In a move poised to revolutionize Liberia’s technological landscape, the government of Liberia is considering the introduction of Starlink satellite Internet service, developed by SpaceX.
This follows a recent virtual discussion between President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, Sr. and Elon Musk, the visionary CEO of SpaceX.
During their conversation, both leaders underscored the transformative potential of advanced technology, particularly in enhancing access to critical sectors such as education, healthcare, and economic development in rural areas of Liberia.
Recognizing the potential impact, President Boakai extended an invitation for Musk and his team to visit Liberia, signifying a commitment to ongoing dialogue and potential collaboration.
Concurrently, Liberia is undergoing significant reforms in its telecommunications sector.
“New regulations are being introduced to support fintech companies, aiming to foster innovation and competition in a market historically dominated by a few major players. These reforms are designed to level the playing field, enabling smaller startups to enter and thrive in the mobile and Internet services arena,” reports indicates.
The regulatory shift is expected to empower Liberian entrepreneurs, particularly those developing mobile financial solutions, by providing fair access to essential telecom resources. This marks a pivotal moment in Liberia’s tech evolution, coinciding with Musk’s interest in expanding Starlink across Africa.
Together, these developments promise a dynamic transformation in Liberia’s tech and telecom landscape, paving the way for broader connectivity and innovative services. The potential introduction of Starlink, alongside progressive regulatory changes, heralds a new era of technological advancement and economic opportunity for Liberia.
As of mid-2024, Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, has actively been expanding its presence across Africa. The service is already live in several African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, Benin, and Eswatini. Starlink aims to further extend its reach to additional countries by the end of 2024. Upcoming launches are planned for Gambia, Lesotho, Senegal, Tanzania, Angola, Botswana, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe, among others.
This expansion aligns with Starlink’s goal to provide high-speed, low-latency internet access to underserved regions, particularly in rural areas where traditional broadband services are lacking.
The culture of an organization, the way that things are done, will develop whether there’s intention or not. By defining what it should be, you can influence the behavior. If you don’t define it, it’ll develop organically and you might not like the results.
Josh Sephton, Via LinkedIn.
Culture is “the way we do things around here.” When you join a new team, you will quickly be humbled. Everybody knows everybody, everyone has a circle – or not. They know the bosses’ good and bad times -read, when to ask for favors and when not to. There’s clearly a formula on how business runs, and everybody knows it, except you. The newbie. Always saying hi to those that prefer quiet mornings, inviting to lunch the project manager that eats sandwiches at his desk, or running every step of your project by your supervisor who really prefers to just oversee and give feedback. Or, the opposite- when you meet the micromanager. Most times, teams have held on to their beliefs, rituals and behaviors for far too long, and will immediately sideline anyone who dares question “the way of doing things.”
All these things, added together, really define how teams work. And, ultimately, decide whether a team will build something great, or will jeopardize the productivity of an organization. In this article, we’ll explore the profound impact of startup culture on team dynamics and why getting it right can be the difference between success and failure.
So what then, is Culture, and Why is it so Important?
Culture isn’t just about Ping-Pong tables, free snacks and beer Fridays; it’s the underlying DNA that shapes how a team works together, innovates, and ultimately thrives. A strong culture provides a shared sense of purpose and identity, aligns team members around common goals, and fosters trust, collaboration, and resilience.
With the right culture within an organization, team members feel aligned, valued and empowered to put their best foot forward. This ultimately manifests into productivity, as there is a common and shared sense of purpose. No one is sidelined, there is no deadweight on the team, or walking on eggshells when it’s time to put a point across. And, it’s not just about productivity.
When you think of startups, the thought of challenges and tough days surely must cross your mind. The beauty of a strong and positive culture is that it carries a startup –and really any organization, through the dark days. When the product launch is a flop, or the expected funding didn’t pan out. Delayed salaries and the dreaded PR disasters that are a daily dose for most startups. A trusting, aligned, resilient and optimistic team- all *aspects* cultivated by a positive organizational culture will more often than not be willing and able to endure the tough times without backing out, cutting corners or sabotaging the organization.
Conversely, a toxic or dysfunctional culture can erode morale, hinder productivity, and drive talented team members away, ultimately spelling doom for the startup.
Cultivating a Positive Startup Culture:
Building a positive startup culture requires intentional effort and a commitment from leadership to prioritize values, behaviors, and norms that support the company’s mission and vision. Elements that define a positive culture are many. Today we discuss 3 key elements of a positive startup culture, and how Core values are the foundation on which a culture is built.
1. Aligning with the core values of your organization.
Core values are the foundation on which a culture is built. By definition, core values are “ideals you believe that determine your behavior and decisions.” They do not change with every turn or dynamics of the economy, society or organizational disruption. The point of values and mission in an organization is to define a pathway and create a guide for the team to follow in the process of executing the set goals.
When hiring, it is important to look out for people who align with your core values. If, for instance, your core value as a startup is boldness, it is crucial to be on the lookout for hires that share this core value. This means people who are not afraid of leaping on new ideas, even without full knowledge. People who don’t wait for conditions to align to act. People that are ready to try, fail and then try again.
When your core value is perseverance, team members that don’t back out when the going gets tough, that stay objective as opposed to emotional or panicked in less than favorable circumstances, are your best bet. As a startup, it is crucial to realize that a hire can have the right skills and be the best on the job, but when their core values are misaligned with yours, any attempt to “be on the same page” or “share a culture” will be futile.
Every organization explicitly outlines their mission, vision and values on their websites and walls, but it is just that- words. They do not integrate their values into their daily operations- hiring, crisis management, milestone conversations.
Deciding what values will help you achieve your goals, then integrating them in your day to day running will set a good foundation for a positive culture, even for people that join in later on, or through the dynamics that are bound to happen.
2. Empowerment and Ownership.
An empowered team isn’t just an asset; they’re the heart and soul of a productive workforce. When individuals feel empowered to take ownership of their work, supported to innovate, and encouraged to voice their ideas, they not only thrive personally, they also become catalysts for positive change and contribute to a vibrant and collaborative environment where creativity, productivity and success becomes a collective journey. And that is exactly what the goal of a positive culture should be – To be on a collective journey.
Autonomy is one of the guaranteed ways to empower a team. The degree to which a team or individual has freedom to make their own decisions and take actions independently, without excessive external control or micromanagement is consistent with the level of responsibility and ownership they have towards their work. Autonomy can manifest in various forms, such as setting their own schedules, choosing how to approach tasks, making decisions about resource allocation, and having input into strategic planning and goal-setting –as long as the goal is met. When individuals have a sense of control over their work and are trusted to make decisions, they tend to feel more invested in their jobs and more motivated to perform at their best.
Empowering employees, however, goes beyond simply granting them autonomy; it is about unleashing their full potential to drive innovation, creativity, and productivity.
Implementing your team’s good ideas and giving them credit for it, ensuring employee satisfaction and engagement in brainstorming sessions, promoting and supporting their personal growth and development can create a culture where individuals thrive and contribute to the collective success of the company.
3. Diversity and Inclusion.
If you are a startup founder, I hate to break it to you, diversity and inclusion are not just buzzwords that corporates use to sound fancy. They are fundamental principles that drive innovation, creativity, and ultimately, the success of the company. When you talk of a positive organizational culture, diversity and inclusion must be among your to-do.
Diversity by definition is “the presence of a variety of different demographic and cultural characteristics within a group.” Most startup founders will be tempted to include their sister, a cousin, someone that looks like them, or with similar characters in the team. When it’s one or two, that might be okay. But at the very beginning stages of a startup, pulling all or most of your team members from your closest circle is as close to sabotage as you can get. Not only are boundaries shaky and blurred, but whenever a new team member from outside your circle or different from the team joins, they immediately are the outsider.
Diversity includes both visible differences, such as physical appearance, as well as invisible differences, such as cognitive styles, personality traits, and life experiences.
Embracing diversity means recognizing and valuing the unique perspectives, experiences, and contributions that individuals from diverse backgrounds bring to the table. It involves creating an environment where people feel respected, included, and empowered to be their authentic selves, regardless of their differences.
Inclusion on the other hand, means appreciating and empowering all team members to achieve the set goals, regardless of their differences in identity and background. This means actively having inclusive practices like training and education, implementation of ideas from different team members and equity in terms of pay.
Basically, diversity and inclusion are about creating environments where individuals from all backgrounds feel welcomed, respected, and valued, and where their unique perspectives and contributions are recognized and celebrated.
In the pulsating heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where innovation meets opportunity, Africa stands at the forefront of technological advancement. And in the midst of all the exciting changes happening, although not talked about as much, women have fast risen to the call of technology and become bold trailblazers who have broken through barriers, challenged norms, and transformed the tech scene in Africa.
From coding geniuses to visionary entrepreneurs, these pioneers have not only harnessed the power of technology to change lives but have also become beacons of inspiration and hope for generations of women and young girls to come.
In this article, we honor the stories of 5 remarkable African women whose indomitable spirit, ingenuity, and vision have not only transformed the tech industry but have also left an indelible mark on the very essence of African innovation.
Naadiya Moosajee
Founder of Women in Engineering (WomEng), an organization dedicated to nurturing the talents of girls and women in engineering and technology, Moosajee is best known for her commitment to gender parity, spearheading a transformative movement to bridge the gender gap.
In 2014, Forbes recognized her as one of Africa’s Top 20 Young Power Women in Africa, while the Government of China honored her at the BRICS Summit for her outstanding contributions to STEM education for African girls. Passionate about fostering STEM education and gender equality, Moosajee is committed to shaping prosperous and equitable societies in emerging economies.
Alongside Hema Vallabh, she co-founded WomHub, further expanding their impact on the industry.
According to Moosajee, “Engineers design our world and our society, and if we don’t have women at the design table, we exclude 50% of the population.”
Betelhem Dessie
“As a young woman, coding made me feel independent and free, and that’s something I want to give other people.”
At the age of 7, Dessie fell in love with computers. And by the tender age of 20, this visionary Ethiopian technologist had six software programs patented in her name, and was involved in the development of the world-famous Sophia the robot. Dessie founded iCog-Anyone Can Code at the age of 24, an Ethiopian-based social enterprise that offers kids and youth an opportunity at a future through coding.
Through iCog, the futures of over 30,000 youths have been positively impacted, making them more employable and skilled for entrepreneurship.
Maya Horgan Famodu
Maya believes that if you want to support women, you put them in positions to do it themselves. And she lives by her words, having founded Ingressive capital and Ingressive for Good, one a venture capital thatsupports early-stage African tech startups, and the other a nonprofit providing micro-scholarships, technical skills training and talent placement to African tech talents in need, respectively.
Being the youngest Black woman to launch a tech fund, Maya Horgan has been honored by Forbes before in their “Under 30 Technology” list, in 2018.
Mary Mwangi
Mary Mwangi knows too well that being a pioneer, and especially in the tech space, is no bed of roses.
Founder and CEO of Data Integrated, this Kenyan powerhouse is a pioneer in the fintech logistics space in Africa, with her company leveraging on tech to offer financial solutions to African SMEs, with a greater focus on Kenya’s public transport system.
Being a pioneer, the challenges are there, she admits, but insists that “You can do it. You have to get up.”
Charity Wanjiku
Charity Wanjiku describes herself as a shining star and a work-in-progress all at the same time. And a shining star she is indeed, having made patented solar panels and powered the most rural parts of Kenya before solar tiles were a thing. Recognized by both Forbes and the World Economic Forum as a top woman in tech globally, Charity is the founder Strauss Energy Ltd, an off-grid solar energy startup based in Nairobi, Kenya. She lights up the lives of Kenyans in rural areas – Literally.
The uniqueness of Strauss’ solar systems lies in their special meters that can feed unused electricity back to the national grid, generating income for households.
She is passionate about breaking STEM barriers for women and girls, as in her words, “It’s important that girls are at the forefront of this digital age, because nobody will hire you if you do not have tech skills.”
