AfICTA e-Newsletter (October 28th, 2019)

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AfICTA e-NEWSLETTER 

29/October/19 Vol 75

AfICTA Holds Workshop Session @ the 2019 IGF in Berlin

Africa ICT Alliance - AfICTA is set to organize and facilitate #293 IGF Workshop Session titled “Unlocking the Digital Potentials of Developing and Least Developed Countries” on Nov 28th during the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to be hosted by the Government of Germany in Berlin from 25 to 29 November 2019 under the overarching theme: One World. One Net. One Vision.

To ensure deep discussion with different perspectives, and expected outcomes, AfICTA has thoughtfully selected speakers from different sectors such as Business, Civil Society... read more

Report from Africa Geospatial Data and Internet Conference (AGDIC)

The Africa Geospatial Data and Internet Conference (AGDIC), a 3-day conference which commenced on 22nd October 2019 at the Accra International Conference Centre, Accra, Ghana was just successfully concluded and the event was amazingly enlightening as well as engaging. 

The main objective of the event was to bring people together from various stakeholder groups as equals, in discussions on public policy issues relating to geospatial data, open data, ICTs and Internet in Africa. The objective was fully achieved as different speakers, participants and high-level leaders such as Mr Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, Hon. Minister Lands & Natural Resources... read more

Zenlayer and MainOne Partner to Expand Connections in and out of West Africa

Zenlayer and MainOne have partnered to greatly expand connectivity between international companies and West Africa. As an edge cloud provider with a global private backbone and far-reaching connections, Zenlayer will pave the way for businesses to seamlessly connect with West Africa’s technological hub in Nigeria. MDXi Lekki, MainOne’s Tier III data centre in Lagos, will be the primary point of presence (PoP) for these connections.

The MDXi Lekki data centre will provide quick entry and scale-up opportunities for international companies looking to establish a presence in West... read more

2019 Affordability Report: Lack of Competition in Broadband Markets Keeping Millions Offline

Billions of people around the world are kept offline by the cost to connect. Our 2019 Affordability Report — published today — finds that consolidated broadband markets are keeping prices high and putting life-changing internet access out of reach for hundreds of millions of people.

Each year, our Affordability Report analyses the policy progress low- and middle-income countries are making to advance affordable internet. This year’s report points to a lack of market competition in broadband markets as a major barrier to internet access... read more

South African Tech Startup Aims to Go National by end of 2019

WRAPP (Waste Recycling App) is a South African mobile app that brings independent truck owners and customers together. The fast-growing app-based service gives businesses and professionals a quick and convenient way to remove waste from worksites. 

Using the app, small businesses, construction companies, shopping centres, renovators, housing complexes and homeowners can book a truck or skip, local drivers and a loading teams who will collect the waste for responsible disposal – all tracked and recorded online...  read more

Facebook fights fake news in 10 Countries across Sub-Saharan Africa

Earlier this week, Facebook announced that it plans on expanding its Third-Party Fact-Checking programme to 10 additional African countries. In partnership with Agence France-Presse (AFP), the France 24 Observers, Pesa Check and Dubawa, this programme forms part of its work in helping assess the accuracy and quality of news people find on Facebook, whilst reducing the spread of misinformation on its platform. 

Third-party fact-checking will now be available in Ethiopia, Zambia, Somalia and Burkina Faso through AFP, Uganda and Tanzania through ... read more

Out There Media Signs Deal with Vodafone for RCS

Mobile advertising and data monetization agency, Out There Media (OTM) announced on Friday, 18 October 2019, that it has partnered with Vodafone Group for its Rich Communication Services (RCS) offering. 

According to the company, the deal follows two highly successful campaigns with The Walt Disney Company Africa and McDonald’s. Using the Vodafone network to facilitate the all-new 2019 Lion King release and McDonald’s Rewards program RCS projects, the campaigns saw a 72% and 73% Read... read more

DCI’s Advisory on Mobile Phone Ownership to Hit Millions of Kenyans

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has cautioned the public against buying electronics from individuals without a physical business premise.

