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
The young data scientist is convinced that the effective exploitation of available data can positively affect company growth. She wants to prove her point through her marketing agency.
Mama Diagana (photo) is a Mauritanian data scientist and entrepreneur. In 2020, she co-founded Neotic, a web, and mobile marketing agency. Her agency provides clients with solutions to improve their visibility. The services it offers notably include web/mobile development, web hosting graphic design, data analysis and visualization, predictive marketing, digital marketing, and video production.
“As a data scientist … I realized that vendors had unexploited data that could have helped them improve their productivity and sales as well as develop a more efficient strategy,” she explained in 2021 while revealing the reasons that prompted the creation of Neotic.
The young entrepreneur, who has been a journalist for Slice Up Mauritanie in 2018 and a freelance sales representative (from March 2019 to November 2021), believes that Neotic can greatly contribute to the development of trade and the economy in Mauritania. Some stakeholders believe so too. Indeed, in 2021, the marketing agency was one of the 2021 Emerging Mediterranean awardees, winning a US$5,000 grant and a ticket to the Emerging Valley Summit in Marseille, France. The same year, it participated in the Social and Inclusive Business Camp (SIBC).
Melchior Koba
He has over twenty years of experience in the digital marketing industry. With his domestic service marketplace, he won the trust of thousands of clients and self-employed workers along with several awards and recognitions.
Ezana Raswork (photo) is an Ethiopian tech entrepreneur and founder of the digital marketplace Taskmoby. His marketplace currently connects home service providers (over 1000 registered on the platform) with clients (over 1500 jobs contracted through the platform) in Ethiopia.
The tech entrepreneur launched Taskmoby, in 2018, to help those who were previously unable to find qualified home service contractors for their various needs (plumbing, painting, electrical problems). Ezana is thriving in a domestic services market that is booming thanks to technology. However, Taskmoby is not his first venture. It is just a step in his professional and entrepreneurship career. He started his professional career in 1988 as a marketing manager for U.S consumer goods corporation Procter & Gamble. Twelve years later, he joined Canadian telephone service provider Fido Solutions as director of consumer marketing. From 2004 to 2007, he was the acting vice-president of marketing and vice-president of business development for the Canadian media company Yellow Pages. He was also the senior vice-president of Postmedia Network Inc., the publisher of Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, and Windsor Star.
In 2010, he founded Africa 118, a tech company providing digital marketing services to African SMEs. The company was perfectly aligned with his over 30 years of marketing experience. With Taskmoby, Ezana piqued the interest of several investment funds. In 2021, the startup was selected among the 50 beneficiaries of the Google for Start-up Black Founders Fund for Africa. Apart from the funds secured, making it to the list entitled Taskmoby to up to US$220,000 Google Cloud and Ads credit.
The services startup also won Ezana several awards, including the 2021 Eastern Africa Startup Awards. The startup was also selected by tech accelerator Baobab as the top Ethiopian company to watch in Africa and won the Best of Ecosystem Virtual Startup Pitch Series.
Melchior Koba
His professional experience, coupled with his background, helped him create a learning network that guarantees employment. The project has already earned international recognition.
Combine distance and face-to-face learning to allow access to quality and promising training for thousands of Africans. This is the feat achieved by Cameroonian Yanick Kemayou (photo), through Kabakoo Academies, the EdTech he co-founded in 2019 with Michèle Traoré.
Immediately after its creation, Kabakoo registered more than 12,000 learners. It is a network of learning institutions whose goal is to offset the shortcomings of conventional educational institutions that usually fail to equip students with the skills necessary to get decent jobs immediately after their courses.
“I decided to create that network because I was once the victim of the shortcomings of conventional educational institutions and the lack of opportunities in Cameroon,” explains Yanick Kemayou, a business administration Ph.D. holder.
Kabakoo’s pedagogical approach is designed to let learners develop digital fabrication and distributed manufacturing skills. The goal is not to develop state-of-the-art tech products and solutions for challenges faced by the immediate surrounding. It equips learners to either employ themselves or easily get a job after their courses.