African startup funding has seen a significant fall from the highs of 2021 and 2022, with investments in the startup scene in Africa dropping by around 27% in 2023
Would you start a startup if there was no funding for it? African startup funding has seen a significant fall from the highs of 2021 and 2022, with investments in the startup scene in Africa in terms of funding dropping by around 27% in 2023, according to Disrupt Africa’s African Tech Startups Funding Report. The number of investors during this time, according to the same report fell by half.
Does this inform the direction that startups might take in the future, or is it an indicator that starting a startup might not be a worthy cause in 2024? In the recent live podcast hosted by Founders Factory Africa on the good and bad of funding, experts in the startup ecosystem in Nairobi came together to discuss the importance of choosing the right capital in 2024, and how to navigate the tight belt fastened by investors.
In the panel for the live podcast episode were Rology CFO Jason Musyoka; Bruce Nsereko-Lule, co-founder and general partner at Seedstars; and June Odongo, founder and CEO of Senga Technologies.
One thing from the conversation was clear; in the fight for a win, and with the current lack of sufficient funding, startup founders might feel the need to scramble for every funding opportunity that presents itself, in the process hurting their business and perhaps themselves. Therefore despite these funding challenges, the panelists unanimously agreed that it’s still critical for startups to be reasonable and careful in choosing the investors they approach for funding.
So, what are these critical play points to be addressed in the race for funding, and how to understand good and bad funding?
Shifting investor expectations
In the best way to approach investors in these tight times, the panelists highlighted that times have changed in the ecosystem, and investors are now prioritizing fundamentals and sustainability over pure potential, advising that founders should be aware of investors’ shifting priorities and adapt their fundraising strategies accordingly. This requires founders to have a clear roadmap with achievable milestones (pilot, funding rounds) and contingency plans.
“As investors, we’re looking for a plan but you also need to model in variation,” says Nsero- Luke. “Aim to go with the plan but let’s model it if we need to spend a little bit more, for example.”
Additionally, investors are emphasizing due diligence and seeking ventures with strong fundamentals and realistic growth plans, moving away from solely chasing high-growth potential. That makes it important that they do everything they can to impress in the due diligence process.
“From an investor perspective, it’s important that you do your due diligence very well whilst you’re investing in a company so that, when you’re putting in the money, you don’t get unexpected surprises,” he adds.
Choosing the right investor
Even within this shifting environment, the panelists agree that it’s still important for startup founders to be discerning in the investors they approach for funding. More particularly, they say, founders must consider whether choosing local investors makes more sense than international ones. While international investors might have deeper pockets, local investors often have a greater contextual understanding of local environments and may therefore be better positioned to guide founders to success.
“The beauty about local investors is that we understand context,” says Musyoka. “And not just context but we also have networks. There are doors that the senior-level executives and CEOs that they introduce you to can open for you or businesses that they can enable for you that they can enable for that you wouldn’t be able to open for yourself.”
Another strategic considerations when choosing which investors to approach is your business goals. Founders should define their business goals (lifestyle vs. scaling) and align their investment strategy accordingly, potentially utilizing local angel investors and then seeking international capital for further growth.
Even with these considerations in mind, it’s still important that founders pay attention to the investment offers in front of them. “If you’ve got two competing term sheets in front of you, always go for the one that offers the least dilution,” says Musyoka, who has a unique perspective as an investor turned operator. “It gives you flexibility and allows you to operate in your known business framework.” That may mean accepting a smaller investment but, Musyoka believes that this isn’t always a bad thing.
“A small amount is not necessarily bad for you,” he says. “You just have to recalibrate and work with what you have.”
According to Odongo, getting to the right investor also means knowing when to pause, when to move and when to stop, as Senga has had to do a couple of times over the past few years.
“At one point, we were going to raise money when we had validated our idea and it was growing well. Then we got a lot of competition that was emulating some of what we were doing and they were raising tones of money, so I decided not to raise because it was clear to me that things were not going to turn out well. So we retreated and pivoted to a new niche.”
Planning for an exit (or not)
In the long run, more and more startups taking this approach may also change how we think about exits on the continent.
“Exit opportunities exist in Africa,” says Nsereko-Lule. “We have local exchanges, we have big corporations, etc. The effective exit opportunities exist here, but the types of companies that local players want to buy are very different to the ones internationals want to buy.”
“As we contextualize venture capital to the local market, it will help,” he adds. “Then we can build businesses where founders have the necessary skill sets and build businesses capable of achieving exits on the continent.”
In conclusion, depending on how a founder goes about it, funding can be one of two; a blessing or a bad thing for a startup. Even with the funding drought that the African startup system is facing, it is important for a startup to be wisely selective with choosing the right investor, lest they risk losing their soul and business in the fight.
Inside a clinic at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, a nurse opens a patient file on a tablet. The record loads instantly, pulling the patient’s full cancer treatment history, drug dispensing schedule, and upcoming chemotherapy sessions. The connection is stable. A few years ago, none of this would have been possible.
The clinic is one of thousands of facilities that rely on Kenya Electric Medical Record (KenyaEMR), the national electronic medical records system now running in more than 2,300 health facilities across Kenya and covering all chronic disease management. It gives clinicians what paper records could never do; provide a complete, longitudinal view of a patient that follows them across different facilities and across years.
A patient can be registered once and seen consistently across every service point in a facility, from outpatient to laboratory to pharmacy, with their full history available at each stage. KenyaEMR connects directly to the national data warehouse, enabling real time reporting of health indicators from individual facilities to national systems, while keeping patient level records where they belong, at the facility.
Delivering that visibility consistently across thousands of facilities and 47 counties is not a simple undertaking. Health facilities across East Africa operate in environments where internet access can be variable, electricity intermittent, and technical capacity stretched.
At the same time, governments are increasingly firm about where national health data can be stored and who governs it. The cost of maintaining digital infrastructure at scale, within public sector budgets, adds another layer of complexity. Palladium, a global development and management consulting company, has spent years working at precisely that intersection. Its deployment of an AWS Outpost in Kenya is designed to address this.
What is an AWS Outpost, and why does it matter here?
An AWS Outpost is a fully managed infrastructure solution delivered as physical hardware and software installed directly at a local facility, fully integrated with the global AWS cloud network. It runs the same hardware, software, application programming interfaces, and operational model as AWS data regions worldwide.
“AWS Outposts allow institutions to bring the cloud physically closer to where critical data and services operate. It is a model that combines the innovation of global cloud infrastructure with the sovereignty and performance requirements of local digital economies,” explains Teddy Berihun, VP of Digital Technology and Delivery at Palladium.
“With AWS Outposts, you can run AWS services in Kenya and seamlessly connect to a broad range of services available in your nearest AWS Region for management and operations,” Jyoti Ball, General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa adds. “You can run applications and workloads using familiar AWS services, tools, and APIs with the same reliability and stability as customers benefiting from Region services. Outposts support your workloads and devices requiring low latency, local data processing, data residency, and application migration with local system interdependencies.”
This means organizations can access native cloud services such as scalable compute, managed databases, and AI tools locally, without managing the underlying infrastructure themselves. AWS retains responsibility for hardware maintenance, security patching, and software updates, and the Outpost remains a connected extension of the broader cloud rather than a standalone on-premises server.
Global cloud innovation has historically come at the cost of local control, with data leaving national borders the moment it enters a cloud environment. Palladium’s deployment changes that equation. The KenyaEMR and KeHMIS III (Kenya Health Management Information Systems III) ecosystem, which consolidates data from thousands of health facilities into a national data warehouse, now runs on global cloud infrastructure that is physically present in Kenya, legally bound to Kenyan regulation, and is fast enough to be genuinely useful to the clinicians who depend on it.
The national data warehouse can process routine service and surveillance data faster, because it is no longer routing requests to cloud servers thousands of kilometers away. The Ministry of Health can also point to a physical, locally hosted infrastructure that satisfies its data residency obligations under Kenyan law.
What does this mean at the clinic level?
The local AWS Outpost means that clinicians in facilities with inconsistent internet connectivity can still access and update patient records, because the compute is local.
For patients, the practical consequence is continuity of care. When a malaria patient moves between counties, or when a pregnant woman is referred from a community health promoter to a facility-based clinic, a national interoperable record means the receiving clinician sees the full history, not a blank file.
It is about whether a health system can track its own patients across time and geography, which is the foundational requirement for managing any chronic condition at population scale.
How secure is this system?
When national health data for millions of patients sits in one place, security cannot be an afterthought. Palladium has built multiple layers of protection into the architecture from the ground up.
“Patient information is encrypted at every stage, access is restricted to authorized personnel, and every interaction with the system is logged and audited,” expounds Berihun.
Those protections are backed by AWS’s global security infrastructure, which continuously monitors, updates, and maintains the Outpost using the same systems that protect AWS deployments worldwide. The entire architecture is compliant with Kenyan law, which is anchored by the Data Protection Act 2019.
What does this mean for other industries and the rest of Africa?
While the health sector provides the most fully developed illustration of Palladium’s hybrid cloud model, the architecture extends across every sector where data residency, strict regulations, performance pressures, and institutional sustainability matter.
In financial services, African banks and fintechs face the same data sovereignty pressures as health systems, compounded by regulatory requirements from the Central Bank of Kenya and equivalent institutions in Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
A locally deployed AWS Outpost model allows regulated financial institutions to keep sensitive transaction data within national borders while still accessing the plethora of wider AWS services such as AI, Analytics and fraud detection capabilities. For government services more broadly, the pattern is identical. Kenya’s digital economy is expanding rapidly, with national ID systems, digital tax platforms, social protection registries, and land records systems all generating data that governments are increasingly determined to keep under domestic jurisdiction.
Kenya as a blueprint
Berihun sees the deployment as the beginning of something larger.
“Palladium’s investment is not simply about Kenya. It is about demonstrating that a standardized, repeatable hybrid cloud architecture can be deployed across sectors and the region, reducing the fragmentation that has historically made East African digital infrastructure so difficult to scale,” he says. “The same hybrid architecture that works for Kenya’s national health data warehouse can be adapted in any country in Africa. The same governance and security model can be applied across sectors within a single country.”
The AWS Outpost is not a one-off project but a model for regional digital sovereignty that avoids each country starting from scratch.
“Our collaboration with Palladium demonstrates AWS’s commitment to accelerating digital transformation across Africa’s priority sectors. By combining Palladium’s deep development expertise with AWS’s secure, scalable cloud infrastructure, we’re enabling governments and organizations to modernize systems, improve service delivery, and drive measurable impact for communities,” said Ball.
If you’re looking for variety in your hobbies, you might check out some of the modern online entertainment options like เข้าสู่ระบบ ufabet, where you can learn a bit about user engagement. It’s valuable to learn how giant digital companies deal with huge flows of online traffic, as it’s likely that you will need to implement a similar approach with your own services. Modern companies quickly learn to deal with customer preferences and changing trends.
Start with the Right Footing
You can’t build a strong house with a weak foundation, and the same can be said about a startup. You might be tempted to grow and scale very quickly, but without a core and foundational service that is exceptional, this would be a waste of time.
Refine Your Offering
Always be sure to optimize your core offering to the highest standards. You will want to ensure your current customer base is the happiest and that your service is improved based on their needs.
Record Your Business Systems
You will want to codify your workflows and processes. This ranges from how you handle your customer service to how you manufacture your products. It is a huge gain when you clear workflows for the benefit of training new employees and time is saved.
Purposefully Understand the Limits of Your Workforce
The limits to your workforce become obvious during a startup’s growth. You will need to automate systems to make your company scalable and successful over time.
Optimize Your CRM
You will find that a good Customer Relationship Management system will help your sales team close business deals faster while also ensuring that no inquiries are completely brushed off the table.
Automate Marketing Campaigns
Scheduling tools for social media and apps for automating newsletters help maintain a digital presence and enhance your creativity. Consistent content from digital platforms is good brand maintenance, and automation frees up time.