In a series of tweets on @DCI_Kenya, the body said that Kenyans should only get their items from people with documents to engage in the trade. 

Electronics ownership proof 

“The Public is hereby WARNED never to buy any Electronic Gadget including Laptops, Mobile Phones, TV Sets etc. from an individual or a dealer who has no fixed Physical Address; Identifiable trading Building/ Premises with requisite authorization....   read more

Company to Spy on Your Phone Data to Rate You for Loans

In what is set to revolutionise credit scoring and increase financial inclusion in Kenya, a new company is targeting your smartphone to make this possible. 

Credit scoring fintech company, CredoLab, has launched in Kenya seeking to ‘drive financial inclusion’ by credit scoring more people.

The company is especially seeking those who are new to banking and new to credit (loans). 

Opening up your world to faceless entities CredoLab has announced that it is in negotiations... read more

Lawyer Sues SAFARICOM, AIRTEL Over Data Bundle Expiry

Lawyer and ICT practitioner Adrian Kamotho has sued telecommunication operators for irregularly depriving consumers of their unused data bundles.

In a complaint filed before the Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal, Mr Kamotho said he was aggrieved by the high cost of data and frustrated by the arbitrary expiry of hard-earned bundles. 

He wants the tribunal to order Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya to furnish him with their current data tariffs, or prominently display the current data tariffs on their websites. He also wants the . .. read more

Cellulant Unveils Single Payments App In 8 African Countries

Financial technology company Cellulant on Tuesday officially launched Tingg, a multi-functional consumer app that will collapse payment, commerce and financial services into a single platform.

Tingg which had already been piloted in the country offers third party services ranging from utility payments for water, electricity and airtime made possible by a number of partnerships that the organization has struck with a flurry of service providers.

Speaking during the launch, Cellulant Co-CEO Ken Njoroge said that Tingg targets to tap into the ever-growing African digital payments space.. .. read more

Nigeria Blocks MTN's Proposed USSD Access Charge

Nigeria's communications minister Isa Pantami has blocked a planned move by MTN to charge users N4 (US$0.013) per every four seconds for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) access to banking services.

Pantami gave the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) the nod to suspend the proposed charge, scheduled to be enforced from 21 October, after notification by the operator to subscribers sparked a social media furore.

MTN's message reads: "As requested by your bank, from Oct 21, we will... read more

Nigerians slam latest e-commerce taxes

Nigeria's Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has confirmed it will impose a 5% tax on e-commerce transactions, effective in 2020.

Babatunde Fowler, FIRS chairman described the tax as "a practice that actually should be in existence" and said the organisation is working with banks to ensure that the fee is automatically deducted at the point of payment.

Nigeria's government continues to push to tax the country's US$12-billion ecommerce sector, to offset a decline in income from crude oil, and the move has industry experts concerned. ..  read more

SAS Targets Open Source Opportunity

Business analytics software vendor SAS will launch a new solution Open Model Manager in November 2019 to help companies with the challenge of deploying analytics platforms.

At the SAS Analytics Experience 2019 in Milan, company executives outlined the challenge and said less than half of analytic models are fully deployed, 90% of them take more than three months to deploy and 40% take over 7 months to deploy.

The accelerated adoption of AI and machine learning, paired with the accessibility of open source software has data scientists churning out more analytical models than ever. ..  read more

Africa's Digital Gender Gap is Widening

To push Africa's digital transformation agenda, a new World Bank report estimates that the continent needs about US$100 billion - or close to US$9 billion a year - to connect an additional 1.1 billion people online by 2030, especially women and youth.

The Broadband for All report "A Digital Infrastructure Moonshot for Africa" is one of the first to quantify the cost of bridging the broadband gap in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. It seeks to ensure Africa's universal access to the digital economy especially as it affects its youth demographic - more than 70% of Africans under 25 - and women who make up more than 50% of the population...  read more

To achieve universal broadband access, African countries will need to bring about 1.1 billion more people online Less than a third of Africa's population has access to broadband connectivity and achieving universal, affordable and good quality internet access by 2030 will require a US$100-billion investment.

