Kenya’s BitPesa has raised $5m from Japanese insurance group Sompo Holdings in a move expected to revolutionize cross-border payments and insurance services globally. Sompo will use Bitpesa’s technology to extend its presence in the international remittance service market and use it for its insurance services. The…
Meet the Nigerian woman who is a market leader in smart card technology. It is usually unheard of when a woman takes interest in technology. Most women have been brought up believing that tech and Science are for men. However, we are…
Nairobi-based Farm.ink has won the grand prize of $150,000 after it emerged top in the Feed the Future Fall Armyworm Tech Prize to help farmers manage the recent spread of fall armyworm — a voracious agricultural pest — in Africa. Fall armyworm has the potential…
Standard Chartered’s ‘Women in Tech’ accelerator has attracted over 180 women-led startup teams with plans to have the applicants cut down to 40 during a shortlisting exercise slated for later this week. The teams will be shortlisted based on performance in the programme’s 100…
Dr. Katherine W. Getao has been appointed as the CEO of the ICT Authority in Kenya taking over from acting CEO John Sergon, a former director of ICT in the ICT Ministry which was established in 2013 by act of parliament. The ICTA…
In Africa getting adequate help for the elderly is quite a challenge. Many people fear to leave their loved ones with caregivers because they are usually underqualified. Many families end up complaining that when they leave elderly people in homes they tend…
We all know that food is life. Blogging has become a way of life and many people have used it as a way of sharing their interests and what they are good at. There was a time food was not really a…
Kukua, a pan-African education media franchise has raised $2.5m seed round led by Echo VC, alongside Founders Factory, Kima Ventures, Burda Media, First Minute Capital as well as a strong group of angels including Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen (Former VP of mobile at Uber and Dropbox). The…
Meet Stephanie Cowper, the woman who is helping the blind with the power of mobile technology. Her main goal is to obviously make a difference in the world. This South African entrepreneur and the startup team of BeSpecular Ltd. have created an…
Ugochi Ugbomeh is not your ordinary woman. She started a world-class transport company known as Tranzit in attempt to deal with the mobility sector in Nigeria. The problem and question was how would people move things and people effectively? One of Africa’s…
Visa has appointed Aida Diarra as Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager for Visa SSA, effective 1 November 2018 to oversee all Visa operations in forty-eight markets across Sub-Saharan Africa. She will report to Visa’s Regional President of CEMEA, Andrew Torre,…
Kenyan female prisoners are often forgotten and treated like they are not part of the society. While they may have been marginalized for some time the ones who are not serving a life sentence ought to have some life skills. To avoid…
The number of enterprises have doubled in the village of Gitaraga, Rwanda, since MeshPower’s solar mini-grid was set up last May. The 4Kw mini-grid, which provides affordable, pay-as-you-go power services to 200 households and 48 businesses, is revitalising the local economy, improving…
uMashesha is South Africa’s first woman-owned taxi hailing app targeting at taking on Uber and other such apps with better commissions and more business for its driver partners from its delivery services. Launched two months ago by CEO Christine Mesolo, the Centurion based…
Remittance firm Okapi Finance is also rolling out in Botswana, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by end of this year, with more countries being targeted in 2019. Operating in Kenya as Okapi East Africa, Okapi aims to be the panafrican solution and target to reach…
While on campus, Mercy Karimi Munene, liked the Jumia story, the convenience of shopping from your phone and having stuff delivered to your doorstep fascinated her. Out of curiosity, the then 3rd year Moi University Bachelors in Public Relations student shopped for her…
PayPal has acquired an undisclosed stake in Tala, a micro-lending app with operations in Kenya, Tanzania, Philippines and Mexico in move that will see Tala reach more underserved populations in emerging markets across the globe. More than two-thirds of the world’s adult…
Orange Fab France’s “Women Start” accelerator, launched on 24 May at Viva Technology, and dedicated to women entrepreneurs across the world recently welcomed two women entrepreneurs from Africa and the seven others from the French ecosystem to strengthen the business relationship between Orange and…
Hospitals often struggle finding blood donors. There are often pleas from families and friends asking for blood supplies but it is usually a hard task. However in Nigeria the biggest challenge is usually being able to get safe supplies of blood and…
Most Ethiopian kids don’t have the opportunity or resources to reach their full potential. However 19-year-old Betelhem Dessie became Ethiopia’s youngest pioneer and in the tech scene. Dessie is currently working in one of the most unique artificial intelligence labs in the…
Egypt’s online real estate marketplace Aqarmap has Aya Ashraf, the Head of Operations Excellence at Jumia, Rocket Internet’s leading eCommerce marketplace as the Director of Operations Growth. Aya pursued an MBA in Strategic Planning from Edinburgh Business School, and she has extensive experience…
Many people use technology as a way of building corporate companies but most are not driven by a passion to solve problems or address key societal issues. Tatenda Ndambakuwa founded Shiri as a solution to food security issues. There have been food…
Silicon Valley trailblazer and Head of Early Stage Ventures at Silicon Valley Bank, Ms. Claire Lee will deliver the first keynote at the DEMO Africa conference and offer her perspectives on Connecting African Innovation to the World. Claire joined SVB in January 2014…
Being a woman in the workplace is already challenging enough but being a woman in the tech industry seems almost impossible. However, Dorcas Muthoni begun her journey when she was only 24 and since then she unlocked new opportunities in Kenya. She…
Josephine Marie Godwyll knew that young children in Ghana were not getting the education they deserved. Due to the challenges children faced in rural communities in Ghana, Josephine decided to start her own high impact social enterprise known as Young At Heart Ghana. …
BitPesa, a digital foreign exchange and payment platform that leverages blockchain settlement to significantly lower the cost and increase the speed of business payments to and from frontier markets has partnered with Japan’s remittance firm SBI Remit to make it easier for Africans…
“What a man can do, a woman can do even better.” Are you in tune with this statement? The Taxi sector has become very common in Kenya, with around ten top companies. This technology has made traveling within cities very reliable,…
Being able to see is a basic norm to most of us. However, there are still many people who have been unable to access affordable eye care. But one Ugandan woman noticed the gap in their country and decided to make a…