Customer Retention
Retention always trumps acquisition. Growth depends on the increase in sales of loyal customers and the decrease in churn. Get churn to zero, always focus on loyal customers.
Exceptional Support
Fast support for customer issues adds a layer of operational professionalism to your business. Offering small compensations for support-related failures helps in your endeavor of advocacy generation.
Loyalty Program
The services or products offered become that much more attractive as they are discounted. This keeps your customers happy and gives them a reason not to go to competitors.
Data Analysis for Financial Planning
Some financial metrics become essential as your business begins to scale up. Here, they are simplified to help you best allocate your finances.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The total spend to gain one customer. Keeping this figure small is always important.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): The total revenue of a customer during their lifetime of patronage. This should always be at least thrice that of your CAC.
Monthly Burn Rate: The total cash outflow for your company on a monthly basis. It’s important to know this for your runway.
Gross Profit Margin: This percentage reflects the money that remains from the income received, after covering the costs that have been incurred by the business in the process of producing goods. The higher the margin, the more the business can reinvest.
Hire the Right People
You are not going to scale a business alone. You will need to build your team (of business employees) to help you achieve your goals. Without the right employee’s your growth will be very slow and frustrating.
Hire for Fit
Not everyone will have the skills that you are looking for, however, it is not difficult to teach others skills. What has been learned cannot be Changed. People need to be flexible and enthusiastic about your goal.
Be Balanced about the Responsibility
You can free your mind to run the business by passing the authority to the employee’s trust. Free Will. Gives your employees power and fulfillment.
Closing Statement
There are no shortcuts in growing a business. However, a strong foundation, task automation, customer focus, and accurate and timely financial records will allow a business to succeed. The help of the right employees will support this journey.
Xiaomi has unveiled its latest smartphones, the 17T and 17T Pro, marking a strong push into the premium mid-range segment with a focus on performance, endurance, and AI-driven features.
The new devices continue Xiaomi’s “T series” tradition of delivering flagship-level specifications at relatively competitive pricing, with both models sharing core upgrades such as pOLED displays, silicon-carbon batteries, IP68 water resistance, and the company’s latest HyperOS 3 based on Android.
Pro model leads with performance and scale
At the top of the lineup, the Xiaomi 17T Pro features a 6.83-inch pOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate and peak brightness reaching 3,500 nits. It is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500 chipset built on a 3nm process, paired with LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.1 storage.
The Pro model also introduces a 7,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, one of the largest in its class, supporting 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging. Xiaomi positions it as a device capable of extended multi-day usage under typical workloads.
Standard 17T focuses on balance and usability
The Xiaomi 17T features a more compact 6.59-inch pOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and similarly high peak brightness. It runs on the Dimensity 8500-Ultra processor and is paired with a 6,500mAh battery supporting 67W fast charging, though it omits wireless charging.
AI integration with Google Gemini
A key highlight across both devices is deep integration with Google’s Gemini AI through Xiaomi’s HyperOS 3. Features include AI-assisted writing, real-time translation, generative photo editing, object removal, and intelligent video enhancements.
The Pro variant ships with Android 16, underscoring its positioning as the more future-forward model.
Cameras, connectivity, and durability
Both smartphones feature a 50MP main camera system with optical image stabilization, alongside advanced telephoto capabilities and AI-enhanced zoom features. Connectivity includes 5G support, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and high-quality stereo audio with Dolby Atmos tuning.
The Pro model adds Wi-Fi 7 support, while the standard variant supports Wi-Fi 6. Both devices carry IP68 certification for dust and water resistance.
Market positioning
The Xiaomi 17T Pro is aimed at power users, gamers, and heavy multitaskers seeking maximum performance, battery life, and display quality. The 17T, meanwhile, targets users who want flagship-like features in a more compact and slightly more affordable package.
With the 17T series, Xiaomi continues to push its strategy of combining large batteries, high-refresh displays, and AI-powered software experiences to stand out in the competitive Android smartphone market.
A new philanthropic investment vehicle led by Wasoko founder Daniel Yu is seeking to mobilize $100 million to tackle one of Africa’s most persistent challenges: the shortage of high-productivity jobs.
The Africa Jobs Fund (AJF), launched Wednesday and housed under Renaissance Philanthropy, will channel capital into companies operating in export manufacturing and international labor mobility—two sectors widely viewed as among the most effective pathways out of poverty.
The fund aims to more than double the lifetime earnings of at least 250,000 low-income workers, generating over $50 billion in income gains across sub-Saharan Africa.
“Persistent poverty is at its core a jobs problem,” Yu said in a statement. “Those same people, in the right job at home or abroad, could earn significant multiples of their income.”
A Widening Jobs Gap
Africa is projected to account for nearly 600 million of the world’s extreme poor by 2040, even as only about 3 million formal jobs are created annually—far short of what is needed to absorb the continent’s rapidly growing workforce.
AJF’s strategy zeroes in on sectors with proven historical impact.
Export manufacturing has long driven economic transformation in countries from China to Mauritius, offering a route from subsistence agriculture to higher-productivity wage employment. African economies are increasingly competitive, with lower wage costs, preferential trade access to major global markets, and growing demand from buyers seeking to diversify supply chains.
Yet early-stage manufacturers often face steep barriers, including workforce training, supply chain development, and securing international buyers. AJF plans to back “pioneer firms” that can overcome these hurdles and attract follow-on commercial capital.
Tapping Global Labor Demand
The fund’s second pillar—international labor mobility—targets a rapidly expanding global market. More than 15 million people migrate annually to high-income countries, a figure expected to rise as aging populations fuel demand for workers in sectors such as healthcare, logistics, and skilled trades.
The income differential is stark: workers earning about $2,000 annually in Africa can earn upwards of $40,000 abroad.
However, access remains constrained by opaque recruitment systems, high upfront costs, and limited training infrastructure. AJF aims to invest in companies that formalize and scale ethical migration pathways, connecting African workers with overseas employers while reducing friction and exploitation.
Backed by High-Profile Advisors
Yu, who previously raised $145 million for Wasoko and scaled it to serve over 150,000 informal retailers, will lead the fund alongside Operating Partner Ben Hyman, founder of recruitment firm Talent Safari.
The initiative is supported by a roster of prominent advisors, including Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, co-founder of Andela and Flutterwave, and Samantha Power, former USAID administrator and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
“In my time leading USAID, it became clear that helping people access better jobs… is one of the most powerful tools we have to lift families out of poverty,” Power said.
A Philanthropic Venture Model
AJF operates under Renaissance Philanthropy, a nonprofit founded by former White House advisors Tom Kalil and Kumar Garg, which designs time-bound, thesis-driven funds led by sector experts. The organization has already catalyzed more than $533 million across sectors including artificial intelligence, climate, and healthcare.
Kumar Garg said AJF reflects a shift toward more analytical, operator-led approaches in development finance.
“The team has identified the highest-return interventions in poverty alleviation and has the venture-building experience to activate founders who can execute,” he said.
Betting on Scale
For African founders, the fund represents a targeted push toward job creation at scale.
“African founders have shown they can build category-defining companies,” Aboyeji said. “The next decade is about building the ones that put millions of people to work.”
If successful, AJF could signal a broader shift in how philanthropic capital is deployed on the continent—less toward aid, and more toward market-driven solutions designed to generate both economic returns and large-scale income growth.
NALA, the cross-border payments fintech, has secured a $50 million financing facility from Liquidity and MUFG-backed Mars Growth Capital, as it accelerates the expansion of its global stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure.
The funding comes amid rising demand for faster, lower-cost, and compliant international money movement across key corridors spanning the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The company said the facility will provide flexible, long-term capital to support its next phase of growth.
NALA has been building out both its consumer remittance platform and Rafiki, its business-to-business payments infrastructure, positioning itself at the intersection of traditional finance and blockchain-based settlement systems.
The company has prioritised regulatory coverage as it scales, securing 17 licenses and approvals globally to date, with additional authorisations continuing to come online. This regulatory footprint places NALA among the more licensed fintech operators at its stage of growth, as scrutiny around cross-border payments and digital assets intensifies.
Performance metrics suggest improving unit economics across its business lines. NALA’s consumer platform recorded gross profit margins of 64% in the past month, while Rafiki, its enterprise payments product, has reached margins of approximately 80%, reflecting the scalability of its infrastructure model.
The company has also expanded its institutional footprint, signing partnerships with major banks and global remittance firms. MoneyGram is among its live customers, with additional partnerships expected to be announced.
Unlike traditional equity financing, the facility provides non-dilutive capital, allowing NALA to continue scaling while preserving ownership. The company added that nearly half of the capital raised in its previous funding round remains on its balance sheet, underscoring a focus on capital efficiency.
The broader payments industry is undergoing a structural shift toward real-time, programmable, and borderless systems, with stablecoins increasingly playing a role in settlement layers. NALA is positioning itself to capitalise on this transition by building compliant infrastructure that can operate across multiple regulatory regimes.
With fresh capital in place and demand continuing to grow, the company said it expects the next two years to be a defining period for its expansion into new markets and deeper integration with global financial institutions.
Kenya is scaling up its push to create digital jobs at the grassroots, with eight Jitume Digital Hubs now operational in Bungoma County as part of a nationwide effort to equip young people with online work skills and income opportunities.
The hubs, set up under the government’s Jitume Digital Enablement Programme, provide internet access, devices, and training in digital skills, targeting youth in areas historically underserved by technology infrastructure. Locations in Kabuchai, Webuye West, Kimilili, Chemoge, Tongaren, and Kanduyi are already hosting beneficiaries, according to the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy.
The initiative is part of Kenya’s broader ambition to position itself as a leading digital economy in Africa while tackling youth unemployment. Since its launch in 2023, nearly 350 hubs have been established across the country, training more than 140,000 young people and facilitating about 42,000 digital job linkages.
Officials say the programme is designed to bridge the digital divide by turning community centres into access points for online work, freelancing, and tech-enabled services. At Bungoma National Polytechnic, some participants say the hubs have already improved their employability and opened up income streams through digital platforms.
“Initiatives such as Jitume are critical in ensuring that young people at the grassroots level can access digital skills, online jobs, and technology infrastructure,” said Ruth Muriithi, Manager for Knowledge Economy and Innovation at the Technopolis Development Authority.
The government plans to scale the programme to 1,450 hubs—one in each ward across Kenya’s 47 counties—as part of a target to create one million digital jobs by 2032. The rollout is being implemented by the Technopolis Development Authority in collaboration with the Communications Authority of Kenya, the ICT Authority, and the National Government Constituencies Development Fund.
Beyond basic training, the hubs are also evolving into “centres of excellence” expected to support innovators, creatives, and digital entrepreneurs, signaling a shift from access-driven policy to productivity and job creation.
For counties like Bungoma, where formal employment opportunities remain limited, the success of the programme could determine whether Kenya’s digital economy ambitions translate into tangible livelihoods.
Samsung Electronics is ramping up its push into Africa’s fast-growing creator economy with the launch of its latest Galaxy A series smartphones, positioning the devices as affordable content-production tools for a generation increasingly building businesses and audiences through social media.
The Galaxy A37 and A57 series are being marketed toward creators, vloggers and digital entrepreneurs who rely on mobile devices to shoot, edit and publish content in real time. The strategy reflects the growing importance of smartphones as all-in-one production studios across emerging markets such as Kenya, where creators are driving demand for better cameras, longer battery life and AI-powered editing tools.
Samsung says the devices are designed to perform in low-light environments through its upgraded “Nightography” capabilities, while Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and enhanced zoom functions are aimed at improving handheld video quality during concerts, events and live experiences.
The South Korean electronics giant is also betting on durability as a differentiator. The Galaxy A37 and A57 series feature IP67-rated water and dust resistance, allowing creators to shoot outdoors in unpredictable conditions without compromising performance.
