Author: Tapiwa Matthew Mutisi

The Founder and Executive Chairman of the Econet Group, Strive Masiyiwa, has joined the board of directors at Netflix, becoming the first African to join the streaming giant’s board of directors. And this move follows last week’s news that Susan Rice had left her board post in preparation to take a role in the…

Kenya-based financial technology (FinTech) firm Pezesha won first place at the 2020 AFI Inclusive FinTech Showcase, after impressing AFI members and panel of expert judges with an online pitch on how their solution is leading innovation in financial inclusion. Pezesha, translated as “financial empowerment” from Kenyan Swahili, provides a digital platform…

Kenyan-based health tech startup, Ilara Health just recently after receiving US$1.1 million in grant funding to improve maternal health outcomes in the country from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has raised $3.75-million in a Series A funding round led by TLcom Capital with contribution from DOB Equity, Global Ventures, and Chandaria Capital. The new $3.75-million Series A…

Vodacom KwaZulu-Natal Region announced today that it is rolling-out the fastest and latest, fifth generation (5G) network in key municipal districts in KwaZulu-Natal province. The 5G network is currently available on 156 live 5G sites across the KwaZulu-Natal province and supports both mobile and fixed wireless access services. Vodacom customers…

Zoox Inc., the self-driving taxi company acquired by Amazon earlier this year for more than $1 billion, was its latest addition to Amazon’s autonomous robotic fleet, along with its drones, warehouse bots and Scout mini delivery vehicles. And now Zoox has been teasing of unveiling its autonomous vehicle ‘Robotaxi’ for a while now, and it…

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic Google had earlier on decided to allow employees to work from home until the end of 2020, following similar announcements from other major tech companies, and even also went on giving employees who work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic $1,000 allowances to cover equipment…

Code-named “Spartan,” Microsoft Edge is the latest Internet browser from Microsoft that was introduced with Microsoft Windows 10 as a replacement for Internet Explorer. The Edge browser comes pre-installed with Windows 10 and now Microsoft has just updated its Edge browser with a game-changing new feature as it looks to beat Chrome in the browser…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently classified the Chinese tech giants, Huawei Technologies Co., as national security threats and carriers are barred from even using the Universal Service Fund (USF) to buy their equipment. And now the FCC has ordered certain US telecommunications companies to remove Huawei equipment from their…

Nokia will soon launch its first Nokia laptop in the PureBook series in India called the Nokia PureBook X14. The laptop will also be sold exclusively on Flipkart, which has also updated its microsite to give us a first look at the laptop. As of now, the exact launch date of…

Joe Biden won the election, but President Trump refuses to concede as he continues to claim he won and challenge the results in court. Check out all social media platforms especially on Twitter and Facebook, Trump, including his supporters have been relentless in their claims that the democrats stole the…

Yes, it’s nearly time for Samsung to announce the latest Galaxy S21 phone and rumors have already started sprouting. Samsung is taking a new approach this year by announcing and releasing its next Galaxy S-series smartphones about a month earlier than normal. It’s a move that’s aimed at better competing…

Amazon became the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy after signing agreements Thursday to purchase energy from 26 wind and solar projects around the world and is planning to generate its own renewable electricity to run through the grid of South Africa’s struggling state-owned power utility Eskom in a…

Google had previously been the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, claiming that title in 2019. Web retail giant, Amazon has now toppled Google, to become the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy after signing agreements Thursday to purchase energy from 26 wind and solar projects around the world.…

Johny Srouji, Apple’s Senior Vice President of hardware technologies recently told staff that Apple Inc. has started building its own cellular modem for future devices, a move that would replace components from Qualcomm Inc which suddenly resulted in Qualcomm’s shares dropping as much as 6.3% in extended trading. Apple’s top…

Google recently announced in a blog post a new integration of Gmail with Microsoft Office files, making it even easier to work with Microsoft Office documents. Now users are able to directly edit office documents in Gmail, much like it already allows with Google Docs or Sheets files and while…

Zeal Rewards is an Egyptian mobile payments startup, a digital loyalty platform that effortlessly rewards you for visiting and ordering from your favorite venues has announced the conclusion of an undisclosed six-figure round of Seed funding. The purpose of the investment funding raised will assist the startup in expanding across…

Google has published its annual “Year in Search” findings, in which it reveals the 2020 top trending google searches terms across a number of categories in South Africa – and other countries around the world. In 2020, unsurprisingly, the search terms comprised a large number of COVID-19-related search terms and those…

Access to energy is critical to Africa’s development and growth. Energy is the sustenance of all economies and an enabler of better welfare; where there is a deficit in supply, this cripples economic growth and destroys livelihoods. Due to the urgent need to rapidly reduce carbon emissions and respond to…

Cape Town-based, animation, gaming, augmented-reality company Sea Monster recently won in the Data & Insight category at the International Content Marketing Awards in the United Kingdom. The award recognizes Sea Monster for the design and implementation of the Livin’ it Up financial education mobile game that was designed for Capitec…

While most of Africa’s well-known ventures into e-commerce have been designed to appeal to the continent’s burgeoning middle class, Sokowatch is aiming to bring goods and services to the millions of informal shop owners across the East African region, has launched the first commercially used electric tuk-tuks in East Africa. …