Author: Paul Adepoju

The World Economic Forum in its The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016 assesses the competitiveness landscape of 140 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. The Report series remains the most comprehensive assessment of national competitiveness worldwide. According to the report, the most competitive economy in Africa…

Rocket Internet has confirmed that it plans to start 10 new companies this year. This confirmation was revealed in the company’s H1 2015 result that was made available to Innovation Village this morning. According to Rocket Internet, it has already launched 9 out of the ten companies and this means…

DabaDoc which medical appointment booking startup that was launched in Morocco has expanded its operations to Nigeria. With DabaDoc, users can find doctors and book appointments online. Patients use the service to connect with doctors through its platform, which features doctors in 72 different specialties across 50 cities. DabaDoc is…

Google has revealed that there are now about 1.4 billion around the world that are using the Android mobile operating system. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said the number is up from the 1 billion users Google announced in May. According to him, many of Android users are in emerging economies…

Nigeria’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed that 32 million active bank accounts have yet to be enrolled on the Biometric Verification Number (BVN). In a statement, Alhaji Mu’azu Ibrahim, CBN Director, Corporate Communications, said CBN was concerned by the number of account owners yet to…

The Police in South Africa plans to use viral video clips showing villagers in Mpumalanga burning a man implicated in the rape and murder of a pregnant woman will be used to track down those who participated in the mob justice attack this week. News24 reported that the residents of…

The President of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta has bagged an award from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in recognition of the president’s promotion of the use of ICT for sustainable development. The ICTs in Sustainable Development Award honours the important contributions made by leaders, on behalf of their countries, towards harnessing…

Nigeria’s remittance API has been launched by VTNetwork Limited. The API streamlines and squeezes efficiencies in the final mile of remittances flowing into that country. Report showed that Nigeria received a total of $21 billion from its citizens living abroad as home-bound remittances in 2014, according to the World Bank,…

East African countries of Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan are integrating their SIM registration process with the aim of combating crime. The countries have moved closer to forming a common SIM card registration system as they move to curb rising crimes perpetrated through mobile devices. Regulators and information communication…

Nigeria has been ranked low on the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2015. Out of a total of 141, Nigeria ranked 128 and is ranked below Swaziland, Lesotho, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Uganda and Cameroon. Nigeria scored 23.72 (out of 100), scoring just 0.01 to be above Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Mauritius is ranked…

China is funding the a lab building project at Kenya’s Egerton University. The lab will enhance agricultural research and innovation, and in a long run, benefit the farmers in the East African nation, said a Kenyan scholar. Prof. Richard Mulwa from Egerton University told Xinhua in a recent interview that…

Nigeria’s immediate past communication technology minister, Dr. (Mrs) Omobola Johnson has joined TLCom Capital as partner, she revealed this while speaking at DEMO Africa 2015. TLcom Capital LLP is a London and Nairobi based Venture Capital firm investing since 1999 in Telecom, Media and Technology (TMT) companies. It is a…

Eric Lauer, Co-founder and Managing Director at Everjobs Africa, has revealed that the aim of Africa’s newest online career portal, Everjobs in Ethiopia, which recently started operations in Ethiopia, is to help create the perfect match between professionals and employers. Lauer said, “Overall in Ethiopia we are seeing a growing…

Even though broadband penetration continues to increase globally, the United Nations has revealed that billions of people, including 90 per cent of people living in the poorest nations of the world are yet to be reached with broadband. The UN said this in a new United Nations report that offers…

Counsellor Ruby Mathang, MMC Economic Development has announced the winners in The Green City Startup, a R5 million competition aimed at unearthing creative green entrepreneurs whose ideas could help boost Johannesburg’s green culture. This initiative of the Green Challenge Fund, was developed by The City of Johannesburg, in partnership with…

Opera yesterday unveiled a new logo and brand identity which the company described as ‘a new look and feel’. Even though this is not the first time the company would be changing its logo, it said this redesign is more than a logo shift adding that the company is now…

Last week, Innovation Village reported that an Abuja-based music artist, Omenuwoma Okson Dovie, also known as Baba 2010 had threatened to drag Nigeria’s largest telecoms company MTN before a high court if it fails to pay him N500 million as compensation for the network’s decision to illegally use his songs…

Nigeria’s ecommerce powerhouse Konga.com has announced a partnership with telecoms company Globacom, the deal many stakeholders in the tech industry who spoke to Innovation Village, said is similar to the one between MTN and Jumia although it is not entirely a replica. Konga and Globacom are partnering for Glo with…

A final investment target of $200 million has been raised by the African Renewable Energy Fund (AREF). The fund it said is in form of committed capital to support small to medium scale projects on the continent. The final close came with funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and…

Smile Telecoms has partnered with Samsung Electronics West Africa to launch LTE voice over broadband service on smartphone, for the first time in West Africa.  According to Smile, the giant stride is in line with Smile’s vision of providing superfast and reliable internet service to Nigerians leveraging Samsung Galaxy S6…