The launch comes as smartphone makers increasingly compete for Africa’s youthful digital audience, many of whom are monetizing content on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Industry analysts say mid-range smartphones with premium creative features are becoming central tools for influencers, small businesses and freelance creators who may not have access to professional equipment.
Samsung said the devices combine fast-charging batteries, high-performance processors and on-device editing capabilities, allowing users to capture, edit and upload 4K content directly from their phones. Features such as Object Eraser and AI-assisted editing tools are intended to reduce reliance on laptops and external software.
The company is also emphasizing display quality, with Super AMOLED screens and Vivid HDR technology designed to improve editing accuracy and viewing experiences, particularly in bright outdoor conditions common across African cities such as Nairobi.
The Galaxy A series has historically served as Samsung’s bridge between premium flagship devices and the broader mass market. By focusing its latest campaign on creators and digital storytelling, the company appears to be targeting a rapidly expanding segment of young consumers whose purchasing decisions are increasingly influenced by content creation needs rather than traditional smartphone specifications alone.
The push highlights a broader shift within the smartphone industry, where manufacturers are repositioning mid-range devices not just as communication tools, but as platforms for digital entrepreneurship and personal branding.
For the uninitiated, the idea of collecting data can be a minefield, but in modern-day digital marketing, it has become an essential way of ensuring you are at the forefront of your niche and able to compete with your competitors. Many factors involve data collection: your competitor’s prices, SEO and SERP tracking, and even market expansion.
So that your business can collect data efficiently and accurately, nowadays it is highly recommended to use a proxy server and run automations from a different access point to your business’s actual IP address. This is for several reasons, one of which is that a competitor could move to block your IP address if they work out who you are, and another is that to keep track of pricing strategies, you’d need to access the website multiple tmes in a day, which could trigger a temporary block on access against your IP address.
In this article, we’ll look to cover all the bases, including the legal aspects, so that you can make an informed choice for your digital marketing team.
What is a proxy and what does it do?
Firstly, a quick overview of proxies themselves. A proxy server is an intermediary computer service that acts as a middleman, or a gateway, between your device and the internet. This means that when you connect to a website, you instead connect via the proxy server, and the website you access will see that specific server as your connection point rather than your actual device.
By doing this, it not only masks your IP address but can also provide you with added security and firewall aspects, as well as web filtering. For example, you may find large educational establishments use a proxy server for the many devices in-house, which allows the institution’s IT team to set up filtering on the websites you can access, whilst also leaning on the server’s built-in firewall software to protect all its users.
The legality of using a proxy server
Using proxies to collect data for your company is legal, provided that the data you are trying to collect is publicly available and that you are not violating either the privacy of users or the terms of service of the website in question. Therefore, it goes without saying that proxies should never be used to hack into another website or collect private data from other individual users.
Choosing the best proxy server for your business means selecting a provider that can offer you a wide range of locations, including at least one in the country for which your business is based, so that you can always access the data you need to make your business run as efficiently as possible.
SEO and SERP tracking automations benefit from proxy access
A key use of a proxy server for data collection is to monitor your SEO (search engine optimization) terms and track SERPs (search engine results pages). You may know that big search engines, such as Google, can present different results based on the territory you search from. This means that for an international business, it can be very difficult to assess how it ranks for its key search terms worldwide.
Making sure that you always have the latest data on your search terms across the world allows your digital marketing team to react to any changes (both positive and negative) quickly and also guides them on what their best next steps are to make your business even more visible. The best proxy for this purpose is to select a provider that can offer you all your locations from one account. This makes managing the automations much easier, given that you can simply switch the location required for each round of data collection.
Proxies are essential for competitor intelligence
Another key use for a proxy server is to have the most up-to-date information on your competitors’ products and pricing. Your digital marketing team will thank you for providing a proxy for them to be able to automate the information gathering on a daily basis, especially if you need to monitor your competitors internationally as well.
Often, a competitor can work out who you are by the number of accesses from a locale that matches your head office. If this happens, they can block your company’s IP address and stop anyone in your business from accessing anything they’re doing. By accessing through a proxy, you anonymise the location from which your employees access competitors.
This is especially important when monitoring new product launches or perhaps dynamic pricing and promotional strategies. The best proxy for this type of monitoring is one based within your own country, but in a different city from where you are based.
A proxy gets you around geo-targeting
A final strong positive to running a proxy server is when you’re beginning to consider market expansion. A very common tactic used in modern digital marketing is for a company to show a different website in every country from which they operate. This is called geo-targeting and means they show only the products, information, and services available to each country, including the prices they’re offering.
For your marketing team to be able to plan successfully, they will need to use a proxy server to access the competitors from the country in which you wish to expand. This way, they can accurately collect data on the products/services and prices that your key competitors offer, and ensure that your business can compete from the outset. Similarly to the SEO monitoring, the best proxy for this instance is one that can offer a range of countries, including all those that you feasibly want to expand into, so that you can manage all your connections from one account
Select a proxy company with multiple access points
As you have learned, giving your digital marketing team access to a proxy service can suitably enhance their data collection abilities and make your business more efficient and more effective. By anonymising your access point, your competitors will never be able to track each access that your employees make to their platforms – and even if they did, you would be able to change the access point very quickly with one of the best proxy providers.
In this sense, selecting a company that offers you a wide range of cities and countries, as well as fast customer service support, for when you run into connection issues or need to alter your servers, is the most logical approach.
Opening a forex trading account can be one of the longest decisions you make in your life; the amount of research you do to find the right broker with the best splits for your strategy, the length of time you commit to trading in a demo account to understand how the market moves, the necessity of committing a large amount of funds to open a standard account.
One of the best ways to jump out of the demo account and into actual trading is to look for a broker who offers cent trading accounts. These are specifically trading platforms for small deposits, which frequently only require $100 or less to allow you to trade at 1/100th of the usual amount required in a standard account – trading in US cents instead of US dollars. Often regarded as a bridge between the theory that you learn in a demo and the practice of trading actual money, opening a cent account gives you low-risk access to apply everything you’ve learned in a real marketplace.
What exactly is cent trading?
Simply, these low-risk accounts are referred to as ‘cent trading’ accounts because they allow you to operate at a fraction of the cost of a standard account, 1/100th – hence the name, cent.
By committing very small capital amounts to a trading platform that allows you to trade in cents instead of dollars, you can begin to test your strategies in a controlled way without risking a huge amount of cash. Trading platforms for small deposits are becoming more common, as this is a great way for a broker to attract new users to their platform, as well as making money by encouraging demo account users to jump into the real marketplace.
You’ll be aware that most forex brokers make their money on the spreads they offer across major currency pairs, so even on a cent trading level, a broker does make money on getting traders into the marketplace. This is why it is incredibly important that you are not only convinced by a broker’s marketing strategy but also their platform, customer support, and the spread costs.
Ultimately, even though a cent trading account means that a bad trade won’t cost you the world, it will still lose your investment. So you do need to be sure that you’re ready to move from a platform’s demo account to the broker’s cent trading account. Just because losing $100 is better than losing $1000 doesn’t mean that you want to lose at all! Do your research, practice in the paper trading market on your favoured platform, and then switch to cent trading to begin implementing your strategies in a real, moving marketplace.
Cent-trading accounts have some obvious differences
To give you the complete picture, it’s important we also cover the differences between a standard trading account and a cent trading account. As you’ve already learned above, a cent trading account operates on smaller deposits and at 1/100th of the cost of a standard account. Some cent trading accounts allow deposits as small as $1.
This means that within your choice of platform itself, you will see that the lot sizes are only 1,000 units rather than 10,000 units. A second clear difference is the way that your currency pairs are presented – typically, you will have access to the same major currency pairs as in a standard account, but they’ll instead be displayed at a fraction of the price, with $10 being represented as 1,000 cents, rather than the actual currency amount.
It is due to these currency pairs being available at cent-level prices that a bad trade or a failed strategy only incurs manageable losses compared to what you would lose with the same trade in a standard account. Internet discussion board posts often outline the benefits that budding forex traders experience by implementing their strategies in actual trading, even in small increments.
More often than not, spreads in a cent trading account will be slightly wider than in a standard account, as this allows your broker to make reasonable profits from your trades even though you’re only operating with a very small amount of capital.
There is no other way to replicate the feeling of real marketplace bets
The biggest overall benefit of cent trading platforms comes from the fact that there is absolutely no way to replicate the feeling of operating in the marketplace with real money. No amount of paper trading in demo accounts will ever be able to match the decision-making you have to make to protect your investment, and the emotional triggers that this all encompasses.
The psychology of the way your brain processes wins and losses is not to be underestimated. By understanding the emotional responses your brain goes through in these scenarios with a cent trading account, you are training yourself and becoming more resilient and disciplined before you step up to trading a larger amount of capital in a standard account.
Demo accounts give traders a false sense of security, and it is well-reported that some traders who make substantial gains in their demo account then suffer catastrophic losses in a standard account because they lack real marketplace experience when risking their own money. Authentic confidence in trading strategies can only be found by experiencing the highs and lows of both profits and losses in an actual marketplace.
Cent trading accounts allow you to operate under normal market conditions but with a lower-risk investment, and the real-world results will allow you to better understand which trading strategies best suit your style and give you a deeper understanding of the marketplace, which you can then apply in a standard account once you’re comfortable with your cent trading results.
Leap out of the demo and into a cent account marketplace
Starting with a cent trading account gives any budding trader the ability to start forex trading with small steps, leaping out of the demo account and only risking very small investment sums at first. There are numerous leading trading platforms for small deposits available these days, with many also meeting the high standards required for top-rated regulatory agencies, meaning you are afforded all the same protection benefits as with a standard trading account, too.
You can only gain confidence in your trading strategies by training yourself to meet the resilience of real-world marketplace profits and losses, so starting with a cent trading account is a no-brainer, and a great way for beginners to test the waters without risking all their potential capital.
bPOWERd, a clean energy startup developed by bp Plc, has expanded into Nigeria with a solar-powered battery rental model aimed at households and small businesses grappling with high energy costs and unreliable grid supply.
The company has launched operations across seven sites in Lagos in partnership with 11Plc, operator of Mobil service stations, using the locations to distribute portable, solar-charged batteries on a pay-per-use basis. Early demand has been strong, with bPOWERd reaching 60% of its six-month rental target within seven weeks, according to the company.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, faces a persistent electricity shortfall, with about 43% of the population lacking access to the grid, according to World Bank data. For those connected, outages are frequent, driving widespread reliance on petrol generators that can cost around ₦10,000 ($—) per day for small units.
bPOWERd’s offering provides up to 12 hours of electricity for about ₦3,000 daily, positioning it as a lower-cost alternative. Customers pay a refundable ₦15,000 deposit, with rental prices starting from ₦1,500 per day for smaller units and ₦3,000 for higher-capacity batteries capable of powering appliances such as lights, fans, televisions and small business equipment.
The expansion builds on the company’s rollout in South Africa, where it recorded 125,000 rentals in its first year after launching in 2025. The Nigeria push underscores growing interest from energy firms in distributed, off-grid solutions as fuel prices rise and grid investments lag demand.
“Small businesses sit at the center of everyday economic activity, yet many continue to operate against the backdrop of unstable and expensive power,” said Managing Director Jonathan Lule. “bPOWERd is helping households and SMEs access dependable pay-per-use power they can rely on.”
bp’s West Africa head Oluwole Ogidan said the initiative also aims to create local jobs through sales roles and partnerships with solar technicians, alongside expanding access to cleaner energy.
The model enters a competitive but fast-growing market for alternative power in Nigeria, where startups and utilities are racing to serve millions seeking cheaper and more reliable electricity options.
A new philanthropic investment vehicle, the Africa Jobs Fund (AJF), has launched with an ambitious mandate to mobilise $100 million to back companies capable of significantly raising incomes across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Housed under Renaissance Philanthropy and led by Wasoko founder Daniel Yu, the fund will focus on two sectors it identifies as the most effective pathways out of poverty: export manufacturing and international labour mobility. Through these channels, AJF aims to generate more than $50 billion in income gains for African workers while doubling the lifetime earnings of at least 250,000 low-income individuals.
