Positeams, founded in 2020, enables companies to track employee experience, motivation and needs through regular and customizable surveys.
The platform provides data-driven insights, including trend analyses, word clouds and anonymous chat feedback, to guide HR and leadership decisions.
Positeams also recommends action plans and training content to help managers implement organisational change.
Companies face a growing need to understand the real experience of their teams. Samir Tamri uses technology to provide a precise and practical response to this challenge.
Samir Tamri, a Moroccan computer scientist and tech entrepreneur, is the founder of Positeams, an online platform that helps companies understand their employees and strengthen daily engagement through a simple and accessible tool.
Tamri launched Positeams in 2020. The platform allows companies to deploy regular or customized surveys to track employee experience, motivation and needs over time. Its purpose is to offer management and HR departments a clear and continuous view of workforce sentiment without complex procedures.
Positeams relies on a rigorously developed set of questions designed to deliver reliable feedback across multiple aspects of professional life. The platform analyzes responses to identify significant trends and provide companies with actionable interpretation.
The company also offers feedback analyses that highlight recurring themes, including through word clouds that display the most frequently cited topics. An anonymous chat tool enables employees to express themselves freely, ensuring continuous and authentic internal listening.
Beyond collecting feedback, Positeams recommends concrete actions to address identified needs. The platform allows companies to structure action plans, monitor progress and access online training resources designed to support managers in driving organizational change.
Alongside Positeams, Samir Tamri serves as founder and CEO of North African Game Distributors (NAGD). Launched in 2008, the company operates in the distribution, development and publishing of video games and is considered a leading player in Morocco’s touchscreen gaming market.
Tamri created his first company, Arabium.com, in 2001 as a community portal for Arab singles living in the United States.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Drexel University, obtained in 1999. He began his career in 1997 at Unisys as a software engineer.
Between 2001 and 2015, he worked as a senior software engineer at AMI Entertainment Networks, which specializes in innovative entertainment solutions. From 2017 to 2018, he served as chief technology officer at Taxi Rouge, a Moroccan e-mobility start-up.
This article was initially published in French by Melchior Koba
Adapted in English by Ange Jason Quenum
Villgro Africa, in partnership with The Fred Hollows Foundation, is accepting applications in Kenya for the Eye Health Innovation Accelerator 2026. The programme targets Sub-Saharan African startups developing technology solutions to improve access to eye care.
Selected startups will receive strategic support and may secure between $100,000 and $250,000 in seed funding.
Tanzanian fintech NALA has received approval from the Bank of Ghana to launch its money transfer services, formalized through a Letter of No Objection and a strategic partnership with local provider BigPay. The collaboration will enable direct transfers to bank accounts and mobile wallets, significantly reducing costs and processing times.
The National Science and Engineering Infrastructure Agency (NSEIA) launched its FutureMakers programme on Thursday, Dec. 11. Aimed at children aged five to 16, the initiative seeks to boost innovation and core skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
The programme will run from December 2025 to February 2026 and will select 60 participants from the country’s six geopolitical zones. Top performers will be eligible for prizes of up to 5 million naira (about $3,500) and scholarships.
Meetable, a South African digital platform, seeks to reconnect people socially in a hyper-connected yet socially fragmented urban world. The company aims to reconcile modern technology with authentic human interaction through shared dinners booked via its web and mobile applications.
The Cape Town–based start-up launched in 2025 under the leadership of Sibs Qetu-Yates. The platform facilitates the weekly organisation of group meals that bring together six strangers selected according to their personality traits, interests and availability.
Users book a dinner online through the app or website, pay a fixed fee and join a group of six people at a partner restaurant. The model aims to recreate the conditions of genuine social encounters, far from the dynamics of social networks or conventional dating applications.
“Cities are full of people, but loneliness is rising,” Qetu-Yates said. “Adults often struggle to make friends after university, especially if they move to a new city or work remotely or in hybrid mode.” She added: “Dating apps dominate the space of ‘new connections,’ but very few apps exist purely for friendship and human relationships.”
Since launch, Meetable reports connecting more than 1,000 people, with many events selling out. The concept appeals to newcomers to major cities, expatriates, remote workers and individuals in transition who often seek social anchors in unfamiliar environments.
The start-up also prepares a B2B service called Meetable for Work. The offering targets companies that want to strengthen cohesion among employees spread across several cities. The platform intends to rebuild social ties, reinforce team spirit and reduce workplace isolation.
