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MIT Global Startup Lab Program Applications Are Now Open

May 26, 2016June 2, 2016

The MIT Global Startup Labs Program is headed to South Africa and tech entrepreneurs, both new and established have until the end of May to submit their new and innovative tech ideas. The joint initiative by MIT, WITS University and the Johannesburg Center for Software Engineering (JCSE) will see students gain first hand experience in the entire process of developing tech startups. Since 2000, MIT Global Startup Labs has been sending over 150 MIT instructors to teach over 2,000 students in 14 countries through partnerships with universities in emerging regions.…

VC4Africa Releases Its Annual Venture Finance In Africa Report

May 23, 2016May 24, 2016 Dianne Jacobs

The 2016 Venture Finance in Africa research has been released by VC4Africa and it shows that growing investor interest in African startups is resulting in tangible investments. Data from the 2016 research shows that the total invested capital more than doubled from almost $27 million to almost $73 million, secured by 224 ventures who took part in the survey. The average amount invested per venture also increased from $200,000 to $326, 000. The data from the report showed that in terms of the number of ventures, ICT was leading with…

The 10 Startups To Pitch at Seedstars World South Africa Have Been Announced

May 23, 2016May 24, 2016 Dianne Jacobs

It’s an interesting month for startups in South Africa as Seedstars World, a global seed-stage startup competition begins its tour this week in Cape Town. The ten startups that will pitch to a panel of judges have been selected for the event that will take place at Workshop 17 as techmoran reports. After the pitching, the top three startups out of the ten will be invited to Johannesburg where they will compete against the best startups from Durban and Soweto. After these competitions, one startup will be named the most…

Vodacom Nigeria Trains 25 Female Students on IoT

May 20, 2016May 24, 2016 Dianne Jacobs

Vodacom Nigeria trained 25 female students on IoT as part of its support for the Girls In ICT program, Vanguard reports. The students learned how IoT is used in ensuring people’s safety and in securing the world today. The girls got a chance to tour the company’s facilities which exposed them to the importance of connectivity and data security. Vodacom hopes that by training female students in matters ICT, they will help in demystifying the myth that ICT is a male dominated field and in so doing encourage more female…

2016 Innotribe Startup Challenge Winners Announced

May 19, 2016May 20, 2016

The winners of the 2016 Innotribe Startup Challenge were announced yesterday in Mauritius. The winners were South Africa’s Hello Paisa, a low cost international money transfer solution and The Sun Exchange, which deals with crowd lending for solar energy and Cameroon’s WeCashUp, that deals with mobile money transfer across Africa. The three each received a 10,000 USD cash prize. They also received invitations to attend Sibos, SWIFT’s annual global financial services conference that will take place in Geneva from the 26th to the 29th of September, techmoran reports. Sido Bestani,…

Bill Gates To Give the 14th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture

May 18, 2016May 19, 2016 Dianne Jacobs

This year, the Annual Nelson Mandela lecture will be delivered by Bill Gates, the Nelson Mandela Foundation in association with the University of Pretoria has announced. The lecture which will be delivered on July 17th, the eve of Nelson Mandela day, will focus on the theme, “Living Together”. The lecture is one of the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s programmes that seek to honor the late Nelson Mandela. In line with this, the lecture seeks to raise topical issues affecting South Africa and the rest of the world. Encouraging dialogue often about…

Q&A: DCA Trust Founder on Status of .Africa & Why Other African gTLDs failed to Go Live!

May 12, 2016August 17, 2016 Staff Writer

ITBusiness: We spoke with the Pioneer of the .Africa gTLD and Yes2dotAfrica Campaign Sophia Bekele, also named African Trailblazer – Made in Africa – by the “Collector’s Edition” of UK’s Premium “NewAfrican Magazine” & one of top ICT Women in Africa by Bloomberg TV, on the status of the most controversial domain .Africa. ITB Q1: What is the Status of .Africa battle S. Bekele: The status of .Africa is now at the US Court, mainly because of ICANN did not manage to oversee a proper evaluation process and generally mishandling…

#ELLE101: #WomenInBusiness Twitter Chat with Sophia Bekele

May 6, 2016May 13, 2016

On 6th May 2016, Elle Afrique a blogzine for the #PowerfulAfricanGoddess, hosted an incisive Twitter Chat with Sophia Bekele, Business Executive and Philanthropist. The #WomenInBusiness chat proved to be very enlightening for Women. As a seasoned entrepreneur Miss Bekele had a few nuggets of wisdom to share on women in business and what some of her experiences have been thus far. She touched on the importance of networking in business. “Networking is the subtle building of human capital through connections. Traditionally Business has been built and expanded via networks, tech has…

Hackers Breach Top Wall Street Law Firms, Including Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP, Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP

March 31, 2016

Reuters: Hackers broke into the computer networks of some big U.S. law firms, including Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Federal investigators are looking to see if confidential information was stolen for insider trading, as these law firms represented Wall Street banks and big companies, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. Other law firms were also targeted, but the probe has not amounted to any clear information on what details have been stolen, the newspaper…

Statista analyses Sandberg’s eighth anniversary at Facebook

March 24, 2016May 16, 2016 Dianne Jacobs

In 2008, Facebook was still a startup. Early investors were excited about its user growth — Microsoft had put $240 million into the company at a crazy-seeming $15 billion valuation the year before. BusinessInsider reports Mark Zuckerberg CEO and founder then hired Sheryl Sandberg, then the VP of global sales and operations at Google, to help run the company as its chief operating officer. Today is Sandberg’s eighth anniversary at the company, and this chart from Statista shows it all. Facebook has grown its revenue more than 65x, gone from a $56…