The launch comes against a stark backdrop. By 2040, Africa is projected to host around 600 million of the world’s extreme poor, while formal job creation lags at roughly 3 million positions annually—far below what is needed to absorb a rapidly growing workforce.
AJF’s strategy centres on backing early-stage, high-impact companies that can create jobs at scale but often struggle to attract commercial capital due to high upfront costs. In export manufacturing, this includes expenses tied to worker training, supply chain development and securing international buyers. The fund aims to de-risk these early investments, paving the way for larger pools of private capital to follow.
The opportunity, according to AJF, is substantial. African manufacturing wages are increasingly competitive with Asia, while preferential trade access to major markets such as the United States, European Union and Gulf Cooperation Council strengthens the continent’s export potential. For workers, transitioning from subsistence agriculture to manufacturing can increase productivity—and income—by as much as fivefold.
The second pillar, international labour mobility, targets a global imbalance in workforce supply and demand. More than 15 million people migrate annually to high-income countries, a figure expected to rise sharply as ageing populations fuel labour shortages in sectors such as healthcare, logistics and skilled trades.
For African workers, the income differential is significant: individuals earning roughly $2,000 annually in informal roles can earn upwards of $40,000 abroad. Yet barriers including high recruitment fees, opaque hiring processes and inadequate training limit access. AJF plans to invest in companies that formalise and scale ethical recruitment and training pathways, unlocking these migration corridors.
Yu, who previously built Wasoko into one of Africa’s largest B2B e-commerce platforms serving over 150,000 informal retailers, said the fund is designed to tackle poverty at its root.
“Persistent poverty is at its core a jobs problem,” he said. “Those same people, in the right job at home or abroad, could earn significant multiples of their income. AJF exists to back the companies that create those jobs and opportunities.”
The fund’s leadership includes Operating Partner Ben Hyman, founder of recruitment firm Talent Safari, alongside senior advisors such as Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, co-founder of Andela and Flutterwave, and Samantha Power, former USAID administrator and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Power underscored the development impact of employment-focused interventions, noting that expanding access to better jobs remains one of the most effective tools for lifting households out of poverty.
Renaissance Philanthropy, the nonprofit incubating AJF, has rapidly built a track record in mobilising capital for targeted global challenges, catalysing more than $533 million across 22 initiatives spanning sectors including artificial intelligence, climate and health.
With a thesis-driven approach and operator-led model, AJF is positioning itself to bridge a critical gap between philanthropic capital and scalable job creation—an area many economists argue will define Africa’s economic trajectory over the coming decades.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, used Africa Month to deepen its engagement on the continent, positioning digital assets and blockchain technology as tools for economic inclusion and community development.
The company said it ran a month-long campaign from April 25 to May 25 aimed at boosting participation in the digital economy, while convening policymakers, technology leaders and development stakeholders in Kenya to discuss how innovation can support Africa’s long-term growth.
The initiative underscores Binance’s broader strategy to expand its footprint in emerging markets, where rising mobile penetration and a young population are accelerating adoption of financial technology. Africa has become a key battleground for crypto firms seeking to demonstrate real-world utility beyond trading.
“Across Africa, we are seeing strong momentum in how technology is being adopted to solve real-world challenges,” said Saruni Maina, Binance’s regional operations lead for Africa.
The campaign included a pan-African trading program designed to encourage users to engage with digital assets, alongside efforts to promote financial literacy and awareness of blockchain applications.
Binance said it is also focusing on community-led initiatives and partnerships that extend beyond financial access to broader development goals.
Crypto adoption across Africa has grown steadily in recent years, driven in part by currency volatility, limited access to traditional banking services, and demand for faster cross-border payments. Companies like Binance are increasingly framing their role as ecosystem builders, working with regulators and local organizations to address concerns around security, education and compliance.
The firm said its Africa Month activities were rooted in “collective action and community empowerment,” with an emphasis on making digital assets more accessible and relevant to local users.
Binance, which counts more than 300 million users globally, is seeking to strengthen ties with governments and industry players as scrutiny of the crypto sector intensifies worldwide. Its outreach in Africa highlights a dual approach: driving adoption while promoting responsible innovation.
“When communities come together, they can unlock new opportunities and contribute to meaningful, long-term progress,” Maina said.
The company said it plans to continue supporting initiatives that expand access to digital tools and foster a more inclusive financial system, as competition among global crypto platforms for emerging market users accelerates.
The Two Rivers International Finance and Innovation Centre (TRIFIC), a Special Economic Zone operator within Nairobi’s Two Rivers Development, has launched a USD 37.3 million green, dollar-denominated Income Real Estate Investment Trust (I-REIT) to finance the acquisition and expansion of premium commercial towers within its SEZ.
The offer opens on May 13 and closes on June 12, 2026, with proceeds earmarked for the purchase of the TRIFIC North Tower and the development of additional environmentally certified office buildings aligned with international green construction standards.
The transaction positions itself among Kenya’s early USD-denominated green income REITs, offering both institutional and retail investors exposure to a hybrid infrastructure-real estate income instrument tied to export-oriented service revenues.
“The I-REIT investors will effectively earn a stable share of the export revenues of a diversified portfolio of global service firms operating from TRIFIC, making this one of the most future-oriented real estate income products in the region,” said TRIFIC Chief Executive Officer Brenda Mbathi at the launch.
The REIT is structured to distribute at least 80 percent of net income as tax-exempt dividends under Capital Markets Authority regulations, a feature expected to support yield attractiveness for income-focused investors.
The minimum subscription is set at USD 1,000, with allotment scheduled for June 15, 2026. Results and refunds will be processed the following day. The REIT is expected to list on the Nairobi Securities Exchange on June 23 under the Main Investment Market Segment.
KCB Investment Bank is acting as transaction advisor, sponsoring broker, and lead placing agent.
“This offer is unrestricted and open to both institutional and retail investors,” said KCB Investment Bank Managing Director Maurice Opiyo. “It provides access to a dollar-based income stream backed by high-quality commercial real estate anchored by global tenants.”
Centum Investment Company Group Chief Executive Dr James Mworia and NCBA Bank Kenya Managing Director James Gossip attended the launch.
TRIFIC’s North Tower, with more than 16,000 square metres of lettable space, is currently 92 percent leased to multinational business process outsourcing firms, technology companies, shared services centres, and professional services firms serving global markets.
The tenant base is largely composed of export-oriented service companies generating foreign currency revenues through international contracts, reinforcing the SEZ’s positioning within Kenya’s growing knowledge economy.
Ms Mbathi noted that long-term USD-denominated leases with annual escalations, combined with integrated facility support services and SEZ tax incentives, underpin a predictable and scalable income stream for investors.
Located within Nairobi’s diplomatic “blue zone,” TRIFIC is the only private services-focused SEZ in the capital. It spans 64 acres within the broader 106-acre Two Rivers Development and has operated under its SEZ licence since June 2023.
The project is classified as a Project of Strategic National Importance (PSNI) and aligns with Kenya’s Vision 2030 agenda, particularly priorities around expanding high-value exports, attracting foreign direct investment, and scaling green urban infrastructure.
Planning is already underway for a second tower in response to rising demand for premium SEZ-grade office space.
Spotify Technology SA is betting that artificial intelligence and higher-value subscriptions will power its next stage of growth, as the streaming company moves to expand margins and push toward a long-term goal of one billion users.
The company said it has reached 761 million monthly active users, underscoring its scale across global markets and reinforcing its position as one of the largest audio platforms in the world. Executives used its 2026 Investor Day to signal a shift in strategy from broad-based user expansion to monetizing its most engaged listeners.
Shift Toward Higher-Value Users
Spotify is increasingly focused on increasing revenue per user rather than sheer growth, pointing to what executives described as a “power law” dynamic in its business, where a smaller segment of heavy users drives a disproportionate share of value.
To capitalize on that, the company is expanding beyond its core subscription offering with new paid features and add-ons, including audiobook bundles and AI-driven tools designed to deepen engagement and increase lifetime value.
AI Becomes Core to Product Strategy
At the center of the company’s roadmap is its proprietary “Large Taste Model,” which leverages billions of daily user signals across music, podcasts and audiobooks. Rather than competing directly in building general-purpose large language models, Spotify is applying AI to personalize and generate audio experiences based on user behavior.
Executives described a shift from traditional recommendation systems toward “generation,” where users can actively shape playlists, podcasts and other audio content in real time using natural-language prompts.
Early deployments of AI features have shown increased engagement, including improved discovery and higher interaction rates with personalized tools such as Spotify’s DJ product.
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Expanding Beyond Music Streaming
Spotify is also pushing deeper into adjacent formats:
Music: Licensing deals and new tools enabling AI-assisted remixes and covers, alongside fan-focused features such as early ticket access
Podcasts: A profitable segment with new subscription tools for creators under development
Audiobooks: Rapid catalog growth and rising engagement among younger users
The company said both its music and non-music businesses now operate above 30% gross margins, reflecting improved monetization across the platform.
Competing for Attention
Executives reiterated a strategy centered on “time well spent,” positioning Spotify as a platform built around user intent and satisfaction rather than maximizing engagement at any cost.
That framing places the company in competition not only with other streaming services, but also with social and video platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Netflix in the broader fight for user attention.
Financial Targets Through 2030
Spotify outlined long-term targets that include mid-teens revenue growth, gross margins of 35%–40% and operating margins above 20%.
Management said these goals will be supported by continued expansion in subscription pricing power, new monetization layers, and AI-driven personalization.
Spotify’s push toward one billion users hinges on the effectiveness of its freemium model and its ability to convert engagement into higher-priced offerings.
The company’s core bet is that AI will not only improve discovery, but also reshape how users interact with audio content—turning passive listening into a more interactive, personalized experience that users are willing to pay for.
As Kenya positions itself as a growing technology and artificial intelligence hub in East Africa, global device makers are sharpening their focus on the country’s business market. For ASUS, the opportunity is not just about selling laptops. It is about showing how engineering, durability, security and AI-ready hardware can support businesses, governments, students and creators in a fast-changing digital economy.
TechMoran spoke to Tolga Özdil, Regional Commercial Director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa at ASUS, on what makes ASUS different, why Kenya matters, and how the company is building devices for the next phase of work.
Kenya As A Gateway Market For East Africa
Why is Kenya an important market for ASUS?
Kenya is a key country for this region. It may not have the population size of Nigeria or Egypt, but its influence is much bigger than its numbers. Kenya acts as a gateway to East Africa and connects to a market of hundreds of millions of people around it.
That is why events like GITEX Kenya are important. They show that Kenya can become a strong centre for IT and AI development in the region. For ASUS, being here allows us to demonstrate our devices, meet customers directly and show the engineering thinking behind our products.
We want people to experience the products, not just hear about them. When customers see the build quality, the durability and the small features we include, they understand what makes ASUS different.
Engineering as A Competitive Advantage
What is the unique selling point of ASUS commercial products?
Our biggest difference is that ASUS comes from an engineering background. Our DNA is engineering. We care deeply about how a product is built, how long it lasts and how well it performs in real working conditions.
For example, we include certain protection features in our devices that may look small, but they matter. One basic dust filter may cost around one dollar. Some companies may remove that to save cost. But when you produce more than 20 million devices a year, that one dollar becomes a very big number. For us, we do not want to remove a useful feature just to save money. We prefer to give better protection and better quality to the user.
That is the ASUS mindset. We are not only thinking about the outside look of the product. We are thinking about what happens inside the device and how it supports the customer every day.
How do ASUS commercial devices differ from consumer devices?
Consumer devices are built for home use, entertainment, gaming and personal productivity. Commercial devices are built for continuous work. Businesses need consistency. They need devices that can support employees without frequent failure or downtime.
