinational IT services and consulting company Hindustan Computers Ltd (HCL) will soon set up a “delivery center” in Morrocco. Indeed, last May 28, during her official visit to India, Moroccan Minister of Digital Transition, Ghita Mezzour, signed a memorandum of understanding with HCL.
According to a release from the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the memorandum states HCL’s ambition to offer high-value-added IT services to its global clients from the Morocco-based delivery center. The IT consulting company will focus notably on coding, software development, and training Morrocan talents. Ultimately, HCL plans to use Morrcoo as an outsourcing hub to conquer the African market.
“Morrocco's already high internet penetration rate is growing exponentially. The country, whose population can speak Arabic, has an educated and qualified workforce. Indian entrepreneurs can capitalize on the Moroccan population’s ability to speak French to reach African countries whose population mostly speak French,” Minister Mezzour said.
The government official’s visit to India was organized to enter into strategic partnerships with large firms. During her visit, Mezzour presented Morrocco as one of the three best outsourcing destinations in Africa because of its political stability, its commercial partnerships with European countries, and its trade openness in Africa.
Ruben Tchounyabe
With the E-customs project, authorities want to improve operational and financial efficiency, in line with the Nigerian government’s, which is to “improve services, lives, and revenues with digitalization.”
Nigeria recently launched a US$3.2 billion project that will quadruple monthly customs revenues. Dubbed the “E-customs” project, it consists of digitalizing the whole customs administration, including revenue collection. In that regard, stakeholders expect the project to help fetch US$176 billion in the next 20 years.
In the framework of the project, the Nigeria Customs Service signed, last May 30, a concession agreement with the Trade Modernization Project Limited, the project consortium formed by Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and Huawei Technologies Limited.
With the E-customs project, financed by the AFC and implemented by Huawei, Nigerian authorities want to leverage digital tools to improve customs’ operational and financial efficiency.
“... we’re going to become a fully digitized Service. [...] The success of this project will be on the global map. We are going to hit the ground running. It’s a very beneficial project especially as it’ll garner $176 billion for the concession period. We are likely to surpass that,” said Mr. Hameed Ibrahim Ali, Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
“To the Nigeria Customs, this is going to change the entire business process. It is going to put the Customs on the best part in terms of doing business. It would remove all arbitrariness and human mistakes … ease the cost of doing business…. assist those of us who were given the task to manage with a simpler process of managing and monitoring,” he added.
For Alhaji Saleh Ahmadu, chairman of the Trade Modernisation Project Limited, the e-customs project has several economic benefits. “As the concession period begins, we wish to assure Nigerians that the revenue target of 176 billion dollars for the Federal Government will be achieved, if not surpassed. [...] More importantly, we are excited about the real economic benefits for the country, in terms of business growth for exporters and import-dependent businesses. [...] Others are improved global supply chains, enhanced industrial capacity utilization, and creation of employment opportunities,’’ he indicated.
Ruben Tchounyabe
She chose to leverage technology to avoid preventable deaths caused by a lack of information. To fulfill her mission she created a universal health identification system dubbed Kea.
Vena Arielle Ahouansou (photo) is a Beninese doctor and entrepreneur. In 2017, she launched Kea Medicals, a startup providing universal health IDs to users. Via her platform Kea, she interconnects various health institutions allowing efficient healthcare to users no matter the health institution they visit. Indeed, attending physicians can check patients’ health records by imputing the latter’s universal IDs (previously provided by Kea) on the startup’s centralized platform. That way, it contributes to better diagnosis and treatment.
Arielle graduated from the University of Parakou's Faculty of Medicine (Benin) in 2017. During her medical internship, she witnessed many preventable deaths. The death of a woman named Charlotte was one too many.
"One evening, in Benin, I was on call at a referral hospital when Charlotte, a woman aged about 27, was referred. She delivered twins in a suburban hospital but, sadly she developed postpartum hemorrhage” and needed an urgent blood transfusion, she explains. The young mother died ten minutes after reaching the referral hospital because doctors had to check her blood type before the transfusion.
To ensure such preventable losses are averted, Arielle Ahouansou is focused on universal health identification. She is also active in several social projects. From 2014 to 2015, she served as the regional coordinator for the Health Sanitation and Hygiene Office, an organization that facilitates people's access to water and sanitation. One year earlier, she founded the non-governmental organization REFELD/MEN for women's empowerment and leadership development.