Through its mobile app, Kabakoo allows access to several courses and mentoring from professionals working in prestigious companies like Google, Deloitte, Orange, and Oracle. The innovative learning model earned Kabakoo the "School of the Future" label, awarded by the World Economic Forum in Davos in December 2019.
Kabakoo is the result of its co-founder Yanick Kemayou’s professional and entrepreneurial experience. He started his professional career in 2008 as an assistant brand manager for L'Oréal in Düsseldorf, Germany. He later co-founded and managed the fashion company Clothing and Lifestyle Start-up, in Shanghai, China. Later on, he worked as a visiting scientist at HEC Paris, a research assistant, and a project manager at Paderborn University.
Melchior Koba
In 2021, Africa officially became a common market with numerous trade facilitation mechanisms. However, non-tariff barriers still pose challenges during financial transactions notably, therefore threatening the business inclusion sought after.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) recently presented a project for the development of an e-payment platform dedicated to African SMEs. The project was presented by Wamkele Mene (photo, left), AfCFTA secretary general, during a meeting with Cameroonian Minister of Trade Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana (photo, right) in Yaounde, last Monday (June 27).
According to Wamkele Mene, the end goal of the project is to create a digital marketplace to facilitate trade. For that purpose, the AfCFTA is negotiating with banks to secure guarantees because SMEs are usually confronted with credit access challenges. With those bank guarantees, SMEs can transact through the e-payment platform while banks cover the risks. Four sectors are targeted for the first phase of the project. They are notably agriculture, textile, transportation, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The AfCFTA is a key initiative in the African Union’s development blueprint Agenda 2063. It aims to accelerate intra-African trades and consolidate the continent’s commercial position in the global market. Currently, the area includes 44 member countries, including Cameroon.
S.A.
In the Ivorian language Bambara, Julaya means “trade”. It is now the name of a startup that facilitates payments. Currently, it claims hundreds of users in some regions.
Julaya is a digital platform developed by Franco-Ivorian startup Julaya SAS, founded in 2018, by Charles Talbot and Mathias Léopoldie. It allows users to make payments to mobile money and bank accounts right from one single platform.
The platform “allows our clients to facilitate their accounting. They, therefore, improve their operating efficiency by automating staff, daily expenditure, and supplier payments. Our solution is plug-and-play with no tech skill requirement. It can thus be used by financial departments, which are still poorly digitalized,” explains co-founderMathias Léopoldie.
Through its Android app, payments can be sent in record time. However, users will have to create a Julaya account and load it via partner banks, telecom operators, and fintech to access the feature. In Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, Julaya accounts can be loaded via at least 10 banks.
According to Julaya SAS, over 300 directors of financial affairs and managing directors use the solution daily. In addition, the solution has processed more than 100,000 payments and salaries, helping save more than 300 hours of waiting time. The startup claims to have customer service available every hour of the day.
Currently, its fees vary between 0 and 2 percent per transaction depending on the transaction type. Since its creation, the startup has completed several funding rounds totaling US$2.7 million, from angel investors and venture capitals like Orange Ventures, to support growth.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The startup claims over 15,000 farmers supported in Mali and Uganda. Its ambition is to expand further in the African market, starting from Côte d’Ivoire.
OKO is a digital platform developed by Malian startup OKO Finance Limited, founded in 2018 by Raphael Haziza, Shehzad Lokhandwalla, and Simon Schwall. It helps smallholder farmers access affordable crop insurance.
“OKO is a different type of for-profit business making a global impact one farmer at a time. [...] We provide effective, affordable insurance to farmers in emerging markets and deliver instant claim settlements. By leveraging the increasing influence of mobile technology, we aim to help overcome income distribution insufficiencies for those who feed the world," the startup explains.
Therefore, with just their non-smartphones, users can access OKO crop insurance services. To enable that feature, the startup signed numerous partnerships with Orange Mali, and German financial services multinational Allianz to optimize its products. It assesses the risks and set subscription prices based on detailed weather information.
The platform is accessible via a USSD code, and a mobile app. The mobile app is an alternative to the USSD code. It also has a programming interface that allows partners to access relevant information. It has a set of tools (for reporting, performance tracking, and secured archiving) to improve the management of its various insurance policies.