That is why our commercial products have stronger durability, longer warranty options and additional security features. Some models can support up to five years of warranty. We also test devices for stronger real-life conditions. A commercial laptop must keep working even when it faces rough handling.
Security is also very important. Our commercial devices include features such as TPM for data protection. We also include sensors that can inform IT teams if a device has been opened. These features are not only for top models. We try to bring them across the family, including entry-level devices.
Does ASUS offer a full commercial portfolio?
Yes. We are not only producing laptops. We have desktops, all-in-one PCs, monitors, workstations, servers and other business solutions. Our portfolio starts from Core i3 and goes up to Core i9, and we also have AMD solutions.
All-in-one devices are becoming popular, especially in government and office environments, because they reduce cable clutter and make workspaces cleaner. ASUS has one of the broadest portfolios in the industry.
AI Built Into The Device
What is ASUS doing around embedded AI?
AI is now part of daily life. People use it to ask questions, make decisions and solve problems. In Kenya, sectors such as agriculture can benefit strongly from AI. For example, a farmer can take a picture of a crop and use AI to understand possible diseases or problems.
But most AI today works online. You send data to a server and then receive an answer. That creates questions around privacy, security and internet access.
That is why on-device AI is important. With the right processors and NPUs, users can run AI tasks directly on the device, even offline. This improves privacy because sensitive data does not always have to leave the device. It also helps businesses that have strict rules on data security.
For B2B customers, this is very important. Companies want AI, but they also want control, security and speed. ASUS is building devices that can support that future. Our goal is to give businesses AI-ready tools that are powerful, secure and practical for daily work.
Younger generations are reshaping traditions, and one of the most striking changes lies in how they approach engagement rings. Millennials and Gen Z are increasingly drawn to lab-grown diamonds, not only for their beauty but also for the values they represent. These consumers are more conscious of sustainability, affordability, and innovation, making lab-grown diamonds a natural fit for their lifestyle choices.
The Appeal of Lab-Grown Diamonds
Lab-grown diamonds are chemically and physically identical to mined diamonds, yet they come without the environmental and social concerns often associated with traditional mining. For younger buyers, this alignment with sustainable values is crucial. They want jewellery that reflects their principles, and lab-grown diamonds deliver that balance of elegance and responsibility.
Affordability Meets Luxury
Another driving factor is affordability. Younger consumers often face financial pressures such as student loans or housing costs, yet they still want to celebrate love with meaningful symbols. Lab-grown diamonds provide the opportunity to own a stunning engagement ring at a more accessible price point, without compromising on quality or brilliance.
Technology and Transparency
This generation has grown up with technology, and they value transparency in the products they purchase. Lab-grown diamonds are created using advanced techniques that can be explained and verified, offering a level of clarity that resonates with tech-savvy buyers. The ability to trace the origin of their diamond adds confidence and trust to the purchase.
Sustainable Ring Styles Leading the Way
Among the jewellers leading this movement is Cullen Jewellery, whose designs highlight craftsmanship while embracing modern values. TheirCullen Jewellery sustainable ring styles showcase how innovation and tradition can coexist beautifully. By offering lab-grown diamonds in a variety of settings and cuts, Cullen Jewellery appeals directly to younger couples who want their rings to reflect both personal taste and shared values.
A Cultural Shift in Proposals
For many, choosing a lab-grown diamond is more than a financial or aesthetic decision — it’s a cultural statement. Younger couples see their engagement rings as symbols of a future built on sustainability, inclusivity, and conscious living. This shift is redefining proposal traditions, making lab-grown diamonds not just an alternative but a preferred choice.
Looking Ahead
As awareness continues to grow, lab-grown diamonds are expected to dominate the engagement ring market. Younger consumers are setting the tone for future generations, proving that love and sustainability can shine together. With jewellers like Cullen Jewellery at the forefront, the movement is gaining momentum and reshaping the jewellery industry in profound ways.
Google is reshaping its core Search business around autonomous artificial intelligence agents and personalized task execution, marking what executives describe as the platform’s most significant transformation in more than two decades as competition intensifies in the global AI race.
At its annual developer conference in Mountain View, California, Google unveiled a redesigned Search experience powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash, a lightweight but high-performance AI model that will now become the default engine behind AI Mode globally.
The move signals Google’s attempt to defend its dominance in online search as users increasingly shift toward conversational AI systems capable of answering questions directly, completing tasks, and synthesizing information without traditional web navigation.
“Search is evolving from an information retrieval tool into an intelligent, proactive companion,” the company said in briefing materials released during the event.
Google said AI Mode, introduced just a year ago, has already surpassed one billion monthly users, with query volumes more than doubling every quarter since launch. The company did not disclose revenue implications, but the figures suggest rapid consumer adoption of AI-assisted search experiences.
Central to the overhaul is a redesigned Search box that expands dynamically to accommodate more detailed prompts and multimodal inputs including images, files, videos, and Chrome tabs simultaneously. The interface is intended to move beyond keyword-based searches toward natural, conversational interaction.
The company is also introducing “Search agents,” autonomous AI assistants capable of monitoring the web continuously on behalf of users. The agents can track apartment listings, sneaker releases, or other live events and deliver synthesized updates without requiring repeated searches.
The feature, launching first for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers this summer, represents Google’s latest push into agentic AI — systems that not only generate responses but also perform ongoing tasks independently.
Google also expanded its booking capabilities inside Search, allowing users to request highly specific local experiences and services, such as reserving private karaoke venues or contacting local businesses directly through AI-powered voice calls.
In one of the event’s more ambitious announcements, Google said Search will soon generate custom interfaces and mini-applications in real time through a system it calls Antigravity. Powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash, the technology can assemble interactive dashboards, graphs, simulations, and personalized tools dynamically within Search results.
The company said users planning weddings, fitness routines, or home relocations could eventually create persistent AI-powered dashboards connected to maps, reviews, weather, and other live data feeds.
Google is simultaneously expanding “Personal Intelligence” features to nearly 200 countries and 98 languages, enabling users to connect services such as Gmail, Google Photos, and eventually Google Calendar to produce more context-aware search responses.
The rollout comes as Silicon Valley’s largest technology companies race to integrate generative AI deeper into consumer products, threatening to reshape internet traffic flows, advertising economics, and how users discover information online.
For Google, whose advertising business remains heavily dependent on Search, the transition carries both strategic opportunity and risk: AI-generated answers may keep users within Google’s ecosystem longer, but could also reduce clicks to external websites that have historically powered the open web.
Still, the company appears determined to position Search as the central interface for the AI era.
“This represents the next chapter of Google Search,” the company said. “People can now ask whatever’s on their mind, and Search can do more for users than ever before.”
Safaricom’s merchant payments platform, Pochi la Biashara, generated 1.68 billion Kenyan shillings ($12.9 million) in revenue in the first half of fiscal 2026, as women micro-entrepreneurs emerged as the fastest-growing segment on the service, according to a new report by the GSMA and research partners IDinsight and YUX.
The report found that the number of women actively using Pochi grew about 92% between December 2024 and December 2025, compared with 78% growth among men. Women now account for just over 52% of active Pochi users, equivalent to more than 900,000 merchants.
The growth highlights Safaricom’s increasing focus on Kenya’s informal economy, where women dominate micro-trading businesses but often remain excluded from formal banking and digital financial systems.
Launched in 2020, Pochi la Biashara allows small traders to separate business and personal money through a dedicated M-PESA wallet. The product includes features such as non-reversible customer payments, mini-statements, airtime sales, savings tools and access to working-capital loans.
Researchers found that women traders were drawn to features addressing everyday risks in informal commerce, particularly fraud, payment reversals and financial discipline.
Many women users reported stronger savings habits and higher daily sales after adopting the platform. About 35.6% of new users said they were saving more money, while 24.2% reported increased sales.
“Pochi makes me feel like the CEO of my business,” one trader in Kajiado County said in the report. “I’m in control, I track my money, and I’m able to support my family.”
Safaricom has also benefited commercially from the expansion. The number of Pochi accounts rose 72.6% year-on-year to about 1.5 million accounts in the first half of fiscal 2026, while the broader merchant base expanded by more than 55%, according to the report.
The study, which surveyed 1,992 women micro-entrepreneurs across Nairobi, Murang’a and Kajiado counties, found that peer recommendations and face-to-face onboarding remained key drivers of adoption despite Kenya’s mature mobile money market.
Safety concerns also emerged as a major issue for women merchants using digital payments. Some traders reported harassment from customers who obtained their mobile numbers through payment stickers displayed at shops and market stalls. Safaricom has since removed phone numbers from payment notifications and is developing additional privacy features expected to launch in 2026.
M-KOPA says its smartphone financing platform in Ghana is helping expand access to health insurance, digital services and income opportunities for low-income earners, with more than three-quarters of customers reporting an improved quality of life.
The company’s latest Ghana Impact Report showed that since entering the market in 2021, M-KOPA Ghana has extended more than $90 million in credit to over 550,000 customers through a network of more than 3,000 direct sales agents.
The report highlights how smartphone ownership is increasingly acting as a gateway to financial inclusion in Ghana, where affordability remains a major barrier. According to the GSMA, entry-level smartphones can cost as much as 95% of a low-income earner’s monthly wages in Sub-Saharan Africa, while roughly 76% of the region’s population still lacks smartphone access.
M-KOPA said 44% of customers accessed a product or service for the first time through its platform, while 36% of customers — and 41% of female users — said their M-KOPA device was their first smartphone.
The company’s “More than a Phone” platform, launched in January 2025, bundles smartphone financing with mobile data, device protection and health insurance. M-KOPA said the offering drove a fourfold increase in sales and supported its expansion across all 16 regions of Ghana.
A key component of the strategy is health insurance provided through a partnership with Turaco. The report found that 67% of customers accessed health insurance for the first time through the partnership, while 43% of female customers said health coverage influenced their decision to purchase an M-KOPA phone.
The company said 67% of insured customers now feel more confident managing healthcare costs.
M-KOPA also said smartphones are increasingly supporting livelihoods, with 55% of customers using their devices for income-generating activities and 54% reporting increased earnings after purchasing a smartphone.
The company is also targeting greater participation by women in the digital economy. Women currently account for 37% of newly acquired customers and 31% of the company’s sales agent workforce, up from 26% a year earlier.
To support female sales agents, the firm piloted stationary kiosks aimed at addressing safety concerns and providing more stable working environments. The company said 84% of agents reported higher earnings after joining M-KOPA, while 93% said their quality of life had improved.
“M-KOPA Ghana works to dismantle barriers to formal financial services, and this report shows what’s possible when Every Day Earners get access,” said Chioma D. Agogo, General Manager of M-KOPA Ghana.
The company said it contributed about $3.4 million in annual tax revenue in 2024 and spent more than $28 million on local procurement. The firm currently employs 254 people directly, 37% of whom are women, alongside its network of 3,000 sales agents.
KCB Group Plc shareholders approved a dividend payout of KSh22.5 billion ($174 million) for the financial year ended Dec. 31, 2025, as East Africa’s largest lender by assets posted stronger earnings and expanded regional operations.
The payout, approved at the company’s annual general meeting on Thursday, includes an interim and special dividend of KSh4.00 per share declared in November and a final dividend of KSh3.00 per share. Total dividends for the year reached KSh7.00 per share, up 133% from the previous year.
The Nairobi-based lender said the final dividend will be paid on or about May 22 to shareholders registered as of April 2.
Group Chairman Joseph Kinyua said the payout reflected the bank’s “strong financial performance, resilient balance sheet, and commitment to delivering sustainable shareholder value.”
KCB reported net profit of KSh68.4 billion for 2025, an 11% increase from a year earlier, while total assets rose 9% to KSh2.1 trillion. Subsidiaries outside Kenya contributed nearly 30% of group profit, underscoring the lender’s regional diversification strategy.