She is a Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme and GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator program fellow. In 2018, she was on Forbes Africa’s list of the 30 under 30 most promising African youths. The following year, she won the Paris Grand Prizes for Innovation.
Melchior Koba
After a pre-series A operation in November 2021, Appetito is acquiring Tunisian peer Lamma through a merger by absorption deal. Once completed, the process will create a new major q-commerce and e-commerce player.
Grocery delivery startup Appetito announced Wednesday (June 1), the acquisition of its Tunisian peer Lamma. The startup did not disclose the acquisition value but several media suggest it is between US$10 and 15 million.
The two startups decided to merge their operations under the brand Appetito, which will be operational in Morocco and Tunisia (Lamma’s markets) and expand into new West African territories.
“We believe it’s the best time to expand in Africa to solve the huge inefficiencies in the retail supply chain […] Having Lamma on board will put us on track to become the largest q-commerce player in the continent, transforming the lives of millions of people and creating thousands of direct & indirect jobs,” said Appetito’s CEO Shehab Mokhtar.
The acquisition deal is announced seven months after Appetito raised US$2 million in pre-series A funding, last November. The funds raised were used to expand the startup’s presence in Egypt and plan for regional growth.
Once completed (by Q3-2022), the merger by absorption plan will make Appetito the largest q-commerce and e-commerce player in Africa. From the three markets where it operates (Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia), it will enter new continental markets, starting from West Africa.
According to Shehab Mokhtar, the q-grocery market still has strong growth potential. To illustrate his point of view, he informed that just 2% of the operators in Egypt’s US$60 billion grocery market are online. Also, the Middle-East and West African markets are fragmented and only a few firms have already succeeded in becoming major regional e-commerce players, he added.
Chamberline MOKO
After an extensive professional career, he decided to go back to his native country and offer effective data management solutions.
Philippe Nkouaya (photo) is a Cameroonian entrepreneur and founder of Philjohn Technologies, an IT services and consulting startup. Through the startup he founded in 2017, he offers firms sustainable solutions for quick file processing and sorting.
The startup was created following its founder’s insurance coverage issues. “It took [the insurer] close to a year to process my claim just because I was unable to find my files,” Philippe explains. After that incident, he decided to find solutions so that firms can find any file in “under three seconds.”
He is nowadays a reference in Cameroon. He graduated from The Limoges Computer Sciences Engineering School with a Master’s in Computer Science in 2016. But, his professional career began four years earlier in the entertainment industry. That year, he became the manager of Hope Music Group in Cameroon. In 2014, in conjunction with his duties at Hope Music Group, he was also an assistant IT manager for the communication firm Global Link.
In 2016, he worked as a business intelligence analyst at Business & Decision Group and then as an external IT consultant at Sanofi Pasteur, France. In 2017, he became the Chairman of Hope Music Group, in conjunction with his duties as chairman of Hope Clothing. When he launched Philjohn Technologies, he was a member of the board of Hope Management & Consulting (HOMCO).
Philippe Nkouaya is an E-Ambassador for Campus France. He also won several awards for his works in the digital entrepreneurship sector. He is for instance one of the beneficiaries of the 2018 TEF entrepreneurship program. In 2018, he received the Francophonie 35 under 35 Youth Awards and was named best digital entrepreneur at the Bonteh Digital Media Awards. That same year, he was also on Avance Media's list of the Top 50 most influential young Cameroonians.
Melchior Koba
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Nowadays, digital skills are important to be employable or employ one’s self. Private and public actors understand that and they want to help the youth get those skills for an end to the ever-increasing unemployment problems.
Guinean incubator Ose Ton Emploi launched, Saturday (May 28), its digital training lab dubbed Sanku Lab. The lab, funded to the tune of €55,000 by the Orange Guinea Foundation, will train up to 2,100 people for ICT jobs, notably prototyping and creating digital solutions and tools.
At Sanku Lab, the trainees will have access to every piece of equipment needed like laptops, a 3D printer, a vinyl laser cutter, a heat press, electrical tools, digital embroidery machines, etc…
During the launching ceremony, Ose Ton Emploi’s founder Danda Diallo explained that Sanku Lab would henceforth be the cornerstone of his incubator’s activities. Praising the initiative, Youssouf Boundou Sylla, Secretary-general of the Guinean Ministry of Technical Education indicated that they are “socio-economic growth drivers.”