Thanks to the crop insurance initiative, OKO Finance Limited has received several awards and recognitions. These include the international award at Finance for Tomorrow's Climate Finance Day in November 2019, the FinTech Showcase 2019 award at the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Global Policy Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, the Job Creation Award at the Seedstars 2019 Summit organized in Johannesburg by the African Development Bank (AfDB). Since its creation, the startup has completed several rounds totaling US$2.1 million to support its growth. Currently, it is active in Mali and Uganda. It plans to enter the Ivorian market in the next few months.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The former banker made a nice professional transition after twenty years in the U.S and France. Nowadays, his tech company positively impacts several sectors like public governance and health in his native country, Guinea.
Mountaga Keïta (photo) is a Guinean entrepreneur and founder of green kiosks manufacturer Tulip Industries Ltd. The tech company, launched in 2017, creates digital terminals for public and private actors, therefore supporting digitalization efforts.
For Mountaga, “with digitalization, there is no discrimination whatsoever and payment collected land directly where they are supposed to be.” He initiated the process for the creation of Tulip Industries in 2015 when he returned to his native country, Guinea, after twenty-three years in France and the USA. He finally launched the company in 2017, and, within a few years, it established credibility, won multiple contracts, and developed new products. For instance, it has already launched three terminals for the health sector (for cardiology, thermography, and ultrasound scanning). In early 2020, it won a contract to equip Guinean hospitals with its telemedicine terminals. The World Food Programme also ordered some of its products while various public administrations (the Rotama township namely) expressed interest in its green kiosks.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Mountaga Keïta built a telehealth tablet (Health Scan) equipped with a thermal camera and sensors that measure body temperature as well as the level of oxygen in the blood, and the heart rate. The data collected help identify Covid-19 positive cases and determine whether those cases required hospitalization.
Thanks to the innovative products developed by Tulip Industries Ltd, Mountaga has won several awards. He was for instance the winner of the 2017 Digital Week in Guinea. At the 2018 Africa Innovation Summit, he was named one of the top African innovators. The same year, he received the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) gold medal. In 2019, he also received the gold medal from the French Inventors Association and the European Inventors Association Award.
All those achievements are the result of the strong professional experience he built with several financial institutions in the U.S. He has for instance been a senior banker for Bank of America.
Melchior Koba
Logistics is a real challenge in most African countries. To address those challenges, a Nigerian startup is leveraging technology and micro fleets.
Kobo360 is a digital logistics platform developed by an eponymous Nigerian tech company. It connects truck drivers with freight companies to ensure a quick delivery. The tech company founded in 2017 by Ife Oyedele and Obi Ozor, is active in seven African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Uganda, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Burkina Faso.
According to Wale Ayeni who led IFC’s venture capital investing group in Africa for over five years, “Kobo360 is empowering and enhancing the capacity of the vast underserved network of “micro” fleets in Africa to serve the huge unmet long-haul freight needs of large enterprises and SMEs, delivering value to both sides.”
To fulfill its mission, Kobo360 has developed a mobile app, available on AppStore and PlayStore. The app allows transporters and clients to access all the services it offers once they register. Thanks to its mobile and web platforms, it guarantees clients fast and efficient freight transportation and allows them access to a vast network of warehousing, customs clearance, and freight forwarding partners. It also enables real-time tracking. It allows transporters to boost their revenues above-average rate, expand their trucking business and get discounts for diesel and tire purchases.
The startup currently claims over nine billion kilograms of freight transported, more than 50,000 active trucks, over 150,000 jobs created and some 700 companies served. In 2019, the Africa CEO Forum Awards awarded it the ‘Disrupter of the Year’ award for its quick and significant success in the logistics sector. The same year, its co-founder Obi Ozor was named 'Young Business Leader of the Year' and 'Innovator of the Year'. In 2020, during the AppsAfrica Awards, Kobo360 won the ‘Mobility Award’, outcompeting distinguished African startups operating in the same segment. Since its creation, it has completed several funding rounds totaling US$37.3 million to support its growth.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
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Thanks to digitalization, it has become easy for African entrepreneurs to create solutions for major challenges. In Uganda and Kenya, a fintech startup is helping address the low credit access problem.
