AfICTA e-NEWSLETTER 31 May 2019

AfICTA e-NEWSLETTER

31/May/19 Vol 69

AfICTA Participates Actively in the AUC Train the Trainers Workshop

AfICTA - Africa ICT Alliance is currently being represented by 6 IT Business Experts​ @ the ongoing AUC Train the Trainers Workshop organized by the African Union Commission as part of its "Policy and Regulation Initiative for Digital Africa (PRIDA)" initiative. 

African Union earlier invited AfICTA as the representative of the African ICT Businesses Group and AfICTA in response sent her prominent ICT business experts...  read more

SMEs are Invited to take Part in the ITU SME Pilot.

Are you interested in contributing to the development of international standards, best practices and recommendations for ICTs, as well as advancing your work on IoTs, smart cities, environment, multimedia, ICT applications and other ICTs? There is a unique opportunity to get acquainted with ITU's work through the ITU SME pilot which is currently ongoing until the end of December 2019. 

ITU is the United Nations specialized...  read more

Ghana Strikes Deal with Private Firm to Handle 

Government's ICT

The Ghanaian government has selected private firm Lebara Ghana Ltd. to manage and commercialise its e-Government infrastructure, including government fibre and LTE network for a period of ten years. 

Lebara has been tasked to ensure accountability and compliance with service quality requirements as contained in the SLA entered into with the communications ministry. 

The infrastructure, previously...  read more

SA ISP Pens Colocation Agreement with Angola Cables

South Africa-based ISP Cool Ideas has signed an agreement with Angola Cables to take up colocation services in the telco's recently inaugurated datacentre in Fortaleza, Brazil. 

In April 2019 Angola Cables announced the opening of its carrier neutral datacentre, AngoNAP Fortaleza. 

The Tier III designed datacentre will cater for the growing ... read more

Nigeria to Launch New Code of Practice for ISPs

Nigeria's government wants to introduce a new code of practice to govern local ISPs - with a focus on cyber security, including consumer privacy and safety as well as data protection. 

This is according to Ismail Adedigba, Head of Information and Reference at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Consumer Affairs Bureau. 

Adedigba said the proposed code ... read more

Measurement Matters: Why Looking at Income is Crucial to Internet Affordability

The biggest barrier for people getting online today is the cost of data. While many of us have seen prices fall to low levels, billions around the world are still kept offline by high costs. 

At A4AI, we advocate for reducing the cost to connect so that everyone can use the internet, regardless of where they live or the weight of their wallets. As part of this mission, we established the ‘1 for 2’ affordability target for mobile data — which says everyone should be. .. read more

Africa's Appetite for Cryptocurrencies Surges

The price of bitcoin soared to an all-time high of $20,000 in December 2017 and collapsed to $3,400 a month later, prompting speculation that cryptocurrencies had imploded in the fizz of their own hype and unfulfilled promises. Since then, however, the price has held steady and even begun to tick back upwards. In South Africa, and on the continent, there have been several recent crypto developments, suggesting the market here is beginning to tingle with life. 

Luno, the crypto-exchange backed ... read more

MainOne to Invest N25bn in Lagos Broadband Infrastructure

MainOne has disclosed fresh plans to commit a whopping N25 billion to its Lagos broadband infrastructure project. 

The initiative was designed to digitise Lagos, through the deployment of 2000 kilometre fibre optic broadband cable that would drive connectivity around all the Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state. 

The project, which is billed to ...   read more

KALRO bets on Technology to Change Farmers Fortune

Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO) ICT Director Boniface Akuku recently won an award on mobile applications the organisation had developed under his leadership. He shares how KALRO is using ICT tools to help farmers. 

1. Your innovations are poised to change the fortunes of farmers. what’s your education background? 

I hold a Bsc. degree in IT from. ..   read more

Zambia Could Pay Heavy Price for Mobile Money Fraud

The Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) said it has been inundated with complaints from local mobile money service subscribers regarding theft from their accounts. 

In an immediate response, ZICTA is understood to have ordered all MNOs to establish an SMS and voice activity threshold that must be met prior to authorising mobile money withdraws or transfers on any mobile money account.

Ngabo Nankonde, ZICTA corporate...  read more

Media undeniably depend on technology, but technology is one segment of media and Namibia is slowly and surely embracing digital media compare to the past 15 years. This is technological development, one of the driving forces of economy and plays a weighty role in the communication for development. 

The digital ground is taking over from analog set-up; our works have become effective and efficient. ..  read more

African nations have increasingly taken to blocking social media access during protests and contentious elections. Now, Somalia is doing the same—to stop students cheating. 