As African cities continue to expand and mobility reshapes traditional social structures, platforms like Meetable could play a significant role in rebuilding social bonds and supporting the integration of new arrivals.
This article was initially published in French by Adoni Conrad Quenum
Adapted in English by Ange Jason Quenum
The rise of artificial intelligence continues to redefine educational priorities across East Africa. The region, shaped by a young population and a fast-changing economy, seeks to structure its capability building to remain competitive in the global digital transformation.
MindHYVE.ai, Inc., a US-based company specialising in agentic artificial intelligence, and the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), the regional body responsible for higher-education harmonisation, signed a partnership on Tuesday, December 9, in Kampala. The agreement aims to turn the region into a future AI skills hub by equipping IUCEA-member universities with advanced learning tools and internationally recognised certification programmes.
“This partnership marks a defining moment for East Africa. Equipping our universities, educators and students with AI knowledge and ethical mastery is essential for the advancement of our region,” said Professor Idris A. Rai, IUCEA’s acting executive secretary. He underscored the region’s ambition to strengthen its competitiveness in the global digital economy.
In its first phase, the agreement will give more than 170 universities access to ArthurAI, MindHYVE.ai’s agentic learning platform, which will be deployed through a regional pilot. The project also includes 50 certified courses under the “The Dawn Directive” programme, AI literacy and proficiency certifications co-issued with the California Institute of Artificial Intelligence, and training sessions for lecturers and academic leaders. A joint committee will supervise the two-year implementation, evaluation and potential scale-up.
This collaboration emerges as demand for digital skills accelerates. East Africa, home to one of the continent’s youngest populations, still struggles to meet the needs for advanced training in emerging technologies. The World Bank estimates that sub-Saharan Africa could create nearly 230 million jobs requiring digital skills by 2030, even as qualification gaps continue to hinder this transition. Governments in the region are adopting national AI, innovation and higher-education reform strategies, creating favourable conditions for regional initiatives.
The implementation of this partnership should enable East Africa to train more students and professionals in skills essential to a digital economy. It also provides universities with a shared foundation to enhance programme quality, increase academic mobility and structure training pathways aligned with the region’s rising technological needs. The initiative could further support member states’ efforts to modernise higher education and integrate emerging technologies into academic curricula.
This article was initially published in French by Samira Njoya
Adapted in English by Ange Jason Quenum
Daniel Katz’s initiative addresses a major barrier that still limits the adoption of digital payments in Africa. It enables merchants to access a new category of transactions while maintaining the stability of their operations.
Daniel Katz, a South African entrepreneur and co-founder and chief executive of Ezeebit, leads a start-up that allows African merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments while receiving settlements in local currency without any exposure to price swings in digital assets.
Ezeebit, founded in 2022, aims to make cryptocurrency payments as simple and secure as traditional transactions. The company seeks to create new growth channels for merchants by giving them access to customers who prefer to pay with digital assets, while ensuring that settlements remain stable in local currency.
The solution enables customers to pay with a wide range of cryptocurrencies, while merchants receive their settlement in South African rand (ZAR). Ezeebit eliminates the risk of market volatility by automatically converting the cryptocurrency paid into the stablecoin USDT at the moment of the transaction. The company then converts and transfers the equivalent amount in local currency to the merchant’s bank account.
In physical stores, the payment process works through an electronic point-of-sale terminal. Staff enter the amount in ZAR, select the blockchain network and the cryptocurrency, generate a QR code, scan it, and print the receipt. Merchants may also display a static QR code in the shop for customers to scan before selecting the amount, the cryptocurrency, and their wallet.
For online shops, Ezeebit offers a crypto payment gateway that lets merchants add digital asset settlement options to their e-commerce platforms. Ezeebit ensures next-day settlement in fiat currency through an API integration.
Before Ezeebit, Daniel Katz co-founded Delve Systems in 2019, where he served as chief technology officer until 2023. That start-up helps retailers and brands make data-driven decisions using real-time insights, forecasts, and predictive analytics.
Katz graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 2019 before pursuing a master’s degree in the same field.
This article was initially published in French by Melchior Koba
Adapted in English by Ange Jason Quenum
After several years in South African banks, Brandon Ragunanan moved into entrepreneurship. He developed a system that rethinks how sales candidates are identified and ranked.