Tugende is a Ugandan startup that allows informal entrepreneurs, and small and medium-sized enterprise owners notably, access to credit. Doing so, the startup founded in 2013 by Michael Wilkerson helps them grow their businesses, build their credit profile and set up income-generating activities.
“90% of businesses in Africa are MSMEs yet they receive less than 20% of total available credit. Tugende began by filling this credit gap for motorcycle taxis in Uganda, helping these self-employed entrepreneurs own instead of renting their key productive assets in 24 months or less,” the startup explains.
Its services are accessible through its Android app. To request a loan from Tugende, users must be registered and have an account with the startup. If those conditions are met, they can submit a loan request and let Tugende carry out a background check by interviewing two of their relatives. After that step, they are required to deposit at least USh100 (about US$0.027) in the account opened with Tugende.
The startup’s decision to grant loans is based on background checks and a big data and artificial intelligence system that predicts how beneficiaries will likely use the credits awarded.
Currently, Tugende claims 52,000 users financed, over 29,000 active clients, and 800 full-time jobs created. In May 2022, it won the financial inclusion awards during the sixth edition of the African Banker Awards. Since its creation, the startup has completed several funding rounds totaling US$51.1 million. Apart from Uganda, it is also active in Kenya.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
During the coronavirus pandemic, e-education proved its worth. Apart from its practical aspect, it easily allows access to greatly diversified content. Several African countries have thus decided to adopt this teaching mechanism.
In Cameroon, the Ministries of Secondary and Higher Education will mutualize their education system digitalization efforts. The will was formally expressed last Friday (June 24) during a meeting between Minister of Higher Education Jacques Fame Ndongo and Minister of Secondary Education Nalova Lyonga.
“The two government officials noted the initiatives taken by the government to digitize education through notably the Ministry of Higher Education’s Inter-university network’s supervisory center and the Ministry of Secondary Education’s distance learning center. They then decided to mutualize the said efforts to achieve economies of scale and attain the desired efficiency,” indicates a release published after the meeting.
The two ministries will mutualize their infrastructures and digital resources, notably the Ministry of Higher Education’s digital university centers and the Ministry of Secondary Education’s decentralized institutions. They will also build secondary education teachers’ digital pedagogy skills thanks to the IT department of Cameroon’s teacher training schools. They also decided to regularly assess the collaboration initiated.
The digitalization of Cameroon’s secondary and higher education systems is part of the education system modernization program contained in the 2030 National Development Strategy. It aims to create learning environments that allow teachers to easily share their knowledge and learners to swiftly pick up knowledge.
Ruben Tchounyabé
Since the launch of its activities over a year ago, the fintech is highly praised by users. However, its partners’ discontent is growing because they fear its operating model could have a negative impact on financial inclusion and job creation in the long term.
On June 24, 2022, in Côte d’Ivoire, telecom operators and U.S Fintech Wave carried out a consultation meeting to elaborate a fee grid that would be beneficial for electronic money users, service providers, and electronic money issuers. According to the national union of mobile money agents Synamcil, no effective resolution came out of the meeting instructed by the Minister of Employment and Social Protection.
Ivorian mobile money agents will therefore have to wait a bit longer for a clear answer to their request for the improvement of their incomes, which is dwindling since April 2021 when Wave officially entered the local market with greatly reduced fees.
Meanwhile, hoping for an ultimate solution to the situation, the case will be transmitted to the Prime Minister, with minutes of the various meetings initiated by the Ministry of Employment and Social Protection. For the time being, mobile money agents will only have to continue operations as usual hoping their job would not become unprofitable in the long term.
An annoying business model
Since June 1, 2022, the Ivorian mobile money market is shaken by fintech Wave’s decision to introduce a new price grid that reduces the commission paid to mobile money agents. According to Felix Coulibaly, secretary-general of Synamcil, the commissions were reduced by about 40 percent going from XOF2,400 to XOF1,350 for some transactions and XOF4,600 to 2,675 for others.
“When Wave reduced the commissions we used to collect, it also introduced a new system called ‘revenue sharing’. We rejected that system because we believed it was not transparent since we had no visibility on the inner workings,” he explained.
