tech news
Silicon Cape Appoints New Co-Chair
Image sourced from East Coast Radio Silicon Cape has appointed Vusi Thembekwayo to its board – effective March 2021. He will take on the position of co-chair, alongside Sumarie Roodt, as the board will be moving to a co-chair governance structure. Thembekwayo is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author, speaker and founding CEO of MyGrowthFund Venture Partners. “Having someone of Vusi’s calibre come on board is not only a massive achievement and milestone for the organisation and the ecosystem, but it also means that we are determined to tackle the systemic challenges that exist in our ecosystems such as the structural inequalities and the relative lack of diversity,” says Roodt. On his appointment, Thembekwayo says, “Silicon Cape leads in the work that it’s been doing because it ...
5 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Keep Hackers Out of Your Zoom Call
The COVID-19 remote work exodus has seen billions of people working from home, which means video conferencing apps have exploded in popularity. At the forefront is the service Zoom. However, with Zoom’s explosive popularity came a series of highly publicized security issues. To unpack this, ITNA’s Jenna Delport chatted with Gabe Goldhirsh, VP MEA at digital risk protection company, ZeroFOX. According to Goldhirsh, Zoom administrators are responsible for establishing security parameters that affect internal employees as well as any external parties that may join the organization’s Zoom meetings. Here are five ways to keep users safe and hackers out: Enable password requirements for ALL remote meetings whenever possible within the tool. Password enforcement at the administrati...
Twitter could Ban Users with COVID-19 Misinformation Strike System
Image sourced from Mission Statement Academy Twitter will start labelling tweets that violate its COVID-19 guidance policy – this essentially includes content containing misinformation about the virus as well as vaccines. Since introducing its COVID-19 guidance, Twitter has removed more than 8,400 Tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts worldwide. The new labels are expected to include links to official public health information or the Twitter rules – which is an attempt by the social platform to help users find credible info and partner with the experts. In an official statement, Twitter says “we will begin applying labels to Tweets that may contain misleading information about COVID-19 vaccines, in addition to our continued efforts to remove the most harmful COVID-19 ...
WhatsApp Introduces New Voice Note Update for iOS
WhatsApp has unveiled a new progress animation to show iOS users exactly when a voice note ends. [embedded content] According to WABetaInfo, the UI animation update is available on iOS 13 and newer versions. And in this update, if Read Receipts are disabled (WhatsApp Settings > Account > Privacy) the recipient won’t be notified when voice messages are played. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_6d0.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_6d0.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “We don’t know if WhatsApp will restore the old behaviour in the next updates (because they didn’t implement this change in the Android version yet), but at the moment the situation is so.” WhatsApp Explains its Privacy Policy Update WhatsApp is set to clear ‘any confusion’ around its controversial privacy policy by in...
Ugandan President says ‘Facebook Will Fail’
Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, claims that Facebook is biased after a number of his governments’ supporter’s accounts were closed for ‘spreading false information’. “Facebook will talk but we shall move, they are not God. Recently, I heard people who came here for the first time…they were from the USA. When they reached, they asked me, where is war? I answered, which war? They told me that they had seen on Facebook that there is a war in Uganda. Therefore, for such things, Facebook will fail,” says Museveni. “They deleted our people’s accounts under the guise, but we can see the bias, the discrimination standards they used. You cannot say that these were doing wrong, what about the other group (opposition) that have been spreading all forms of wrong information and inciting our peop...
MTN Nigeria Subscribers Grow to 76.5 Million
Sourced from TheTechieGuy (https://thetechieguy.com/) MTN Nigeria has published its financial year results – ending December 2020 – which reveal an increase of 12.2 million mobile subscribers to total 76.5 million. The telco also recorded: Active data users increased by 7.4 million to 32.6 million Service revenue increased by 14.7% to NGN1.3 trillion Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 9.7% to N685.7 billion EBITDA margin declined by 2.5 percentage point (pp) to 50.9% Profit before tax (PBT) grew by 2.6% to N298.9 billion Earnings per share (EPS) rose by 0.9% to N10.1 MTN Launches Supersonic AirFibre in South Africa MTN has launched its Supersonic AirFibre offering in South Africa. The product is said to overcome distance and a lack of infrastruct...