Ose Ton Emploi, created in 2018, aims to support young innovative project owners. It has already incubated several startups and is a member of Afric’Innov, a network of African incubators. Through its works, it helped school dropouts showcase their talents and initiate their professional integration. This is one of the reasons it was backed by the Orange Guinea Foundation.
“Because of the importance of the digital sector nowadays, we support digital initiatives to allow the youth to master the usage of digital tools, discover what they are passionate about, get trained, contribute their creativity to create startups, mature them and enter markets for guaranteed self-sufficiency,” said Amina Abou Khalil Nyame, Orange Guinea Foundation’s representative during the launching ceremony.
Ruben Tchounyabe
The coronavirus pandemic accelerated digital transformation in Africa. In its wake, governments committed to strengthening telecom infrastructures and expanding network coverage to allow access to digital services for most of their populations. For those investments to be effective, the services offered by telecom operators need to be affordable to everyone, even low-income earners. This is why by overtaxing telecom services, governments are negatively affecting digital transformation.
In 2010, the level of taxation on the Sub-Saharan African telecom sector caused heated debates between governments and operators. Governments, which were intent on securing more revenues, claimed that the tax rates were fair in the ever-growing sector. On the other hand, the GSM Association (GSMA) was warning of the long-term dangers of over-taxing the telecom sector. The taxes would affect the viability of telecom operators but also negatively affect development. Ten years later, the issue is still much present and the level of taxes levied on telecom operators is rising.
By 2017, Sub-Saharan African governments had already introduced new taxes because of the growth recorded by the telecom sector over the years with new services. Seven years earlier, the region was considered the third most taxed region in the world after Central/Eastern Europe and the European Union, but ahead of Latin America, according to the Global Mobile Tax Review 2010/2011 report by GSMA and ITU. It is now the first most taxed ahead of North Africa - the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific. On average, the taxes paid by the sector represent 25% of revenues. In 2016, the telecom sector contributed US$13 billion to tax revenues in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2018, this contribution rose to US$15.6 billion but in 2020, it declined by US$600 million year on year.
Threat to digital inclusion
While corporate taxes are already affecting telecom operators’ profitability, the most concerning are sectoral taxes like those levied on mobile and internet services. Indeed, those taxes can directly affect the cost of the services, making them unaffordable for some populations. As a consequence, telecom may experience a drop in revenues, profitability, and the amount of tax paid to governments.
In 2019, the World Bank estimated that in Sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 85% of the population was living on less than US$5 a day. In the region, the mobile penetration rate was 46% in 2020. At the same time, internet penetration was 34%, including 28% for mobile internet, according to Hootsuite and We Are Social. Also, the average cost of a 1.5 Gigabit mobile data plan was US$6.1 or 6.4% of gross national income (GNI) per capita according to the ITU. This is highly unaffordable considering that, according to the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, a data plan is considered affordable when its cost is about 2% of GNI.
With internet taxes, some countries like Uganda (which introduced a 12% internet tax) make the service more expensive and exclude more people from the digital economy. The tax also threatens the survival of several businesses like e-commerce operators and those in the video-on-demand segment.
According to GSMA, of the 1.084 billion people living in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020, 303 million people (28%) were connected to the Internet via mobile, 570 million people (57%) were covered by a mobile network but not using the Internet and 210 million (15%) were not covered by a mobile network at all. A total of 495 million people were subscribed to mobile services, representing 46% of the population. Also, the smartphone adoption rate was 48% because of the costs of smartphones (according to the Alliance for Affordable Internet-A4AI). Even the low-cost smartphones offered by some manufacturers are still inaccessible for most because of import duties. The situation prompted Chad to issue, on January 24, 2022, a 5-year tax exemption for the importation of mobile devices (both smartphones and feature phones), automatic data processing equipment (desktops, laptops, and tablets), and dedicated accessories.
Threat to financial inclusion
Over the last ten years, mobile money has become one of the strong segments in the telecom industry, with millions of users and billions of dollars in transactions processed. Four years ago, a few countries started taxing that segment. They included Uganda, which introduced a 0.5% withdrawal tax in July 2018. The same year, Tanzania set its mobile money withdrawal tax to 1% before reducing it to 0.5% in October. In 2019, Zimbabwe introduced a 2% tax on every mobile money transaction.
