Isis Nyong’o’s MumsVillage has diversified into ecommerce to help mothers make money with the launch of MumsVillageShop. The move into ecommerce has been supported by impact investor Gray Matters Capital’s digital accelerator program – GMC Calibrator. MumsVillage also participated in the Unilever-DFID TRANSFORM partnership and Alibaba efounders Fellowship. “It is great to see one of the members from the first class of the eFounders program bring their vision to life. The program aims to empower young entrepreneurs to be champions for an inclusive digital economy, and the growth of MumsVillage serves as a…
Read MoreYear: 2019
Google debuts new Google News Initiative challenge
Google on Tuesday opened the Google News Initiative (GNI) challenge for media publishers in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. The Head of Google News Initiative Innovation, Ludovic Bleacher, made the disclosure at the unveiling of the initiative in Lagos. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Google News Initiative is a journalism-focused programme that will help publishers earn money and fight fake news. It will also introduce an open-source tool called Outline, which will make it easier for news organisations to set up secure access to the…
Read MoreNew Startups and Partnerships, EurAfrican Forum
Dr. Precious Lunga, CEO and Co-Founder of Baobab Circle, will be joining the 2nd edition of the EurAfrican Forum in Portugal as a speaker, taking place on July 4-5. The EurAfrican Forum exists to explore and promote the power of diasporas as a connecting force between cities, regions and continents, between cultures, companies and people. It is an action-oriented gathering of leaders that aims to foster stronger collaboration between Europe and Africa to promote a shared green and inclusive growth for the two continents, fostering mechanisms for collaboration and creating…
Read MoreNew Swvl, Egyptian bus booking app raises $42 million.
Swvl, an Egyptian app for booking buses, has raised $42 million as it looks to expand into other parts of Africa, including Nigeria. The two-year-old company, which started in Cairo and also operates in Alexandria and Nairobi in Kenya, got the money from venture-capital firms including Sweden’s Vostok, Dubai-based BECO Capital, China’s MSA and Endeavor Catalyst, based in New York. “The plan is to be in at least two or three more African cities by the end of the year,’’ Mostafa Kandil, the 26-year-old founder and chief executive officer, said…
Read MoreNew: Instagram account been hacked? You can recover it this way
Previously, if your Instagram account was taken over by an attacker, recovering it would require wading through choppy customer support, or calling for assistance from white-hat hackers. Now, Instagram is rolling out new measures to help you get your account back more easily. On Monday, Instagram announced it is testing changes that could make it easier for users to regain access to hacked accounts, as well as security features that could make it harder to steal Instagram usernames in the first place. The news comes after a wave of Instagram…
Read MoreGoAfrica New partnership with Foxconn
Ordinary Kenyans can now afford to buy iPhones at lower prices after goAfrica, an online platform, partnered with Foxconn and iFP to ship reconditioned smartphones to the local market. The smartphones are expected to retail at between 20 and 30 percent lower than what new smartphones cost in Apple Stores. “We are offering quality products to the market at an affordable price,” said goAfrica general manager Boniface Munywoki. The appetite for iPhones has grown steadily in the local market in the past few years, but the high cost of new…
Read MoreA world of new possibilities from Mobile apps to the blind and visually impaired
Ask anyone who was around before smartphones, and they’ll tell you life was different. But for Nutsiri “Earth” Kidkul, who went blind eight years ago, life-changing doesn’t begin to describe the impact of mobile apps. Before specialized apps came along, Kidkul would have to plan and prepare much more for basic tasks like grocery shopping, traveling or reading documents. What’s more, Kidkul often needed assistance from other people to go about her day. “I was always at the mercy of their time or schedule,” Kidkul says. Kidkul uses, for example,…
Read MoreVodacom and Safaricom new process to buy M-Pesa brand.
Vodacom and Safaricom are in the process of buying the M-Pesa brand from parent company Vodafone, in a deal reportedly worth over R190 million. Vodacom mentioned the deal in its recent full year results announcement, saying it expected the acquisition of the popular mobile money service to “further accelerate our mobile money growth plans in Africa”. Vodacom group CEO Shameel Joosub confirmed the plans in an interview with ITWeb, saying Vodacom, through a joint agreement with Safaricom, has done a deal with Vodafone to “take over M-Pesa completely”. “So, Safaricom…
Read MoreMillions of Instagram influencers new data scraped and exposed.
TechCruch has detailed massive database leak containing contact information of millions of Instagram influencers, celebrities and brand accounts has been found online. The database, hosted by Amazon Web Services, was left exposed and without a password allowing anyone to look inside. At the time of writing, the database had over 49 million records — but was growing by the hour. From a brief review of the data, each record contained public data scraped from influencer Instagram accounts, including their bio, profile picture, the number of followers they have, if they’re…
Read MoreGoogle new ties cut with Huawei.
Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware, software and technical services except those publicly available via open source licensing, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday, in a blow to the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has sought to blacklist around the world. Holders of current Huawei smartphones with Google apps, however, will continue to be able to use and download app updates provided by Google, a Google spokesperson said, confirming earlier reporting by Reuters. “We are complying…
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