Hacking SA’s tech gender gap
This article was contributed to TechCabal by Charles Mathews It is a Saturday morning in Cape Town, and in a room, many girls and a few boys are baking code. The big challenge? To create an e-commerce store with a scannable barcode, front end, and the attendant API. The tension is palpable because there are cash prizes up for grabs, and these young people come from contexts marked by unemployment and poverty. The event was organised by BabesGotBytes, a South African advocacy group that promotes equitable access to quality education and technology as inherent rights, rather than exclusive privileges. Since 2018, this initiative started by founders Amanda Gxagxa and Phindiwe Nqanqaru has been preparing girls and women to enter the workforce. “Amanda Gxagxa and I started BabesGotBytes when we were students, and we noticed that there was a huge gender gap in the technology industry,” says Nqanqaru, in an interview after the Hackathon early in December 2023. “When we went out to technology businesses and industry meet-ups, we saw how few women there are in the industry. We wanted to do something about this. We wanted to get more girls to become a part of the industry.” “In the communities that we come from most people think that technology is only for men, and we wanted to challenge and change this perception. Nowadays, everything is about technology and most jobs will be generated by the tech industry, so we didn’t want the girls to be left behind. This is how and why we started,” Nqanqaru says. The Global Gender Gap Report 2023 authored by the World Economic Forum reveals that only three African countries rank in the study’s top 20 this year. They are Namibia, which pleasingly now has closed 80% of its national gender gap; Rwanda, which is also doing well in this regard; and South Africa, which has dropped in the rankings since 2010 when it was in 10th place. “Progress towards the achievement of gender equality in South Africa has been very slow,” writes gender activist, Nozi Mjoli. “Millions of women continue to be the most disadvantaged members of society in South Africa due to poverty and lack of skills.” Nqanqaru’s origin story reveals the agency that access to technology affords girls and women. “Coding has revealed my superpowers,” she says. “At first, I didn’t know anything about technology or computers. I wanted to build a career that was solid but didn’t know what to do.” Born in a small Eastern Cape town called Elliot, the coder matriculated from high school without any options for tertiary education. But everything changed when a friend asked her to come along to a coding programme. This sparked an interest that changed the course of Nqanqaru’s life trajectory. “I was a lost soul, but when I started coding, I flexed my muscles and realised my superpowers. That’s when I realised I wanted to pass this experience on because I wanted to impact other people’s lives. I got so many mentors who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. This is why I wanted to do the same for other girls who don’t believe in themselves,” the coder-cum-mentor says. “What is exciting to see is that this first cohort is now in university or working in the technology sector,” Nqanqaru says. “2023 was our most productive year because we managed to get five girls into jobs in technology. We have gotten 14 of our BabesGotBytes girls into the Samsung and UWC Future Innovation Lab & App Factory Programme. So, we are not just teaching. What is important is that we get girls internships and help them to study further so we develop a good pipeline of engineers for this country and Africa.” Research proves this to be true. The South African SME Tech Index 2023 reveals that the female-owned companies in the study had higher business growth compared to male-owned companies, indicating a competitiveness and ability to navigate challenges. Charles Lee Mathews is a former journalist and serial entrepreneur who now works at Thinkroom, Thinkubate and Grindstone Accelerator. Thinkroom, a female-led consulting firm that grows SMEs, founders and entrepreneurial ecosystems, sponsored the prizes for the BabesGotBytes hackathon.