Chief Executive Officer Paul Russo said the bank’s regional footprint, digital investments and diversified business model helped sustain growth despite a difficult operating environment.
For the first quarter of 2026, the lender posted pre-tax profit of KSh24.4 billion, up 15.3% from the same period a year earlier, supported by growth in interest-earning assets and higher operating income.
KCB also expanded its sustainability-linked lending initiatives. The bank said it screened KSh587.8 billion in loans under its environmental and social risk framework during 2025 and disbursed KSh48.8 billion in green loans.
In the competitive Pittsburgh business landscape, small businesses face a unique challenge: standing out in a crowded market while managing limited marketing budgets. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has emerged as one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for local businesses looking to generate immediate leads and measurable returns on investment.
Understanding the Pittsburgh Market
Pittsburgh’s economy is diverse, spanning healthcare, technology, manufacturing, and professional services. For small business owners, this diversity means both opportunity and competition. Local consumers increasingly turn to Google when searching for services, making search advertising a critical channel for visibility.
Unlike traditional advertising methods, PPC campaigns allow businesses to target specific demographics, geographic areas, and search intent. A well-structured campaign can put your business in front of potential customers at the exact moment they’re searching for your services.
Key Strategies for PPC Success
Geo-Targeting: Pittsburgh businesses should focus their ad spend on specific service areas. Whether you serve the entire metro area or focus on neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill, Lawrenceville, or the South Side, geo-targeting ensures your budget reaches the right audience.
Keyword Selection: Local intent keywords such as ‘Pittsburgh [service]’ or ‘[service] near me’ typically convert at higher rates than broad terms. These keywords indicate immediate need and local relevance.
Ad Copy Optimization: Effective PPC ads speak directly to local pain points. Mentioning Pittsburgh-specific landmarks, neighborhoods, or local events can increase click-through rates and build immediate trust with potential customers.
Measuring What Matters
Successful PPC management goes beyond clicks and impressions. Small businesses should track:
Cost per lead
Conversion rate by campaign
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Quality Score trends
Regular analysis and optimization separate profitable campaigns from budget drains. Even small adjustments to bidding strategies, ad scheduling, and landing page experience can significantly improve performance.
When to Seek Professional Help
While DIY PPC platforms are accessible, managing campaigns effectively requires ongoing expertise. Algorithm changes, competitive bidding, and quality score optimization demand consistent attention that many small business owners cannot provide while running their operations.
Working with a specialized PPC management Pittsburgh agency can provide the expertise needed to maximize results while freeing business owners to focus on what they do best.
Conclusion
PPC advertising offers Pittsburgh small businesses a powerful tool for growth when executed strategically. By focusing on local targeting, relevant keywords, and continuous optimization, businesses can achieve strong returns and sustainable lead generation in the competitive Pittsburgh market.
Samsung Electronics reached a last-minute agreement with labor unions representing its semiconductor division, averting a strike that threatened to disrupt global supplies of artificial intelligence memory chips and deepen shortages across the tech industry.
The South Korean technology giant agreed to distribute about KRW40 trillion ($26.6 billion) in bonuses to workers in its semiconductor business, with the average employee expected to receive more than $339,000 in stock and cash incentives if the deal is approved by union members.
The agreement came just one day before an 18-day strike was scheduled to begin on May 21, following weeks of tense negotiations between Samsung management and labor representatives. The walkout would have risked slowing production of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and DRAM chips that are critical for AI servers and accelerators used by companies including major cloud providers and AI developers.
Under the tentative agreement, Samsung will allocate 10.5% of annual semiconductor profits as stock-based bonuses and an additional 1.5% in cash payouts. The structure falls short of the union’s demand for a 15% profit-sharing plan but exceeds compensation proposals reportedly offered by rival memory-chip maker SK Hynix.
The payout program is expected to continue for up to a decade if Samsung meets certain profitability targets, marking a significant shift from the company’s earlier proposal that reportedly involved only a one-time bonus payment.
Workers in Samsung’s semiconductor division pushed for higher compensation after the business emerged as the company’s dominant profit engine during the global AI boom. In the first quarter of 2026, the chip division reportedly generated about 94% of Samsung’s total operating profit, fueled by soaring demand and tight supply for advanced AI memory chips.
Only three companies globally — Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron Technology — are capable of manufacturing advanced DRAM and HBM chips at scale. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure has driven sharp increases in memory prices over the past two years, delivering record earnings across the semiconductor industry.
Union members had also demanded the removal of a cap that limited performance bonuses to 50% of annual salary. Samsung’s refusal to initially meet those requests triggered threats of industrial action that raised concerns within South Korea’s government and the global technology sector.
The strike was ultimately called off after mediation by government agencies helped both sides reach a compromise. Union members are expected to vote on the proposed agreement in the coming weeks. If approved, employees are expected to begin receiving payouts in early 2027.
Workers will reportedly be allowed to immediately sell one-third of their stock awards, while the remaining shares can be liquidated gradually over the following two years.
The scale of the bonuses has already triggered signs of increased consumer spending in South Korea, with local media reporting crowded luxury and high-end car showrooms near major semiconductor hubs as workers anticipate the windfall payouts.
KCB Group posted a 15.3% rise in first-quarter pretax profit, signaling resilience across East Africa’s banking sector even as lower interest rates compressed margins and geopolitical tensions weighed on regional economic activity.
The Nairobi-based lender reported pretax profit of KShs. 24.4 billion for the three months ended March, up from KShs. 21.2 billion a year earlier, supported by strong loan growth, rising customer deposits, and increased income from digital lending and foreign exchange transactions.
Total operating income rose 8.5% to KShs. 53.6 billion as expansion in interest-earning assets helped cushion the impact of declining net interest margins following a wave of monetary easing across regional markets.
The lender’s balance sheet expanded 10.8% to KShs. 2.3 trillion, fueled by a 16% increase in customer deposits to KShs. 1.7 trillion, underscoring continued confidence among retail and corporate clients despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop. Gross loans climbed to KShs. 1.32 trillion from KShs. 1.21 trillion a year earlier.
Chief Executive Officer Paul Russo said the bank’s performance reflected disciplined execution and continued investment in digital channels aimed at supporting trade and economic transformation across the region.
“Despite the challenging operating environment, we delivered solid growth driven by disciplined execution, continued investment in digital innovation, and our unwavering commitment to providing financing which catalyzes economic transformation across the region,” Russo said.
KCB also pointed to mounting risks linked to the conflict in the Middle East, warning of potential spillover effects including weaker credit demand, higher credit risk, and softer remittance inflows into East Africa.
The bank’s asset quality improved during the quarter, with the non-performing loan ratio declining to 16.6% from 19.3% a year earlier after aggressive recovery efforts and loan book expansion reduced bad loans to KShs. 217.8 billion.
At the same time, KCB increased provisions for possible loan losses to KShs. 4.9 billion, maintaining a cautious stance amid lingering economic uncertainty.
Non-funded income rose 8.3% to KShs. 17 billion, driven by higher digital loan disbursements and foreign exchange trading activity. Operating costs increased 7.3% to KShs. 24.3 billion due to higher staffing expenses, technology investments, and regional expansion costs.
Subsidiaries continued to play a larger role in earnings diversification, contributing nearly 30% of group pretax profit. The lender said performance excluding the divested National Bank of Kenya showed pretax profit growth of 17%.
Return on equity stood at 21.5%, while earnings per share increased to KShs. 22.18 from KShs. 20.03 a year earlier. Total shareholder equity rose 18.5% to KShs. 352.2 billion.
Chairman Joseph Kinyua said the results demonstrated the effectiveness of the bank’s long-term regional strategy and positioned the lender to benefit from growing trade and financial inclusion across East Africa.
Beyond banking operations, KCB continued to deepen its sustainability and development financing agenda. During the quarter, the group secured approval for a $96.9 million Green Climate Fund-backed financing program to support green investments for small businesses and farmers in Kenya.
The lender also expanded partnerships in refugee financial inclusion, sustainable education financing, and digital payments, while maintaining its visibility through sponsorship of the 2026 WRC Safari Rally.
Industrial software maker AVEVA and Swiss business school IMD have released a new global report showing that while companies increasingly view digital ecosystems as critical to future competitiveness, most still struggle to share data effectively across partners and supply chains.
The inaugural Industrial Intelligence Report on Digital Ecosystems and the Future of Connected Industries, unveiled at AVEVA World 2026 in Milan, surveyed more than 275 senior executives across 12 industries. The findings highlight growing demand for connected industrial operations powered by artificial intelligence, operational technology and data-sharing platforms.
According to the report, 74% of executives consider digital ecosystems a top strategic priority, yet only 27% said their organizations share data substantially or extensively with ecosystem partners. Researchers identified legacy infrastructure, integration complexity and weak governance frameworks as key barriers slowing adoption.
The study defines “industrial intelligence” as the organizational capability to integrate operational technology (OT), information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI) to support connected, data-driven decision-making across industrial ecosystems.
The report argues that companies are increasingly turning to digital ecosystems to address mounting operational pressures, including supply-chain volatility, decarbonization targets and the need for faster innovation.
“Understanding why that gap persists, and how organizations are beginning to close it, has become a strategic imperative for success in today’s volatile operating environment,” the report said.
AVEVA Chief Executive Officer Caspar Herzberg said the partnership with IMD aims to establish practical frameworks for companies seeking to transition from siloed operations to ecosystem-driven business models.
“With this collaboration with IMD, our ambition is not merely to understand the motivations behind the move to digital ecosystems, but to define the frameworks, competencies and leadership practices that will concretely enable companies to transcend silos and build more adaptive, ecosystem-driven operating models,” Herzberg said.
Michael Wade, Director of IMD’s Global Center for Digital and AI Transformation, said companies should prioritize governance and organizational learning ahead of purely technological considerations.
“Governance, integration and learning matter more right now than algorithms,” Wade said. “The next phase is about converting that foundation into strategic advantage through better data sharing, coordination, clearer roles and more deliberate leadership.”
The report also includes case studies from organizations including the Port of Rotterdam and Australia’s Kwinana industrial region, examining how industrial operators are using connected systems to improve coordination and operational resilience.
AVEVA, headquartered in Cambridge, UK, provides industrial software and AI-enabled platforms used by energy, manufacturing and infrastructure companies worldwide. The company says more than 90% of leading industrial enterprises use its technologies.
IMD, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is a global business school focused on executive education and digital transformation research.
Google unveiled a sweeping expansion of its artificial intelligence strategy at its I/O 2026 developer conference, positioning the company for what Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai described as the next phase of computing: autonomous AI agents capable of handling increasingly complex tasks on behalf of users.
The announcements underscore the mounting competition among technology companies racing to commercialize generative AI tools while building the infrastructure needed to support them. Google said it expects to spend roughly $190 billion this year, largely on data centers and custom silicon, as it scales the systems powering its Gemini AI models.
“Gemini 3.5 and Antigravity are unlocking a new world of agents and agentic capabilities,” Pichai said during the company’s keynote presentation in Mountain View, California.
The company framed the event as a milestone in its decade-long transition to becoming an “AI-first” organization, a strategy Google says now spans chips, cloud infrastructure, research labs, developer tools and consumer products.
AI Adoption Accelerates
Google highlighted the rapid growth of AI usage across its ecosystem. The company said its systems now process more than 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month, up from 480 trillion a year ago and 9.7 trillion two years ago.
More than 8.5 million developers are building with Google’s AI models each month, according to the company, while Google APIs process roughly 19 billion tokens every minute.
The growth is also reshaping Google’s consumer products.
AI Overviews in Search now reaches 2.5 billion monthly active users, while the company said AI Mode has surpassed 1 billion monthly users within a year of launch. Google said the Gemini app now has more than 900 million monthly active users, more than double the figure from a year earlier.
Executives emphasized that users are increasingly engaging with conversational interfaces rather than traditional search formats, signaling a broader shift in how consumers interact with information online.