Brandon Ragunanan, a marketing specialist and entrepreneur based in Cape Town, is the founder and chief executive of HireSales, a recruitment platform dedicated to sales professionals.
HireSales, created in 2024, connects companies to a pool of sales talent in South Africa. The platform analyses job postings and candidate profiles at the same time to propose matches based on skills, experience and organisational culture.
HireSales operates with artificial-intelligence technology focused on “precision matching.” The system examines job descriptions and CVs in detail to identify the profiles that best meet company needs. Its filters and algorithms isolate suitable candidates within a large talent base and integrate qualitative criteria such as compatibility with the work environment.
Companies create a profile and publish their recruitment needs, while candidates join the talent pool and input their career information. The platform then automates the matching process. Users access the suggested matches, contact candidates and adjust their criteria at any time through the online interface.
Alongside HireSales, Brandon Ragunanan serves as sales and marketing director at C Life Marketing, a South African marketing company. He graduated from Damelin in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing.
He began his professional career the same year at Nedbank as a channel manager. In 2011, he joined Bidvest Bank Ltd as corporate relationship manager. Between 2014 and 2018, he held the position of regional sales director at Altron, a South African technology group.
This article was initially published in French by Melchior Koba
Adapted in English by Ange Jason Quenum
Digital tools continue to reshape electoral processes across Africa by easing access to registration and strengthening transparency. Ethiopia aligns with this trend as it moves to modernize the management of candidate and voter registration.
Ethiopia will introduce digital registration for voters and candidates for the first time during its seventh general elections scheduled for June 1, 2026. Melatwork Hailu, president of the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), announced the decision on Tuesday, December 9, during a press briefing that outlined the preparations for the vote.
NEBE has activated the digital registration platforms and has launched training for representatives of political parties. The system will allow candidates to register through a web interface or a mobile application. Voters will choose between self-registration online or assisted registration at centers equipped with tablets. NEBE has also set up a call center and deployed technical assistance teams to support users who face difficulties.
This digital shift fits into a broader plan to modernize Ethiopia’s electoral management. NEBE says it aims to improve transparency, efficiency, and accessibility in a context shaped by persistent security challenges, logistical constraints, and high expectations for governance. The introduction of digital tools should secure data, enhance administrative tracking of candidacies, and reduce the recurrent delays observed during registration phases.
Ethiopia counts more than 135 million inhabitants, and mobility remains restricted in several regions. Limited access to administrative centers also complicates participation. Digital registration could therefore ease voter engagement, particularly in rural or remote areas. However, the reform still faces significant constraints, including weak connectivity in many rural zones, unequal access to digital tools, cybersecurity risks, and the need to train users on these new systems.
If the system works as intended, Ethiopia could strengthen the reliability and efficiency of its electoral administration and lay the groundwork for a broader transformation of its democratic procedures.
This article was initially published in French by Samira Njoya
Adapted in English by Ange Jason Quenum
On Tuesday, Dec. 9, the Global South Alliance launched the second round of its Datafication and Democracy Fund, allocating $72,000 to support research and advocacy projects in 2026 examining how datafication affects democratic processes. Organizations based in the Global South and working on digital rights can apply for grants of up to $8,000. Applications must be submitted in English through the online form by Jan. 30, 2026.
South African startup Community Wolf, which develops AI-based security technology, has acquired the emergency-response app Namola. The acquisition will bring together neighborhood alert systems delivered through instant messaging and a nationwide network of medical, fire and security responders. Namola will continue operating as a standalone app but will be integrated into the Community Wolf platform to enable faster and more coordinated emergency responses.
The Lagos team behind NEVO, a personalized learning platform for neurodivergent children, has won the innovation hackathon for the Southwest region in the third cohort of the 3 Million Technical Talent programme, taking a prize of N500,000 (about $345). The event highlights local digital solutions designed to improve inclusive education and expand economic opportunities for Nigerians.
South African bank Capitec is acquiring payment firm Walletdoc for $23.5 million. The transaction includes an immediate payment of 300 million rand ($17.6 million) and 100 million rand ($5.8 million) in contingent consideration. The deal is intended to bring Walletdoc’s technology into Capitec’s business-services platform and strengthen the bank’s position in e-commerce.
The Egyptian platform MoneyHash is partnering with Saudi firm Amwal Tech to boost adoption of local payment methods and offer installment plans. The partnership strengthens MoneyHash’s presence in Saudi Arabia and makes it easier for merchants to add new payment options for their customers.