This is according to a report launched at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group, which calls for urgent action to close the internet access gap while providing a roadmap to reach this ambitious goal. 

The report suggests that to achieve universal broadband... read more

Rwanda President Paul Kagame has bemoaned the country's low smartphone penetration rate and said more will be done to address the issues of cost and quality.

In April 2019, the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) said the country's internet penetration increased to 52.1% at the end of 2018, but the proportion of mobile subscribers using smartphones is reportedly much less - about 15% according to Kagame.

The proliferation of low-cost devices in the market has been cited as a key influence. ..  read more

Zimbabwean companies are solidifying their digital migration with increased investment in mobile applications and reduced focus on physical operations which, according to market analysts, lowers costs and meets the needs of an increasingly mobile domestic market. 

Standard Chartered Zimbabwe this month closed down six brick and mortar branches in Harare and smaller towns. The Bank is migrating operations to an online platform after the successful launch of its mobile application.

"Standard Chartered hereby advises the public of the following branch mergers...   read more

Operator recently secured a US$120-million credit facility.

Orange Côte d'Ivoire has raised FCFA70-billion (approximately US$120-million) in credit to bolster its local fibre optic network interests.

The credit arrangement is for a period of five years and to secure the facility, the operator partnered with several banks including Banque Internationale pour le Commerce et l'Industrie de la Cote d'Ivoire (BICICI), Societe Generale Ivory Coast, Société Ivoirienne de Banque, NSIA Bank and CITIBANK. ...  read more

MTN says it focused heavily on extending connectivity reach, while also transforming pricing methodology to adapt to the changing and growing markets it seeks to serve.

The telco's microwave link network now serves over 70% of businesses, while the fibre-to-the-business network spans over 18 000km and has a capacity to serve over 30% of the business community.

In addition, MTN says it has eight data centres and 30 regional data centres....  read more

Businesses in Africa are in a race against time to fast-track AI and analytics solution development and implementation to combat fraud. Data is growing exponentially and so too the rate of cybercrime, forcing the continent to build its AI and data analytics ecosystem. Simultaneously, there is a growing realisation of the substantial opportunity linked to the role that AI, machine learning and vision computing will play in digital transformation.

This emerged from discussions at SAS Analytics Experience 2019 in Milan this week. Desan Naidoo, vice president of Africa at business... read more

Connectivity and datacentre solutions provider MainOne has announced the expansion of its datacentre brand, MDXi into Accra Ghana with a new datacentre facility, in keeping with its ongoing West African growth strategy. 

According to a statement by the company the facility will be based in Appolonia City, a mixed use development 20 km from the centre of Accra, and is scheduled to be ready for service in Q4 2020. 

Tier III 100-rack facility will be constructed on 4,047 sqm land area and is expected to meet an increasing demand for colocation and interconnection services. the cost of...  read more

On the 15th of October, the Government of Benin, represented by the Ministry of Digital Development, signed an agreement with the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) to boost digital connectivity and usage in the country.

The project to improve universal internet access is part of the Government of Benin’s ICT strategy that seeks to promote universal internet access and digital use in line with the objectives defined by His Excellency Patrice Talon, President of Benin: to place the country at the forefront of digital economic transformation in West Africa.

This project will be implemented by Benin’s Agency in charge of Universal Access and Service...   read more

Only a few people would understand what you meant if you mentioned internet data (or simply data) in Cameroon half a decade ago. Data has become a pervasive word particularly among those who access the internet via smartphones, a technology that has fundamentally changed the ways in which we access the internet. With smartphones, users connect directly to the internet in a setting where most of them do not own personal computers. Before this device became widespread, the majority of Cameroonians online accessed the internet from cybercafés...   read more