New Consumer AI Features
Google introduced several AI-powered tools designed to bring conversational interactions deeper into its products.
Among the new offerings:
Ask YouTube, which allows users to search videos conversationally and jump directly to relevant segments.
Docs Live, a voice-driven document creation tool enabling users to dictate and edit documents conversationally.
Expanded AI capabilities inside Gmail, Keep and Maps.
The company also previewed a range of experimental products, including AI-powered smart glasses, collaborative creative tools and “Information Agents” in Search designed to continuously gather information and complete tasks in the background.
Gemini 3.5 Flash
At the center of the announcements was Gemini 3.5 Flash, Google’s latest AI model aimed at balancing performance, speed and cost efficiency.
Google said the model outperforms Gemini 3.1 Pro across several benchmarks while operating four times faster than competing frontier systems. The company also said the model can deliver advanced AI capabilities at less than half the price of comparable offerings.
The release reflects growing pressure across the industry to reduce the cost of deploying AI systems while maintaining competitive performance.
Gemini 3.5 Flash is available immediately through Google products and APIs, while Gemini 3.5 Pro is expected to launch next month.
Antigravity and AI Agents
Google also expanded its “Antigravity” platform, a system designed to coordinate and manage groups of autonomous AI agents.
The updated Antigravity 2.0 desktop application serves as a central interface for interacting with AI agents capable of carrying out long-running workflows.
One of the flagship agent products, called Gemini Spark, is designed to run continuously in the cloud, handling tasks across email, chat and web browsing. Google said the service will begin beta testing next week for subscribers to its AI Ultra plan.
The company also announced “Agentic Search,” a feature that enables AI agents inside Search to continuously monitor topics, collect information and perform actions on behalf of users.
Infrastructure Arms Race
Supporting the expansion is a massive increase in computing infrastructure.
Google unveiled two new custom AI chips, TPU 8t and TPU 8i, designed separately for training and inference workloads. The company said TPU 8t delivers triple the raw computing power of its predecessor and can scale across more than 1 million TPUs globally.
The investment reflects the escalating capital demands of the AI race, as companies including Microsoft, Amazon and Meta Platforms spend aggressively on data centers and specialized processors.
Google said both chips offer up to twice the performance-per-watt of earlier generations, a key metric as energy consumption becomes a growing concern across the industry.
Expanding Beyond Search
The announcements signal Google’s broader ambition to evolve beyond traditional search and become a central operating layer for AI-powered digital experiences.
In addition to consumer tools, the company previewed “Gemini for Science,” an experimental platform connecting AI systems to more than 30 life sciences databases to accelerate scientific research.
Other experimental projects included Google Flow, a collaborative workspace assistant, and Google Pics, an AI-powered image editing platform.
The breadth of the announcements highlighted Google’s effort to integrate AI across nearly every layer of its business as competition intensifies in the generative AI market.
Alphabet shares have faced increasing scrutiny from investors over whether AI-driven conversational interfaces could disrupt Google’s core advertising business. The company’s latest strategy suggests it intends to position AI not as a threat to Search, but as the next evolution of it.
Checker, a global infrastructure company building a unified network for digital asset markets, has raised $8 million in new funding to accelerate the adoption of stablecoin-powered financial services across Africa and other emerging markets.
The round was led by Al Mada Ventures, the investment arm of Morocco’s sovereign wealth ecosystem and parent of Attijariwafa Bank, alongside Galaxy Ventures and Framework Ventures. It also included participation from DFS Lab, Bitso, Airtm, Onigiri Capital, SNZ Capital, and Velocity Ventures, as well as strategic investors from Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Notable angel investors in the round include Flutterwave co-founder Iyin Aboyeji, former Onafriq executive Gwera Kiwana, Juicyway co-founder Justin Ziegler, and operators from Stripe and Tala.
In a statement, Al Mada Ventures Managing Director Omar Laalej said the firm backed Checker after identifying liquidity fragmentation as one of the most pressing constraints in stablecoin markets. He said Checker’s “orchestration layer” helps financial institutions aggregate fragmented liquidity and streamline fiat on- and off-ramps in a compliant manner.
Al Mada’s participation is also seen as a signal of growing institutional interest in stablecoin infrastructure among traditional African financial groups, given its control of Wafa Cash, a major remittance network operating across the continent and diaspora corridors.
Checker’s platform connects banks, neobanks, and payment providers to global stablecoin liquidity through a single application programming interface (API), enabling cross-border payments, foreign exchange, treasury management, and credit services.
The company argues that emerging markets, particularly in Africa, face persistent inefficiencies in cross-border finance due to fragmented payment rails, high correspondent banking costs, and foreign exchange volatility. It positions its network as an alternative settlement layer that reduces reliance on traditional correspondent banking systems.
“Through one integration, we connect financial institutions to global liquidity and payment providers, reducing settlement times and operational complexity,” said Isaac Umejiaku, Checker’s head of Africa sales.
Checker says it has already processed more than $3 billion in transaction volume and now works with over 30 regulated financial institutions globally, including Rail (acquired by Ripple), Braza Bank in Brazil, and Belo in Argentina. The network supports 75 currencies and spans markets across Africa, Latin America, Asia, and North America, including Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and Francophone West Africa.
The company plans to use the new capital to expand its payments coverage, reduce reliance on correspondent banking networks, and develop embedded lending and borrowing products designed to improve capital efficiency for institutional clients. It also intends to introduce AI-driven tools for treasury management and operational automation.
Checker co-founder and chief executive Jack Chong said the company is building “the network-of-networks for the stablecoin era,” aimed at simplifying how financial institutions access foreign exchange, payments, and digital asset liquidity across markets.
Founded by former financial infrastructure operators, Checker positions itself as a backbone layer for stablecoin-based financial services, offering a single API for FX, liquidity, settlement, and payments across global markets.
The company is backed by investors including Galaxy Ventures, Al Mada Ventures, Framework Ventures, Bitso, and Airtm.
Samsung Electronics used a community-focused activation in Nairobi to spotlight its strategy of targeting the creator economy through its mid-range Galaxy A Series smartphones.
The Galaxy Hangout event, which featured the recently introduced Galaxy A37 and Galaxy A57, was structured as an interactive showcase of mobile photography, artificial intelligence tools, and connected home features. The company is positioning the A Series as an entry point for users seeking content creation tools at more accessible price points, as competition intensifies in Africa’s mid-range smartphone segment.
During the event, participants engaged in hands-on demonstrations of features such as object removal, automatic image enhancement, and facial optimisation tools designed to improve group photography. Samsung framed these capabilities as part of a broader shift toward AI-assisted content creation on mobile devices.
Attendees, including digital creators and consumers, were also asked about their current smartphone usage and whether they owned Galaxy devices, reflecting a broader effort to deepen engagement within the Samsung ecosystem.
The company also highlighted street photography as a use case for the A Series, encouraging participants to capture Nairobi’s urban environment using the devices’ 50-megapixel main camera and low-light imaging features.
Beyond photography, Samsung showcased its SmartThings platform, demonstrating home automation features such as appliance control and lighting management. The company also provided education on TV Guard Protection, a feature it says is designed to help mitigate risks associated with power fluctuations in markets with unstable electricity supply.
Samsung’s focus on the A Series comes as smartphone manufacturers increasingly compete for younger consumers and first-time smartphone upgraders across emerging markets, where affordability and content creation capabilities are becoming key purchasing factors.
The Galaxy Hangout forms part of Samsung’s broader experiential marketing approach in Kenya, combining product demonstrations with lifestyle and creator-focused programming aimed at strengthening brand loyalty in the region.
Moniepoint Inc., an African fintech firm, has partnered with UK-based tell.money to introduce account name-checking for payments, as it deepens its expansion into Britain’s regulated financial market.
The agreement will see Moniepoint adopt the UK’s Confirmation of Payee (CoP) system, which verifies that a recipient’s name matches their bank account details before a transfer is completed. The requirement is a key safeguard against fraud and misdirected payments, and is increasingly mandatory for firms operating in the UK.
The service will be rolled out through Monieworld, Moniepoint’s remittance platform serving Africans in the diaspora, initially focused on Nigerian users in the UK. The platform enables transfers to Nigerian bank accounts through bank rails, cards and digital wallets.
The move underscores Moniepoint’s effort to align with UK compliance standards while scaling its cross-border payments offering in a competitive remittance market.
“Our goal is to make it easier for people to support families, invest back home and manage cross-border finances with confidence,” said Ravi Jakhodia, chief executive officer of Monieworld. He added that the partnership allows the company to meet regulatory requirements without adding operational complexity.
Tell.money will provide the infrastructure layer for the CoP service, including integration, accreditation and ongoing compliance monitoring.
Moniepoint joins a growing number of international fintech firms adopting CoP as UK regulators tighten oversight of payment security and consumer protection.
Founded in Nigeria, Moniepoint says it serves more than 20 million businesses and individuals and processes about $22 billion in monthly transaction volume across payments, banking and credit services.
The UK push reflects a broader trend of African fintechs targeting diaspora remittances, a high-volume corridor where reliability and compliance are increasingly critical differentiators.
TikTok has released its Q4 2025 Community Guidelines Enforcement Report, highlighting its continuous commitment to fostering a safe and trusted space for its users.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, TikTok removed 820,552 videos in Kenya for violating its Community Guidelines. 99.9% of these videos were proactively removed before anyone reported them, while 98.4% were taken down within 24 hours of posting. These figures underscore TikTok’s continued investment in advanced detection systems and rapid response mechanisms designed to limit the spread of harmful content.
Additionally, TikTok banned 108,752 accounts in Kenya for policy violations. A significant portion of these , 93,704 accounts, were suspected of being accounts aged below 13, which is a violation of our rules. This highlights the platform’s commitment to protection of younger users online
Globally, TikTok removed a total of 175,302,085 videos during the quarter, representing about 0.5% of all content uploaded on the platform. Of these, 152,580,933 videos were detected and taken down using automated detection technologies and 8,360,780 videos were reinstated after further review. The platform recorded a 99.1% proactive removal rate, with 93.4% of flagged content removed within 24 hours of posting.
By combining advanced automated moderation tools with the expertise of thousands of trust and safety professionals worldwide, TikTok continues to enforce its Community Guidelines consistently and at scale, addressing harmful content such as misinformation, hate speech, and other policy violations.
The full Q4 2025 Community Guidelines Enforcement Report is available and can be accessed here.
Cybersecurity firm Censys, together with partner EVAD, will showcase its Security Operations Centre (SOC) Modernization platform at GITEX Kenya 2026, as organisations across East Africa accelerate digital transformation and face growing exposure to cyber risk.
The event, scheduled for 19–21 May in Nairobi, comes as Kenya deepens its push into artificial intelligence, cloud adoption and digital public infrastructure under its national AI strategy for 2025–2030. While the policy framework positions the country as a regional tech leader, it also highlights the rising importance of secure and resilient digital systems.
Censys said its platform is designed to help organisations continuously map and monitor their external attack surface, providing visibility into internet-facing assets such as cloud services, applications and exposed systems that could be targeted by attackers.
The company argues that rapid digital expansion has outpaced many organisations’ ability to track new systems and integrations, creating security blind spots that can increase operational, regulatory and reputational risk.
By combining internet-wide scanning with threat intelligence and historical data, the platform aims to support faster threat detection, asset discovery and incident response.
“GITEX Kenya offers a very significant platform to connect with customers and partners who are building the future digital economy of East Africa,” said Meriam ElOuazzani, Vice President for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Censys. “As organisations across the region rapidly adopt artificial intelligence and implement digital transformation, cybersecurity visibility and resilience become increasingly critical. Our presence with EVAD reflects this need.”
At the conference, Censys and EVAD will demonstrate the platform’s capabilities, including live use cases on attack surface discovery, threat hunting and risk monitoring, targeting security teams and enterprise decision-makers.
