Author: Paul Adepoju

With sub-US$50 smartphones on the way, rapid improvements to telecom infrastructure, and the availability of affordable cloud applications, the mobile Internet is rapidly transforming the way that Nigeria does business. It is empowering enterprises to be more flexible, responsive and efficient than ever before. That’s according to Magnus Nmonwu, Regional…

A gift card company founded by former employees of Jumia Nigeria, SureGifts, has expanded to Kenya. The launch of SureGifts Kenya, will enable users to gift their loved ones and reward employees, clients and customers with the most simple and functional product: gift cards from some of the best local…

The Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE) at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) will today February 19 inaugurate Startup Friday at the office of OIIE in Maitama, Abuja. It said Startup Friday would facilitate the development of the tech ecosystem in Abuja. StartUP Friday is a regular…

Airtel, Tigo and Vodacom customers can now seamlessly send and receive money across networks, thanks to an agreement among three of Tanzania’s leading telecom operators. With Vodacom joining Tigo, Airtel and Zantel’s existing partnership, today Tanzania becomes the first African market with full interoperability for mobile money peer to peer…

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (http://www.Samsung.com/za) a global leader in home appliance innovations, today announced a significant addition to its laundry lineup for 2016, which features intuitive and clever design changes that translate into big benefits for consumers. The new product showcases simple, yet truly practical innovation that changes the way…

First Bank of Nigeria has been recognised by Interswitch Transnational as the first Nigerian financial institution to achieve a transaction volume of 100 million transactions within a month. The record transaction volume which was achieved in the month of December 2015, represents the total transactions processed by First Bank’s Front…

China is set to become the latest market where the Apple Pay mobile payment system will become available from February 18 for Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC) customers, bank representatives said in social media posts yesterday (Tuesday). Apple Pay is a mobile payment and digital wallet service…

UNICEF has launched an innovation fund with which it is investing in open source tech startups in developing countries with the aim of improving the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children. In line with this, the fund is accepting applications from open source projects that have a working prototype…

Search engine giant Google has announced it is ‘moving on’ from to its photo editing, archiving and sharing service Picasa. Anil Sabharwal, Head of Google Photos said after much thought and consideration, they’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo…

South Africa is set to host Africa’s major startup pitching event DEMO Africa in 2016; the city of Johannesburg has been selected as the host city for the startup event that features startups from across the continent. Johannesburg will be the third African city to host DEMO Africa after Nairobi…

Globacom has ended its sponsorship of the Nigerian Premier League after more than 10 years. The last sponsorship agreement was signed at the beginning of the 2012/2013 league season and it ended at the end of 2016 Super Four football tournament which was held in both Kaduna and Uyo. Globacom…

I once found myself in a social media group where many foreigners were discussing how African governments were allowing their citizens to continue to wallow in abject poverty. The members kept arguing back and forth on the non-existence of resources and opportunities in Africa. Even though Wikipedia’s page on Africa…

Latest figures released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday revealed that the number of internet users on Nigeria’s telecoms’ networks decreased by 788,215 in December 2015. According to the latest NCC’s Monthly Internet Subscriber Data statistics, total number of GSM and CDMA subscribers in Nigeria was 97,182,014 in December…

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Climate Information for Resilient Development in Africa (CIRDA) has announced it is inviting software developers, mobile application gurus and innovation specialists to Livingstone, Zambia from March 15-17 to participate in the Climate Action Hackathon. The UNDP said the hackathon will generate ideas and…

Gemalto, a major leader in digital security, today announced it has been selected to provide its LinqUs Mobile ID platform to MTN Nigeria. This new project, operated for MTN in SaaS mode by Gemalto Allynis Services, marks the first commercial rollout of SIM based services delivering convenient mobile authentication for…

The former head of Jovago Nigeria, Marek Zmyslowski, has launched a new platform HotelOga, which offers somehow similar services being offered by Jovago. This may be one of the reasons why Jovago is reportedly planning to sue him. This new product is being launched just four months after Marek unceremoniously…

The World Bank Group has announced the launch of a new Climate Innovation Center (CIC) in Accra to support Ghana’s green growth strategy. The CIC will be financed through a US$17.2 million grant package recently approved by the World Bank Group. The CIC will support Ghana’s National Climate Change Policy…

Even though everyone talks about the competition for the title of the biggest ecommerce company in Nigeria between Jumia and Konga, the real competition appears to be in the marketplace space where OLX, MoboFree, and a few others are outspending each other in their bid to dominate the Nigerian online…

Sliide Airtime has announced Nigeria as the launch market for its Sliide Airtime service which provides users with a new and innovative way to access content from their mobiles and simultaneously earn free airtime. Nigerian users will be able to download the Android app from the Google Play Store or…

Al Jazeera Media Network has released a new audio app targeted at users in low-bandwidth regions. The app gives them access to live audio stream of the Al Jazeera TV broadcast on their devices. According to Al Jazeera, with the new service, it will be able to reach new audiences…