IT News
Safaricom to Pay $850 Million for Ethiopian Operating Licence
Image sourced from Techweez Safaricom, alongside parent company Vodafone, has been awarded one operating licence by Ethiopia’s telecommunications regulator. The telco is expected to pay $850 million for the licence. In a tweet, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says “The Council of Ministers has unanimously made a historic decision today allowing Ethiopian Communications Authority to grant a new nationwide telecom license to the Global Partnership for Ethiopia which offered the highest licensing fee and a very solid investment case.” According to Reuters, the consortium – led by Safaricom – plans to invest up to $8.5 billion in infrastructure as well as create up to one and a half million jobs. Ahmed adds, “with over $8 billion total investment, this will be the single largest FDI into Ethiop...
Should West African Businesses Embrace Mobile Authentication for Security?
Sourced from International IDEA Digital technology has not only profoundly altered the way we live our lives, but also changed the pace of communication and commerce, allowing us to do everything, immediately. While this has effectively impacted every aspect of our lives, it also inevitably changed the way we are targeted by fraudsters. Along with the world transforming to digital, so has crime. According to an Accenture report published in 2019, the total value at risk of cybercrime over the next five years is an estimated $5.2 trillion. The average cyberattack costs $13 million, according to the same report, with phishing, social engineering and stolen device crime making up $2.4 million of the cost of an average attack. In West Africa, cybercrime is on the increase, with a recent analys...
Airtel Kenya Joins forces with MyDawa to Provide Fast Access To Medicine
Sourced from Comms MEA Airtel Kenya has partnered with ePharmacy platform, MyDawa, so that subscribers can have easy and fast access to their medication. According to Gadgets Africa, Airtel subscribers will be able to log on to the MyDawa app or website without incurring additional data charges. They will also be able to use Airtel Money to pay for medicine, health, wellness, personal care and other essential items. “This is a great partnership that will increase the access to healthcare products in Kenya. We are happy to partner with Airtel, one of the top telecommunications service providers in the country, to ensure that their subscribers are able to access quality medical products in a convenient and affordable way,” says Tony Wood, MD of MyDawa. “Free access to MyDawa’s services with ...
Flutterwave Partners with Amole to Expand Remittances in Ethiopia
Image sourced from Techpoint Africa /* custom css */ .tdi_3_e04.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_e04.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Flutterwave has partnered with Amole to facilitate money transfers into Ethiopia. Through this agreement, Amole Wallet users will be able to send money to bank accounts and cash pickup locations at over 2,500 locations across the country. This news comes at a time when many remittance services in Ethiopia today are seen as too expensive, with manual paperwork and delays making it challenging and time-consuming. The partnership is expected to solve these problems by providing instant delivery of funds to the receiver at no fee, with more control of where and how to send money, including transparency from a regulatory standpoint. Speaking on...
Liquid Telecom Launches New Identity in Kenya
Liquid Telecom has unveiled its new identity as Liquid Intelligent Technologies in Kenya. As part of the rebrand, the pan-African technology group also revealed its plan to go from being a telecommunications and digital services provider to a full one-stop-shop technology. Over the last two decades, Liquid has established itself as a leading pan-African digital infrastructure provider with an extensive network spanning over 73,000 KM. This rebrand to Liquid Intelligent Technologies highlights the organisation’s expansion of its Cloud business, Cyber Security services, and other technologies added to its existing telecoms and connectivity capability. This also furthers the Group’s aim of accelerating growth by providing tailor-made digital solutions to businesses in the public and private s...
Why Broadband Connectivity is Crucial to Sustainable Development in Africa
Over the past year or so, digital transformation accelerated at an unprecedented rate in societies around the world. Whether we were working, learning, or staying in touch with friends and family, being online became more critical than ever. Even as vast numbers of people were adapting to their new realities, it became increasingly apparent that equally large numbers of people were shut out from being able to do so. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, approximately 800-million people are not connected to the mobile internet. Of those, some 520-million can access the mobile internet but don’t, because of factors such as smartphone penetration and lack of skills while 270-million cannot access the mobile internet because they don’t have the requisite coverage. Across the region, 4G broadband...
Microsoft Bids Farewell to Internet Explorer
/* custom css */ .tdi_3_a6a.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_a6a.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Microsoft is discontinuing its Internet Explorer browser, 25 years after it was first launched. According to the company, the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge. “Not only is Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer, but it is also able to address a key concern: compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications,” reads a blog post from Microsoft. Microsoft Edge is expected to have an Internet Explorer mode (“IE mode”) built-in, so users can access those legacy Internet Explorer-based websites and applications straight from Microsoft Edge. “With Microsoft Edge capable of assuming this r...
Twitter Relaunches Applications for its Blue Badge Verification
Image sourced from Mission Statement Academy /* custom css */ .tdi_3_e75.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_e75.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Twitter has relaunched its blue badge verification application process. This marks the next milestone in the social platforms plans to give more transparency, credibility and clarity to verification on Twitter. “The blue badge is one of the ways we help people distinguish the authenticity of accounts that are of high public interest. It gives people on Twitter more context about who they’re having conversations with so they can determine if it’s trustworthy, which our research has shown leads to healthier, more informed conversations,” reads an official blog post. “With today’s application launch, we’re also introducing new guidelines ...
Acer Unveils Updates to 3 of its Gaming Notebooks
/* custom css */ .tdi_3_089.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_089.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Acer has unveiled updates to its popular Predator Triton 300, Predator Helios 300 and Nitro 5 series of gaming notebooks, all of which have been refreshed to take advantage of the latest 11th Gen Intel Core H-series processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Laptop GPUs—including the new GeForce RTX 3050 and GeForce RTX 3050 Ti. On top of a number of other updates, improvements to the devices’ displays ensure that players will appreciate as much of this power boost as possible. “The new silicon announced today are as exciting for us as it is for users, as more powerful processors let us push the thermal management capabilities of our devices further than ever,” said James Lin, G...
LG Unveils 2021 TV Line Up
/* custom css */ .tdi_3_0a1.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_0a1.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } LG South Africa has unveiled its 2021 Home Entertainment line-up, including the OLED evo range. “When it comes to TV and home entertainment, the LG Self-Lit OLED range is the irrefutable best TV range on the market-beating all other TVs with the best picture quality and most advanced panel technology in existence,” says Lance Berger, Home Entertainment Sales Head at LG. “We’re sure to continue the trend which has given LG the title of the world’s best-selling OLED brand for the past eight consecutive years. Our Self-Lit OLED TV delivers the best ‘hometainment’ experience, with the TV line-up for South Africa in 2021 promising to be the most impressive yet!” LG’s OLED TVs series –...
4 Steps to a Successful Cloud Migration
Sourced from InfoWorld. Migrating to the cloud can seem like a daunting task for businesses that are still at the start of their digital transformation journeys, but the costs of delaying this decision can be far greater than the initial challenges of cloud adoption. In a survey by World Wide Worx, 31% of Kenyan businesses reported spending between 51% and 75% of their IT budgets on cloud services in 2020, and 68% intend to increase their cloud spend in 2021. With so many businesses moving to the cloud, you can’t afford to be left behind. The pandemic has doubtlessly accelerated this shift toward cloud environments, and more organisations are beginning to capitalise on the various innovations that cloud can offer. If your business is about to undertake this digital migration, there are a f...