Vodacom Launches First-of-its-Kind Mobile Health Service in DRC
Vodacom and Mondia have partnered to launch ‘Mum & Baby’ across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Mum & Baby is a free-of-charge mobile health intervention service that provides subscribers with maternal, neonatal and child health information designed to encourage good health practices amongst pregnant women, mothers, partners and caregivers. Mondia creates Mum & Baby’s tailored content in the local language and includes expert articles, videos and information-sharing SMS messages. Mum & Baby’s future enhancements in the DRC will provide interactive tools including a due-date calculator, an immunisation calendar, medication reminder, medication safety information and other health tools and services. “Accessing healthcare services in Africa can be challenging, and ...
Legal Tech CEO Shares 10 Leadership Tips for Women
Women in Tech (WIT) Conversations is an all-women virtual forum launched recently to spark interaction and impart professional insights for the advancement of women in the South African tech space. A collaboration between legal technology firm, LexisNexis South Africa, and information technology vendor, Dell Technologies, the sessions see some of South Africa’s foremost women in technology sharing their professional experiences. Those interested in attending the next WIT Conversations event on Monday, 8 March 2021 at 14:00, commemorating International Women’s Day, can register here. During the first event in the series, held on on 18 February, LexisNexis CEO and Chairperson of the Board, Videsha Proothveerajh, shared insights under the theme, Love Lessons in Leadership. /* cust...
3 Reasons Data Management can Unlock the Value of Healthcare Data
Data in the healthcare sector is heavily regulated, with numerous laws and regulations governing how data needs to be processed, protected and retained. This has become more important than ever in light of the COVID-19 crisis, which has made healthcare data an increasingly attractive target for cybercrime. However, the pandemic has also highlighted the need to be able to analyse and share data effectively, as the world strives for improved treatment protocols and ideally an effective and safe vaccination. Data management has become a critical tool to unlocking the value of healthcare data, during the pandemic and beyond. Here are three ways effective data management can provide value: /* custom css */ .tdi_3_0c4.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_0c4.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0...
Jumia to Expand Food Delivery Service in Africa
Jumia is set to expand its eCommerce offering to include food delivery. According to the company’s co-CEO, Sacha Poignonnec, 20% of all transactions across the Jumia platform is already made up of food and this is growing quickly. He also revealed that the service will expand to Egypt following the exit of Uber Eats. TechCentral writes [Poignonnec’s] comments come “after a year where demand for delivered meals and groceries has exploded worldwide as restrictions to contain the coronavirus kept people indoors”. And while countries in Africa have taken longer than others around the world to adopt this trend – due to limited access to affordable Internet solutions – Jumia is making waves to expand before other eCommerce goliaths – like Amazon – do. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_bce.td-a-rec-im...
Luno Reaches 7 Million Users Milestone
South African-founded Luno has officially recorded seven million customers (wallets) – just seven weeks after reaching the milestone of six million customers. The business believes this growth is due to the simplicity of its online and mobile platforms, offering education, bank-grade security and self-regulation. It is actively working with regulators and banks to safely increase access to cryptocurrencies. Luno was ranked in the top six cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide in the latest CryptoCompare Exchange Benchmark and also received the top tier AA rating. South Africa is one of Luno’s strongest markets and the appetite for cryptocurrency trades continues to grow. Reaching seven million wallets demonstrates the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies across the globe. /* custom css */...
Telkom to Support Community-Led Coding Programme in South Africa
Telkom has partnered with the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies to hand over a community lab as well as a community-led coding programme to the Alice community in Eastern Cape, South Africa. As part of the Digital Skills Development Programme, Telkom has identified 25 unemployed youth aged between 18-35 with IT background from the community to partake in a month-long coding programme. The youth will be provided with laptops and software. The company has also donated a fully fitted computer lab and a comprehensive educational content platform to enhance digital skills and online learning at Healdtown High School in Fort Beaufort. “The Telkom Foundation’s mission is rooted in meaningful and sustainable community upliftment and development,” says Sarah Mthintso, Head of Te...