Read MoreExclusive: Twiga CEO closed a $35 million convertible bond deal before 6-month sabbatical
Peter Njonjo, the CEO of Twiga, a Kenyan startup that connects farmers to food vendors, announced his decision to take a six-month sabbatical from the company on Thursday, sparking fears that the company’s investors were pushing him out. Njonjo’s break comes just two weeks after Twiga successfully raised new funding to pay suppliers it owed. TechCabal previously reported that one of the owed suppliers, Incentro, a cloud service vendor, had asked a court to begin liquidation proceedings to force Twiga to pay its debts. Private conversations are still ongoing between both firms to resolve the dispute. Cash-strapped, Twiga raised $35 million in convertible bonds—debt that pays interest but can also be converted into equity—from Creadev and Juven, two private equity investors who had previously invested in Twiga, one person with direct knowledge of the deal told TechCabal. The size and nature of the funding has not been previously disclosed. Twiga did not respond to TechCabal’s request for comments at the time of this report. Creadev, one of the two private equity firms that provided the latest round of capital to Twiga, is a subsidiary of Mulliez Family Association (AFM), the investment holding company that controls the fortunes of a French family-owned consumer goods conglomerate. Creadev typically invests between $500,000 to $10 million, with the potential to cut even bigger cheques when it doubles down on portfolio companies. Juven, the second backer and a Goldman Sachs spinoff, follows a similar investment strategy. The evergreen fund invests between $10 million and $30 million. Creadev and Juven also did not respond to TechCababal’s request for comments. Heading to an exit? In private conversations, investors and long-time players in Kenya’s technology ecosystem speculated that the timing of Njonjo’s sabbatical, one week after new funding, may suggest that he is being graciously shown the exit by investors. But two sources close to the matter insisted that Njonjo has a “great relationship with Creadev” and that the investment outfit is still “very supportive of the business.” Startups attempting to digitise the fragmented informal market for fast-moving consumer goods and packaged foods have been hard hit. Twiga laid off 30% of its staff and changed its commercial model, shutting down its in-house sales department in favour of independent sales contractors. “Our investors are fully supportive of this transformation,” Njonjo had told TechCabal in August. Despite Njonjo’s optimism, a prominent seed stage investor who did not want to be named so they could speak freely took a harder view. “I’m 90% certain Peter was fired. This is how VCs are viewing it,” the investor said. “VCs in Africa are having a bad week” because of the recent news and internal conversations about Twiga and other struggling B2B e-commerce startups, the investor added. Across Africa, rising inflation and currency devaluation have brought economies to the brink and squeezed consumer spending. Even with Twiga’s impressive funding, the business has struggled in 2023, citing an increasingly challenging business climate. One former Twiga vendor questioned the monthly burn rate of the firm, which has raised more than $150 million in equity and debt since 2017. Twiga operates an asset-light model, so it did not own the trucks or warehouses that housed its operations, one former vendor told TechCabal. More than half of the amount Twiga has raised (about $80 million) was raised in the last three years after the departure of co-founder and former CEO Grant Brooke, who left in part due to differences in the direction investors wanted to take the company, a person close to talks at the time told TechCabal. Peter Njonjo cofounded Twiga with Grant Brooke in 2014 to source fresh produce directly from farmers and deliver it to Kenya’s urban retailers. The B2B company is backed by investors like Genevieve Capital, Creadev, Juven AHL Venture Partners, and Omidyar Networks.
