Author: Tapiwa Matthew Mutisi

TD Africa, a leading IT and lifestyle product distributor in Nigeria, has announced a partnership with Starlink, making it the first distributor in Africa. According to a press statement released on February 7, 2024, in Lagos, the deal to distribute Starlink kits advances the goal of providing reliable internet connectivity…

Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbots and assistants portfolio, Copilot, is set to receive several enhancements in line with a prominent Super Bowl LVIII advertising campaign. Chief Marketing Officer Yusuf Mehdi, in a post on the official Microsoft blog, shares what updates users can anticipate. “Today marks exactly one year since our entry…

After launching last year in an invite-only beta, the decentralized, open-source social app Bluesky has now opened to the public and has experienced a considerable surge in user sign-ups. In just one day, Bluesky gained almost 800,000 new users, pushing the platform towards 4 million total sign-ups. According to public…

Samsung is ceasing updates and software support for some of its older Android models, including the Galaxy A51, despite its latest Galaxy S24 series slated to receive updates for a significant part of the upcoming decade. Typically, Samsung’s software update policy differs per device, but most recent releases receive a…

Microsoft has revealed its plan to establish a data centre campus in Kosmosdal, Centurion to enhance its cloud infrastructure in South Africa. The goal is to satisfy the increasing demand for cloud and AI services and solutions among public sector and private organisations in Africa. The company is committed to…

The Africa Credit Opportunities Fund (ACOF), a private credit fund, and Telecel Group, a telco company based in Africa, have teamed up to invest $20 million in Telecel Global Services. This joint initiative aims to expand Telecel Global Services’ footprint in West Africa while promoting innovation and reducing the digital…

Vodacom, South Africa’s leading mobile network operator, is set to appeal a ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal that obligates the company to pay its former employee, Kenneth Makate, about $1 billion (R20 billion) for inventing the popular Please Call Me service. The judgment equates to around 10% of…

With the Digital Markets Act (DMA) deadline just a month away, WhatsApp is gearing up to incorporate other messaging services into its app. WhatsApp engineering director Dick Brouwer revealed in an interview with Wired that the company is prepared to offer interoperability on its platform, which boasts over two billion…

Mobile internet access was restored in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, on Wednesday following a two-day shutdown, against the backdrop of the country’s worst political upheaval in decades. The blocking of mobile data since Monday came in response to what the telecommunications ministry referred to as the propagation of “hateful and subversive…

Five African startups are among the ten startups selected for the global Startup Boost program. This initiative is run by Sweden-based tech consulting firm tretton37, which provides pro bono support to startups aiming to impact and change the world. Of the nearly 50 companies that applied for the program, only…

Adam Neumann, co-founder of WeWork, is reported to be making moves to acquire the company out of bankruptcy, according to various reports. A letter published by The New York Times today, written by lawyers representing Neumann, his latest venture Flow Global Holdings LLC, and their associates, expressed disappointment with WeWork’s…

Dr. Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s current Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy has been appointed to the Digital Innovation Board of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance for Digital Development by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The alliance was established to close the global digital innovation gap and assist ITU members…

Yandex NV, often dubbed as Russia’s equivalent to Google, has agreed to a 475 billion-rouble ($5.21 billion) sale to a consortium of Russian investors. This represents the largest corporate retreat from the country following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago. The deal, backed by the Kremlin, would result…

Telecommunications giants MTN Nigeria and Globacom (Glo) have concluded a 15-year-long disagreement over interconnection fees. MTN has agreed to accept ₦2 billion to resolve the interest payment, rather than the initially demanded ₦3 billion, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The core interconnection debt had already been resolved.…

Remoteli, a Ghanaian startup that links African tech talent with remote work opportunities, has secured a pre-seed funding round of £250,000 ($314,824) to scale its operations and expand throughout Africa. The round was led by Jeremie Frimpong, a Ghanaian-Dutch professional footballer playing for Bundesliga club Bayern Leverkusen. This investment follows…

Meta’s recent decision to retire its Facebook Groups API has left businesses and social media marketers unsettled. The Facebook Graph API v19.0 announced on January 23, noted that the Facebook Groups API, used by businesses and software developers to schedule posts on Facebook Groups, would be deprecated within 90 days.…

DocuSign has announced it will lay off approximately 400 employees, equating to 6% of its workforce. The company stated in an SEC filing that the cuts are part of a “restructuring plan,” impacting primarily its sales and marketing teams and projected to cost between $28 and $32 million for severance…

After operating on an invite-only basis for almost a year, Bluesky, the micro-blogging platform funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is now available to the public. The platform began as an internal project at Twitter and was developed to be a decentralized social networking service using an infrastructural model called…

Paystack has expanded its “Pay With Apple Pay” payment option to include Cote D’Ivoire and South Africa, allowing users to make payments on iOS apps and through the Safari web browser. This development comes two years after introducing the service in Nigeria and a year after its launch in Ghana.…

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in South Africa has denied an appeal from Vodacom and ruled favourably for Kenneth Nkosana Makate, the man behind the idea for “Please Call Me.” The Court determined Vodacom must compensate Makate with between 5% and 7.5% of the total voice revenue the “Please…