Category: STARTUPS

What’s next for Yahoo’s future of its core Internet Business

Staff Writer

WHAT’S NEXT? Yahoo is preparing to discuss the future of its core Internet business and its stake in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant. “Yahoo’s management has faltered in its efforts to turn around its core business and it faces investor pressure to take more dramatic moves, though the people familiar with the plans say no transaction is assured,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “If Yahoo decides to sell its core Internet business, it could put into motion a deal for the Alibaba stake as well as its 35% stake in…

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Developing Future African Leaders — Q&A with Wadzi Katsidzira of the African Leadership Academy

Grant

Africa’s future is bright, but realizing its potential will require the development of a new generation of African leaders ready to compete in a global economy. African economies are among the fastest-growing in the world, and the continent’s potential is widely recognized. Achieving this bright future will require a new generation of African leaders that are equipped with the skills and knowledge to compete in an increasingly global economy. That’s where organizations like the African Leadership Academy (ALA) comes in, identifying some of the most promising youth from around the…

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Enter ABC.xyz: Google will now be part of Alphabet

Staff Writer
Alphabet abc.xyz

Google announced a new holding company called Alphabet today, and it’s using the domain name ABC.xyz. This is a huge win for Daniel Negari’s .xyz, and new top level domains in general. Reports Domainamewire “For Sergey and me this is a very exciting new chapter in the life of Google — the birth of Alphabet,” Larry Page, the chief executive of Google, wrote in a blog post on Monday. “We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations,…

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Twitter Shares Rise After Faked Bloomberg Report

Staff Writer

Takeover rumors about Twitter surface with seeming regularity every couple of months. But one on Tuesday showed a new level of sophistication in an effort to pump up the company’s stock. Shares of Twitter, the social network, briefly spiked after an article that appeared to come from the Bloomberg News website contended that the company had received a takeover offer worth $31 billion. Analysts and Twitter users quickly started poking holes in the online piece and deemed it a fake. (No such report ran on the Bloomberg terminal, where its…

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Women Entrepreneurs Are Key to Accelerating Growth

Staff Writer
Women

Latest Kauffman Policy Digest explores barriers to women entrepreneurs and offers five policy recommendations to address the gender gap (KANSAS CITY, Mo.) July 20, 2015 – While the number of women entering the workforce has significantly increased over several decades, they are still half as likely as men to start a business. According to the most recent Entrepreneurship Policy Digest released today by the Kauffman Foundation, the lack of women entrepreneurs is not just a gender issue, it’s an economic issue. The Policy Digest highlights the skillsets of women that…

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Tech IPOs indicate slowest pace since the banking crisis

Staff Writer
Banking Crisis

With the end of the first half of the year in sight, it looks like Fitbit may be the last tech IPO of what so far has been the slowest year for new public offerings in the sector since 2009. That was the middle of the banking crisis and just after Sequoia Capital made its “RIP:Good Times” presentation to its portfolio CEOs in 2008. There have only been two tech companies from the Bay Area to go public so far this year — Box and Apigee — and San Francisco-based…

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How 5 most valuable internet companies have changed over the past 2 decades

Staff Writer
Google

It’s mind-boggling how the 5 most valuable internet companies have changed over the past 20 years In 1995, the internet was just about to get started. It was only a year after big internet companies like Yahoo and Netscape were founded. Fast forward 20 years later, and the web business landscape looks a lot different from back then. In fact, only 1 out of the 5 most valuable public internet companies from 1995 are still in the top 5 list, according to Mary Meeker’s “Internet Trends” report. Check out the…

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Startups are bringing mobile banking to the last mile in Africa

Staff Writer

Mobile banking has provided financial inclusion for developing countries. A new wave of startups is now taking the tech beyond mobile wallets. When Ismail Ahmed moved from Somalia to England in 1988, he regularly sent money back home. He experienced exorbitant fees, transfer offices with erratic opening hours, and was often worried about how easily his family would be able to retrieve the money. In 2010 Ahmed founded WorldRemit, an online service that allows users to send money internationally via a PC or phone. Today, more than 250,000 transactions flow…

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DotConnectAfrica joins the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) at the CBC TECH 2020 Launch in Washington DC

DotConnectAfrica Trust joined, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on Tuesday, May 19 2015,  at the launch of CBC TECH 2020, a new initiative aimed at engaging the tech sector in increasing African-American representation and inclusion in the industry. The event was held at Madison Building, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue Washington, DC  20540. Photo: Congressman G. K. Butterfield, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) at the Tech 2020 launch  The CBC Diversity Task Force Members include Rep. G. K. Butterfield (NC), CBC Chairman, Rep. Barbara Lee (CA), Co-Chair,…

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Is Quantum computing about to make big trouble for cybersecurity?

Staff Writer
Google

There is a race to build quantum computers, and (as far as we know) it isn’t the NSA that is in the lead. Competing are big tech companies such as IBM, Google, and Microsoft; startups; defense contractors; and universities. One Canadian startup says that it has already developed a first version of a quantum computer. A physicist at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Ronald Hanson, told Scientific American that he will be able to make the building blocks of a universal quantum computer in just five years and a fully-functional demonstration machine…

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