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Next Wave: Tides, tsunamis and a slow-motion return to hard things
Cet article est aussi disponible en français <!– In partnership with –> <!–TopBanner Join us for TechCabal Battlefield, Moonshot’s startup competition where you can showcase your startup idea to a global audience and an esteemed panel of judges and stand a chance to win up to 2.5 million naira in funding for your business! Click to register for TC Battlefield First published 17 December, 2023 2023 is ending on a humble note for the fintech boom, climate-tech’s wobbly first steps and a back-to-the-drawing-board for e-commerce in Africa. Everywhere you turn, doing the hard things first is back on the menu. The hard thing about building a $180 billion internet economy in Africa by 2025, as Google and the International Finance Corporation predict, is making an economy that can run without looking at DFI-backed venture capital for handouts. To meet this admittedly difficult $180 billion goal, the attention of the technology sector in Africa needs to finally leave the residue hype of 2019 to 2022 behind in 2023, and continuously solve the series of hard problems that are peculiar to Africa. 2025 is 13 months away. Google and the IFC predicted Africa’s internet economy would be worth $180 billion by that year. I am not referring to the obvious hard things like bringing millions into the financial system or providing energy to them. Those are the end goals. I am referring instead to the core problems that make things like energy or financial inclusion hard. Fintech startups for example, find themselves needing to deal with the unruly cyber fraud menace that has cost untold billions in customer and investor losses. It’s not a game many are winning. In fact it has crippled fintech giants, including the Y Combinator-backed Zambian unicorn, Union54. The ecommerce sector in Africa is a venture capital darling that has ebbed and flowed through different models since 2012. Regardless of the model, the sector still has a lot to prove about its profit-making capacity, especially now that the venture capital tide is draining away. Clean energy and climate-tech is a rising star, but modular piecemeal solutions are unsustainable in the long term and do not move the needle on the continent’s energy poverty. In fact the climate tech space is under threat of being swept away by the emerging (and more profitable) nature-based carbon credit industry. Investors are not left out of doing the hard things. Marketing yourself as an investor and giving speeches is well and good, but returning capital with outsize gain to their limited partners is even better—and harder. Everywhere you turn, doing the hard things first is back on the menu. African entrepreneurs tackle hard problems, no doubt. Delivering accessible healthcare is difficult. Bringing excluded millions into the financial system is difficult. And helping people shop online is not the easiest dream to live for. But sometimes, and especially in the last capital deluge, a lot of problem fighting has been focused on the wrong end of the hard thing. Chris Maclay, programme director for the Jobtech Alliance, first introduced me to the monkey vs pedestal framework that guides how X, one of Alphabet’s most ambitious innovation labs, operates. So I went off and read a bit about it. Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at X, describes the monkeys versus pedestal problem as having to decide between training a circus monkey on how to perform its routine and focusing on building the pedestal on which it would stand to perform magic tricks at a circus. Building a pedestal, or the performance stage where a monkey will perform a magic trick at a circus, is analogous to doing the easy portion of a task. But training a monkey to do the actual magic tricks is the most difficult part. It is obviously easy to build pedestals. It is also what most people will default to, because building pedestals is an easy way to show progress. For the entrepreneur, employee, investor or policymaker reading, think of things like joining a new accelerator program, raising new funding, discovering the next best idea, writing banging tweets complete with stunning charts, or even passing a new startup bill. These are the easy parts of building a thriving healthy and non-venture capital dependent technology ecosystem. <!–Subtitle Write subtitle here Partner Content: 2023 has been a wild ride for everyone. If you’re a founder, please share your thoughts on the outlook of tech in Africa. Click here to start. On the other hand, figuring out how to keep a beautiful startup as a going concern when the VC money dries up is a hard thing. Turning the best idea into something that makes money is not easy. Building a payments company with zero cyber fraud is much more difficult than launching a new payments app. Carrying out proper due diligence as an investor is not as easy as speaking on a conference panel about the future of African tech. In every scenario, training monkeys to perform magic tricks before building pedestals is the hard part. <!–Banner Ad Article continues after this ad The Kaduna State Digital Public Infrastructure Playbook takes a deep exploratory dive into the process on how sub-national governments can build DPI at a state level. Download here Banner ad ends –> Take the case of the much-celebrated boom in mobile telecoms in Africa. The hard thing involved fighting and lobbying for deregulation and a fair licensing process. It meant building out a wide-enough network for mobile communications to have value right off the start on a tight budget. It meant creating the prepaid billing pricing strategy and collaborating with external partners like mobile phone suppliers and informal airtime retail agents to supply the devices and retail the airtime. Doing these hard parts allowed the early mobile network carrier networks to win in the face of adverse and entrenched state-owned landline opposition. That model holds true today. It is how the next stage for innovation that wins in Africa will be created. Not more capital—although more will certainly
