Author: olivia Craig

Facebook to equip locals with journalistic skills

olivia Craig
Facebook

Internet giant, Facebook is partnering with Kenya’s Aga Khan University (AKU) to equip locals with digital journalistic skills to tell their Kenyan stories. The six months ‘Video Journalism Fellowship’ to be hosted at the AKU’s AKU’s Graduate School of Media and Communications(GSMC),Nairobi with beneficiaries attached to local media houses to sharpen their reporting skills. Speaking at the launch event, GSMC Interim dean Alex Awiti said the AKU-Facebook partnership redefines citizen journalism where Kenyans will tell real-life stories using their smartphones to capture video content. “Mobile journalism is a growing form…

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Uber to sell its services to local Indian business

olivia Craig
Uber

Uber is in advanced stages of talks to sell its food delivery service UberEats’ India business to local rival Zomato,  as the American ride-hailing giant looks to cut its spending globally, three people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The deal currently values UberEats’ India business at around $400 million, one of the sources said. As part of the deal, Uber may invest between $150 to $200 million in Zomato and get a sizable stake in the 11-year-old Indian firm, people said. A spokesperson for Uber declined to comment on Saturday.…

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Visa acquires stake in Nigeria’s Interswitch

olivia Craig
Buy on Google ,Commission feesgoogle waive

Nigerian digital payments firm Interswitch confirmed today it has reached unicorn status after Visa acquired a minority equity stake in the firm. Global payments giant Visa will invest $200 million for 20% stake in Interswitch, electronic payments company, UK’s Sky  News reports. The investment places a billion-dollar valuation on 17-year old Interswitch and is a major boon ahead of a proposed initial public offering slated for  the London Stock Exchange next year. “The investment makes Interswitch one of the most valuable African fintech businesses with a valuation of $1 billion,”…

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Disney+ just launched and has already attracted over 10 million subscribers, should Neflix be worried?

olivia Craig
disney plus-a stream

Disney’s just launched  its premium subscription streaming service Disney+ but was not without issues — high demand resulted in content not being accessible for hours on its first day of availability. The company cited higher-than-expected demand as a factor, and now we have a rough estimate of the size of that demand — Disney has revealed that it signed up 10 million users since its Tuesday debut. That’s a lot of subscribers in a very short period. To put it in perspective, Netflix recently reported 158 million subscribers, but that’s…

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West African Market on the radar after Kenya’s Twiga Foods bags $30M Goldman Sachs boost

olivia Craig

Kenya’s Twiga Foods has raised a total of $30 million from lenders and investors led by Goldman Sachs. Top American investment bank Goldman Sachs is the latest to acquire a stake in Kenyan start-up Twiga Foods following a Sh2.44 billion ( $23.75 million) deal that will help the agro-based firm spread across the country and Africa. The B2B food distribution company financed $6.25 million of the funding in convertible debt and $23.75 million in equity, classified as a Series B round. IFC, TLcom Capital, and Creadev joined Goldman on the…

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PayPal to enter China Market after a 70% stake acquisition in GoPay

olivia Craig
PayPal Becomes The First Foreign Payment Platform In China

PayPal will become one of the first international companies to gain a payments license in China, after news emerged that the state-owned People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has greenlighted PayPal’s acquisition of a majority stake in local company GoPay. PayPal, through one of its local China-based subsidiaries called Yinbaobao, will acquire a 70% stake in GoPay, according to a statement on GoPay’s website [in Chinese]. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2019. The company’s full statement on the acquisition is below: The People’s Bank of China has approved…

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The New Ethiopian Government to address the grievances raised over the issue of diaspora shares confiscated by NBE

olivia Craig
Ethiopian birr NBE diaspora shares

Ethiopia’s parliament recently passed a bill to open up the country’s financial sector to an estimated five million citizens living abroad or with dual nationality, including allowing them to buy shares in local banks and start lending businesses. Reports Reuters The changes are part of a raft of economic reforms initiated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed when he came to power last year, partly aimed at boosting the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which had dropped precariously low. “The law will enable the Ethiopian born diaspora to take part in the…

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Tesla Entry App Malfunction Locks Out Car Owners

olivia Craig

Some Tesla owners reported being locked out of their vehicles on Monday evening because the electric car’s app was down. The problem is, app connectivity shouldn’t have any effect on unlocking a Tesla. Downdetector, a tracker for users to report technical difficulties with web-based services, also showed that many users were having trouble with Tesla’s app. @Tesla your server is down for maintenance and we’re locked out of the car. What’s your ETA? — Melissa Chan (@melissachanhk) September 2, 2019 On Monday, numerous drivers found their apps were down “for maintenance”…

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Instagram yanks marketing firm Hyp3r off its systems for grabbing users’ data

olivia Craig
Instagram Fundraiser

Hyp3r was scraping profiles, copying photos and siphoning off data supposed to be deleted after 24 hours, according to a Business Insider investigation. Instagram said Hyp3r had “violated” its policies and had been sent legal papers telling it to stop collecting data. Hyp3r said it complied with privacy regulations and the terms of service for the social networks it targeted. Business Insider said Instagram’s owner, Facebook, should have been more diligent about preventing data grabbing in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The investigation claimed Hyp3r had been “stitching”…

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Nigeria proposes law to tax local online purchases

olivia Craig
Voice App

Online purchases in Nigeria could soon come with a tax bill in part of plans to raise more revenue to fund a record budget, Nigeria’s government is considering a 5% Value Added Tax (VAT) specifically for online purchases. Babatunde Fowler, head of Nigeria’s federal tax agency, says the government may appoint banks as agents to deduct 5% VAT on all local online purchases with a bank card. The policy could be in place by early next year, Fowler said in an interview with Premium Times, a local online newspaper. This…

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