The government has announced it will shut down social media during upcoming national high school exams after officials at the ministry of education discovered papers were being sold and shared on social media platforms. Education cabinet secretary Abdullahi Godah Barre...  read more

The government of Angola has announced a new partnership with satellite telecommunications services provider OneWeb to expand internet access to rural communities. 

Following a meeting between Angola's President Joao Lourenço and OneWeb's founder Greg Wyler, an alliance was brokered whereby the North African country will leverage OneWeb satellite capability to deliver more widespread internet access by 2021.

Lourenço said the government has noted the negative impact...   read more

New research reveals South African small businesses aren’t able to adopt Cloud technology because of their connectivity problems. The third annual State of Small Business report from accounting software firm Xero, conducted in partnership with World Wide Worx (WWW) shows that over half (53%) of small businesses haven’t adopted cloud technology yet, due to connectivity problems. 

59% of respondents said that...   read more

The Nigerian startup ecosystem is majorly dominated by software-enabled businesses. But Arone Delivery is one hardware startup building something futuristic with drones! 

Founded in March 2018, Arone Delivery is a logistics company that uses autonomous drones to make quick deliveries. 

The startup develops smart aerial logistics technology (drones) powered by.... read more

President Emmanuel Macron of France wasn’t the only head of state to appear at Viva Technology in Paris, which wraps up the three-day expo on Saturday. 

Also on hand were President Macky Sall of Senegal and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who participated in the Africa Tech forum. They were there to discuss digital innovation on the continent and promote African startups and investment in African tech. 

Dozens of those startups participated ... read more

The VAT base for electronic services in South Africa was broadened from 1 April 2019, says Seelan Moonsamy, a tax consultant at Baker McKenzie Johannesburg. 

This means that foreign businesses that supply services to customers by means of an electronic agent, electronic communication or the internet for any consideration would be liable to register for VAT in South Africa, where:

• A R1 million threshold in any rolling...   read more

BioCiTi is a specialised bio-technology incubator established by the Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative (CiTi), in collaboration with biotech incubator OneBio and The TechVillage, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur support organisation. 

It aims to support South African and Zimbabwean biotech start-ups at the convergence of laboratory work and computational science, working on solutions aimed at driving change in Africa...   read more

Vodacom Lesotho M-Pesa has launched the Bank Card to M-Pesa service through which Vodacom M-Pesa customers to transfer money from their Standard Lesotho bank card into their M-Pesa accounts. 

According to a statement issued by the operator, the latest technology announcement adds to the offering's overall value proposition, including that businesses are able to pay their employees' salaries or beneficiary grants through M-Pesa...   read more

Despite an increase in subscribers to mobile money services in Malawi, the country has recorded low activity in this space in the first quarter of 2019, according to the latest report by the Reserve Bank of Malawi. 

The National Payment System 2019 First Quarter report stated that only 39.7% of the 6.5 million mobile money subscribers used the service, compared to the 41.1% recorded during the last quarter of 2018

The report did state: "This outcome...  read more

Vodacom and Safaricom are in the process of buying the M-Pesa brand from parent company Vodafone, in a deal reportedly worth over R190 million. 

Vodacom mentioned the deal in its recent full year results announcement, saying it expected the acquisition of the popular mobile money service to "further accelerate our mobile money growth plans in Africa".

Vodacom group CEO Shameel Joosub...  read more

At the 26th Annual ICT Manager’s Congress held at the PrideInn Paradise Resort, Shanzu, Mombasa between the 5th and 10th of May 2019, among many discussions, IT managers pointed out how ICT can be used to effectively Fight Corruption. 

At the beginning of the discussion many shared some of the bad experiences as a result of corruption which included: frustrating policing system, frustrating and long court process, combined with factors such as cultural changes, attitude change, personal integrity etc ...   read more

There are plenty of ways to describe the Internet. It is a decentralized network of tens of thousands of networks, with neither a switch-on nor a switch-off button. It is a form of infrastructure, a series of underwater cables. But one particularly useful way of thinking about the Internet is to imagine it as a body. And as with bodies, much of the time we spend thinking about the Internet is spent thinking about what we can see: the skin. 

Most Internet problems are problems...  read more

Latest NCC industry statistics for the month of March 2019, shows that Nigeria now has a total of 115,938,225 GSM internet subscribers. This signifies an increase of over 1 million from 114,725,357 recorded in the previous month of February. 

Of this figure, MTN Nigeria continued its dominance with 46,552,185, growing by about 14,000 from its 46,538,633 in February. Airtel also witnessed growth from its 30.8 ...   read more