The growth recorded by the segment during the coronavirus pandemic convinced more governments to tap into that windfall to fund post-pandemic recovery. In 2021, Cameroon introduced a 0.2% tax on electronic transaction. This year, Ghana introduced a 0.5% e-levy. In those markets, the taxes (both new and old) have always given rise to protests and disputes. In the Ghanaian parliament, e-levy discussions even led to physical confrontations between the pro and anti-e-levy.
Nevertheless, the contested taxes and levies allowed some governments to raise more revenues than expected. For instance, the Uganda Revenue Authority estimates that from July to December 2018, the mobile money tax generated US$28.3 million of revenue. Despite such stellar performance, mobile taxes have hampered financial inclusion. According to the World Bank, those taxes forced wealthy individuals to use banks instead while low-income populations who depend on family remittances experienced a reduction of their already meager resources.
The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) reports that mobile taxes demotivated off-grid renewable energy users (usually located in rural areas) who used to pay their bills via mobile money. The fact threatens the profitability of the off-grid energy segment and the jobs created. Mobile money tax can also affect the e-commerce and agriculture sector given that many small farmers buy agricultural inputs, make micro-savings, etc., using Mobile Money.
The GSMA reports that telecom operators are not against taxation. They support effective taxation that does not unnecessarily hinder growth and negatively impact marginalized groups, it explains. So, corporate taxation could be the most effective way for governments to capitalize on growth in the telecom industry since corporate taxes are levied on the service providers’ turnover.
Muriel EDJO
By training, she was not destined for the heathtech industry. However, a painful incident convinced her that she had to act to save millions of people in Africa.
Beninese-born Bola Bardet (photo) is the founder and CEO of insuretech Susu. Based in Côte d’Ivoire and France, Susu allows the African diaspora to buy health insurance plans for their relatives living on the continent. The plans offered by her startup cover the treatment of chronic illnesses, preventive and emergency care, medical evacuations, and certified drug purchases.
She launched Susu to save others from her painful experience. In 2017, when she was preparing for her MBA in Paris, her father died of poorly managed heart problems. “My father died in 2017 after he had a heart issue in Benin and could not be saved. The health issue was a complication from his hypertension that was poorly managed. At that moment, I was finishing my MBA at HEC Paris and the goal I set for myself was to try to prevent that from happening to other people, maybe that will be something good that I can do in my life,” she explains.
She aims to initiate her startup’s African expansion and enhance offers in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Cameroon. For that purpose, in March 2022, she secured US$1 million in pre-seed funding and US$1.2 million in debt and grant financing from BPI France.
Mrs. Bola is an executive MBA graduate. She also has a Master’s in Management and several professional and social entrepreneurship certificates. Over her fifteen years of professional experience, she sharpened her skills with LCN Communications, luxury goods holding company Richemont, and investment bank JP Morgan Chase & Co.
In 2019, thanks to Susu, she was the winner of the Sanofi challenge organized during the Viva Tech conference. This year, she is also a finalist of the Female Founder Challenge organized by Viva Tech in collaboration with 50inTech.
Melchior Koba
Professional insertion has become a worrisome issue in several African countries. To address this challenge in the digital era, national and international experts are moving to elaborate the most-suited strategy.
In the next four years, several international partners will support Tunisia in the creation of ICT jobs for its youth and women. On Monday, May 30, in Gammath, the Ministry of Vocational Training launched a project in that regard.
Dubbed IPTIC, the project is funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency and implemented by the International Labour Organization’s country office in Algiers.
The project will focus on two axis in Tunis, Sousse, Sfax, Manouba, Kairouan, Zaghouan, Sidi Bouzid, Jendouba, Kasserine and Gabes. They are namely improving the capacities of government agencies dedicated to the implementation of the national employment strategy and the diagnostic study of ICT employment in each region. In Tunis, Sousse, and Sfax, the project will also develop ICT value chains.
The project is the result of an agreement signed, in December 2021, by Rania Bikhazi, Director of ILO’s country office in Algiers, and Kim Hanvit, KOICA's acting country director in Tunisia. It will capitalize on the achievements of EDJEF, a project carried out from 2018 to 2020, to promote the employability of women and the youth in Kairouan, Zaghouan, Tunis, and Manouba.
Muriel Edjo