Author: Staff Writer

WeFarm has won the second prize in the Chivas Regal “The Venture” competition for social enterprise. WeFarm was awarded the second largest contribution from the fund, receiving $200,000. The Venture, luxury whisky Chivas Regal’s search to find and support the most innovative startups from across the world, rewarded five social enterprises the…

Through the advent of Messenger and bots, messaging platforms have rapidly increased their impact in reaching users with life-changing content. Leading this technological evolution in low and middle income countries, the Praekelt Foundation will launch a new chatbot for Messenger integrated into the South African Nation Department of Health’s MomConnect, at…

According to the founder and CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, it took five years to reach its billionth trip, and just six months to reach the next billion. 1 billion rides in six months! This means the online transportation network company was providing an average of 5.5 million rides a day,…

Africa’s future rests in the hands of its youth – and every effort must be made to ensure they thrive, philanthropist and entrepreneur Bill Gates said in South Africa yesterday. Delivering the 2016 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at the University of Pretoria (Mamelodi campus), Gates said he was optimistic about…

Charging to drive someone around Lagos was chiefly a cash-in-hand job before Uber launched in Nigeria two years ago. To this day, the rest of the transport industry remains largely informal, with no clarity on how much money is made and only negligible tax contributions to the state. Uber is different.…

It seems that there is now one more use for the Tobacco plant apart from getting people high. South African Airways (SAA) has recently concluded a flight using jet fuel from a tobacco plant. According to the airline, it used 6,300 litres of bio jet fuel for a one-way trip to Cape Town…

There are reports that Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have been blocked in Turkey amid talks of an attempted coup. There are talks of military tanks on the streets of Istanbul. The Prime Minister has stated that the coup was conducted by a small minority in the country. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,…

After six rounds of voting and over 2000 votes, Printivo beats Hotels.ng in the finals of Starta’s Startup Matchup Nigeria. Starta began the online game five weeks ago.  They pitted 32 funded startups in Nigeria against each other and asked voters to choose which startups they would like to invest in.…

Demand for Cash Loans has increased by 29% to a staggering 30,000 search requests in the two weeks after the devaluation of the Naira, showing that the weaker Naira has hit the Nigerian population hard. People experience an increase in costs while salaries stay the same and unemployment rates increase.…

Guaranty Trust Bank remains one of the top two rated Banks in Nigeria as shown by the recently released Rating Report by Fitch, a global rating agency. Fitch revised the Outlook on the Bank’s Long term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) from Negative to Stable citing the Bank’s continuing strong earnings, and…

There has been so much noise on the Internet about this new game -Pokémon Go. What is it? Here are ten things you need to know about Pokémon Go: Pokémon Go is an augmented reality game, that challenges users to find and catch Pokémon characters in their real world surroundings. The…

A new music publishing outfit named 5ive Music, launched on Sunday 10th of July at a live show tagged “5ive Live Sessions” at The Bridge, a swanky spot located in Lekki, Lagos. 5ive Music was created primarily to pick up and exploit music publishing rights in catalogues currently controlled by three…

Tanzania’s leading digital lifestyle company, Tigo Tanzania has today entered into a partnership with the Ministry of Communications, Works and Infrastructure to facilitate the roll-out of internet access points in the country’s secondary schools so as to complement the e-Schools Project for a period of 2 years. As part of…

Five African countries will join the global community in this year’s #UberIceCream celebration taking place on the 15th of July. Alexandria, Cairo, Egypt; Nairobi, Mombasa, Kenya; Casablanca, Morocco; Lagos, Nigeria; Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, South Africa are the ten (10) cities that will be part of the 400 cities…

FarmBot Genesis is humanity’s first open-source CNC farming machine designed for at-home automated food production. The idea lies at the intersection of automation, the open-source DIY maker movement, and small-scale polycrop farming. FarmBot moves around in the XYZ space day and night, 7 days a week, growing food for you, just the way…

It all started when the Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, decides to stop on the road to make a call. He was on his way to a public engagement in the south west district of Isingiro when his motorcade stopped and a padded folded seat appeared and he sat down to make…

In advertising the upcoming event, TechPlus2016, the promoters put a driver-less car on the roads of Lagos. As the crowds surround the car, here comes Frank Donga. He wonders whether the promoters need a driver for the driver-less car. He is looking for a job as a driver. Watch for yourself.…

Paragon media has just officially launched Nigeria’s premier social marketplace as a melting pot for the hottest deals in female fashion & accessories; hotels; and events. Designed as a simple-to-use app, the user experience is driven by simplicity and an aesthetic charm that gives users flexibility, customer satisfaction and security…

Social Lender will be launching in the coming month in South Africa. This announcement was delivered by Faith Adesemowo, CEO of Social Lender during the Barclays Techstars Demo Day presentation in Cape Town. “With over 10,000 users on our platform, Social Lender has been solving real problems for real people.…

The hashtags #FreePastorEvan, #ShutDownZim are trending as Twitter as calls are mounting for the release of Pastor Evan who was apparently arrested for “inciting public violence and disturbing peace” Pastor Evan Mawarire is one of the proponents of the “Shut Down Zimbabwe” movement requesting for a change in Zimbabwe. He led a…