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily M-PESA goes plastic
In partnership with Share this newsletter: Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning Lagos is one of the most popular tech ecosystems in Africa. However, there are tech ecosystems budding in other states in its home country Nigeria. Here are some of the interesting innovators in Abuja, the country’s capital. Also, If you are a founder, please take this survey to tell us what you are looking forward to next year. In today’s edition M-PESA to roll out plastic cards Zambia’s Starlink giveaway OPay’s KYC is enabling impersonation TC Insights: What should Africa prioritise? The World Wide Web3 Job openings Fintech M-PESA to roll out plastic cards Image source: Safaricom Hey Kenyans! No more fumbling with a bulky wallet at your favourite Kenyan shop. M-PESA, Kenya’s biggest mobile money platform is set to disrupt the country’s cash-loving retail sector with roll-out plastic cards. Until now, M-PESA only provided virtual cards called GlobalPay, but they could not be used at many local kiosks, market stalls, fancy boutiques, and physical shops as many sellers preferred hard cash. The GlobalPay virtual cards were limited to purchases from online platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and others. Sidebar: Virtual cards haven’t exactly had a stellar track record with reliability and fraud risks. Companies like card issuing startup Union54 learned that the hard way. Physical cards are much safer, however, but it also turns out that Kenyans aren’t exactly plastic pals either. Only 6.35% of Kenyan adults use a credit card, and debit cards sit at a lukewarm 22%. Can M-PESA make it work? If the numbers are anything to go by, it is M-PESA if anyone can make it work. The mobile money company holds 97% market share in Kenya in its really big hands. But can M-PESA overcome the trust issues left by virtual cards and convince Kenyans to join the plastic party? Only time will tell, but one thing’s for sure: the game is changing, and the future of Kenyan payments is about to get a whole lot swipier. This is great for everyone involved. If these plastic cards melt Kenyans’ distrust of cashless payment away, M-PESA’s chokehold of the East African country will get exponentially tighter. It is not only M-PESA that will grow. Visa, the card processing company that created M-PESA’s virtual card and its new physical card will also expand its footprint across the country and, consequently, Africa. Access payments with Moniepoint Moniepoint has made it simple for your business to access payments while providing access to credit and other business tools. Open an account today here. Internet Zambia’s Starlink giveaway Felix Chipota Mutati, Zambia’s minister of technology and science Tech billionaire Elon’s dream is coming true in Zambia, but at what cost? Two months after Starlink launched its satellite internet service in Zambia, the country’s government is handing out the internet device like party favours—one Starlink kit for each of its 150 constituencies. Why? Well, Zambia’s internet situation is really bad. Over 20 million people, most of whom are in rural areas, stare down a measly 21% internet penetration rate. The cost of maintaining Internet infrastructure in the country discourages Internet service providers. In several interviews, including this one with tech journalist Kara Swisher, Elon Musk, the owner of Starlink has said that the satellite internet service was designed for these kinds of underserved populations. The country’s decision to distribute free Starlinks will see his dream come true. But at what cost? The hardware costs ZMK 10,744 ($505) and the monthly subscription fee for Starlink is ZMK 771 ($36). In a Twitter post, the Zambian minister of technology and science said that it would bear the cost of both for a year. But considering that Zambia is the 16th poorest country in the world, a giant question mark hangs over the sustainability of the decision. About 64% of Zambians live on less than $2 per day. Will they be able to afford to pay for the service when the time comes? Here is another question: Is it even worth it at all? While the ministry says that Starlink can connect 300 devices per router, each router only handles 128, per the Starlink website. This means that, across all 150 constituencies, only 19,200 devices can get online at once. This is not exactly the internet revolution Zambia’s minister of Technology and science is painting it to be. Checkout the Paystack Terminal experience Paystack Terminal helps you accept in-person payments. We released updates that help you easily access receipts, customise reports, and shorten the length of receipts. Learn more about Paystack Terminal → Fintech OPay’s KYC is enabling impersonation Image source: TechCabal OPay, a Chinese-owned mobile money platform, is using elaborate marketing schemes and easy-peasy sign-ups to charm millions of people into creating accounts on its platforms—including those who