Despite the agents’ opposition, Wave insisted on implementing its new price grid, leading some agents to go on strike from June 2 to 4, 2022. The grid was finally canceled during a meeting with unions operating in the electronic money segment, telecom operators, Wave, and the Ministry of Employment on June 17.
Agents then unilaterally decided to impose a XOF100 fee on deposits and withdrawals. The aim, according to Felix Coulibaly, was to allow agents to “make ends meet… let them earn enough to cover operating charges until the Minister of Employment helps find a solution” to the problem.
For the secretary-general, the 1% model touted by Wave is not that realistic and could have a negative impact on the market. “The three telecom operators used to pay us commissions for every transaction… Since April 1, Orange has decided to copy Wave’s operating model by paying us commissions for cumulated daily transitions. What we are holding against Wave is its model, which changed the market and reduced our commissions. Its Wave’s arrival in the market that caused all those problems. They [Wave executives] have always claimed that their model is tested and proven and that reshaping it would destroy it. They did not bring only problems to the market. In fact, thanks to them, the population is now aware that it is possible to collect just 1% fee on electronic transactions. Even we, agents, were not aware of such a possibility. It is now up to them to prove to the Ivorian state that they have a sustainable model,” he indicated.
Threat to financial inclusion
“The Ivorian mobile money market was relatively peaceful before Wave’s arrival. Transaction fees were about 2 to 3 percent. Every operator had a well-defined grid. Everything was fine until Wave entered the market. When it introduced a new model to the market, it disrupted everything,” says Sidibe Aboubacar, chairman of the Ivorian independent mobile money vendors’ union Amimomoci.
He explained that in October 2020, when Wave first started operations in Côte d’Ivoire with its 1% fee model, users were enthusiastic because the other operators’ fees were averaging 1 to 1.8 percent. While users were praising the model, it was destroying vendors’ income, he added. For four to five months, telecom operators maintained their commission level, they finally took measures since they were losing market share. MTN and Moov reduced their commissions while Orange completely changed its business model.
Apart from the reduced commissions that affect mobile money agents’ income, the other grievance Sidibe Aboubacar nurses against Wave is its propensity to make agents pay for the weaknesses of its economic model. “When Wave says fee-free deposits and withdrawals, some users deposit money in their account in Abidjan and go withdraw it [the same day] in Yamoussoukro. In that case, Wave will not pay commission to the two agents involved here because the transaction did not generate commissions. It sometimes even claims that the mobile money agents are complicit with the clients that act in that manner. We deem this treatment unfair,” he confided.
Mobile money fears job losses due to some outlets becoming unprofitable and therefore shutting down if the government does not find a sustainable solution for the fee problem. Failure to find a solution will also affect financial inclusion. The population could also be forced to go miles and spent transport fees just to carry out financial transactions they can currently perform in their immediate neighborhood.
Muriel Edjo
Although they are still lagging compared to their western peers, Africans are actively participating in the ongoing digital transformation. In Benin for instance, a tech entrepreneur is leveraging technology to help the population easily access some services.
Ylomi is a Benenise startup that connects artisans with potential clients. The startup was founded in 2018 by Jean Vivien Dah N’Gbekounou following the latter’s scornful experience.
“ In 2016, during a prolonged outage period in Benin, I had a hard time finding a mechanic who would repair my broken generator. The only one who was referred to me conned me by charging three times the normal repair costs without even doing what I wanted him to do. This experience, which is common to most Africans, plunged me into deep reflection, leading to the creation of Ylomi,” Jean Vivien explains.
The services offered by the startup are accessible through its web and mobile platforms (the mobile app is available on AppStore and PlayStore). Users can either register as artisans or clients. In either case, a set of information is required.
The artisans approved by Ylomi offer various services including TV repair, plumbing, massage, etc. In Cotonou, the startup claims 458 professionals, 153 in Abomey-Calavi, and 73 in Porto-Novo.
Let’s note that Ylomi has public liability insurance for domestic workers and service providers offering their services via its platform. This way, it can protect both artisans and clients from problems that may arise in the course of their dealings.
Adoni Conrad Quenum