have never had a bank account. But here’s the rub: in its eagerness to woo the unbanked, OPay might have opened its door wide for impersonation by removing strict requirements for identity verification. How bad is it? Fraudsters can create fake OPay accounts and start using them to move cash around in about 60 seconds. OPay uses a tiered verification process—ranging from tier 1 to 4—allowing users to access a larger suite of services once they submit a National Identification Number (NIN), a bank account number or a bank verification number (BVN). Users must also submit a real-time facial verification to confirm their identity. But its tier-1 account seems to have more holes than a basket. First, the system’s blind as a bat. It allowed a man to create female accounts even after going through OPay’s facial recognition system. In another test, OPay allowed a user to create a tier-1 account using basic personal information, name and birthday, about a celebrity to register. While OPay requires users to submit either a bank account or phone number for verification, the app did not proceed to verify the details. This tier-1 account allows users to deposit up to ₦300,000 ($378) in their
Read MoreM-PESA goes plastic: 50 million Kenyans will get debit cards following Visa partnership
This marks the second time in under two years that M-PESA and Visa have collaborated to expand global payments for their customers. M-PESA, the ubiquitous mobile money platform used by 51 million Kenyans, is taking a pivotal step into the world of plastic. In a partnership with Visa, the global digital payments giant M-PESA will debut physical debit cards, marking a bold expansion beyond its virtual GlobalPay offering and setting its sights on the cash-reliant retail sector. Until now, M-PESA only provided its customers with a virtual card called GlobalPay, powered by Visa. Those virtual cards were limited to online purchases and could not be used at Kenya’s cash-first retail stores. Physical cards signal a significant shift for M-PESA, which has revolutionized digital payments in Kenya but has not yet significantly penetrated the physical retail space. Credit and debit cards are unpopular in Kenya, and only 6.35% of Kenyans over 15 have credit cards, while debit card penetration stands at 22%. M-PESA, which has a 97% market share, still has use cases like subscription payments, which can only be solved comprehensively by cards. M-PESA deepens partnership with Visa Visa, meanwhile, gains a powerful partner in its quest to expand its footprint in Africa. M-PESA’s vast user base and deep integration into Kenyan life offer a unique platform for Visa to tap into the continent’s rapidly evolving digital payments landscape. Customers can use the new cards across the eight countries in which M-PESA operates. “FintTechs and financial institutions are equally set to leverage our card processing capabilities, empowering them to provide end-to-end mobile and card payment solutions,” M-PESA added in a statement on X. For instance, subscription payments like Netflix and Google One are better served by cards. And while its GlobalPay cards supported these payments, virtual cards are notoriously unreliable and susceptible to massive fraud risks. M-PESA’s physical debit card launch is a watershed moment for Kenya’s financial landscape. The race is on to see how effectively M-PESA can leverage its digital dominance to crack open the country’s cash-kinged retail market.
Read MoreSouth Africa dominates Netflix’s most-watched movies in Africa for 2023
Netflix, the second largest streaming platform in Africa, recently released its first of what will become a biannual report that details what people watched on Netflix over six months—January to June 2023—globally. The list covered over 18,000 titles that were streamed for more than 100 billion hours. Topping the charts for Africa is the first season of the South African series, Unseen, which held the 229th position globally. The series was seen for over 60 million hours on Netflix, the equivalent of 6,800 years, which is longer than human civilisation. South Africa had the most representation in the top 10 most-streamed movies in Africa with eight representations, while Nigeria had two with Shanty Town and Far From Home, which were ranked 750 and 2088, respectively, on Netflix’s global scale. South Africa’s numbers come as no surprise, as the country accounts for 73% of Netflix viewers in Africa. Nigeria contributes only about 10.5% of Netflix’s viewers on the continent. The Rainbow Nation’s pole position is driven not only by its strong economy but also by a well-established online video market and a growing appetite for streaming content. While the report shows how well movies are doing globally, a recent report shows that Netflix lost its market leader status in Africa to Showmax. Netflix set up shop on the continent in 2016 and raced against competition from incumbent players, including market leader MultiChoice, and new players like Amazon Prime Video. Netflix’s strategy on the continent combines licensing content such as Nigeria’s Black Book from local studios with producing original content such as The Origin: Madam Koi-Koi. This two-pronged approach has cost Netflix $175 million in six years, according to a report released by the streaming service in April. Although Nigeria had the most licensed content in Africa, it got only $23 million, compared to South Africa which got the lion’s share with $125 million. Netflix has more than recouped its investment, making more than $230 million in the last two years.
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Meet some of the people building in the Abuja tech ecosystem
The Abuja tech ecosystem, the second most popular in Nigeria after Lagos, has witnessed steady growth in recent years. The ecosystem now boasts 72 startups and about 20 ecosystem entities, including accelerators, incubators, and hubs. While this number is a drop in the pool compared to more advanced ecosystems like Lagos, it is a testament to the commitment of some noteworthy individuals who have committed to building and ensuring that it thrives. These are founders who have built remarkable products, as well as investors and other stakeholders, who are providing the framework and community to support founders in growing their scalable ideas. This article aims to spotlight some of the people who are playing pivotal roles in shaping the Abuja startup ecosystem. Here are some players building in the Abuja tech space that you should pay attention to: Faiz Bashir Faiz is the cofounder of FlexiSAF, an edtech that provides schools with software to streamline administrative and operational processes. FlexiSAF serves about 700 secondary schools and 70 tertiary institutions by automating their processes and managing students’ records from enrollment to graduation. In 2009, while studying for an MSc in Software Engineering at the University of Technology, Malaysia, Faiz Bashir established the first Google Technology User Group in Africa, laying the foundation for what would eventually become the largest developer network across the continent. Now, there are over 150 Google Developer Groups(GDGs) in 36 countries across Africa. In the past five years, He has actively participated in mentorship programs for startups and entrepreneurs. He is currently an Entrepreneur In Residence (EiR) at the Founder Institute, Abuja and has mentored many entrepreneurs since then. Yemisi Ajeojo-Isidi Yemisi is the co-founder of Triift Africa, a company that provides financial and advisory support to businesses across Africa, especially women-owned businesses. She has partnered with several accelerators and incubators including The Future Females Business School and She Leads Africa Program, where she has been involved in enabling access to over $1m in funding for female founders and other entrepreneurs across 6 African countries. Yemisi is passionate about helping young people take advantage of the opportunity that technology provides and is also the founder of Ilorin Digital Summit, a social enterprise that she founded less than a year after moving back to Nigeria in 2017. With the summit, Yemsi helps young business owners leverage digital tools to grow their businesses. Cynthia E. Chisom From organising a Startup Competition in 2016 while at Covenant University, Cynthia is now a founder and startup advisor. In the past ten years, she has worked with organizations like CCHub, Futurize, and Inqumax Incubator, among others, to help early-stage founders strategise and execute their ideas. Cynthia is passionate about the role of collaboration in fostering growth and is the founder of The Enablers Meetup (Abuja), a community where stakeholders who support founders within the Abuja startup ecosystem can meet to collaborate. Cynthia has a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Management from Imperial Business School, London, and is currently the Vice President of Spark Africa HQ, the startup and talent aggregator behind Africa Startup Festival. Surayyah Ahmad Surayyah Ahmad is a seasoned entrepreneur and venture capitalist. She founded TechTankLabs, an accelerator that provides early-stage founders, especially in the north, with funding and other resources to build and grow their startups. Surayyah has a degree in Economics from the University of London, and another in Business Management from Hertfordshire University. Before TTLabs, Surayyah ran an e-commerce startup YDS in London, where they partnered with various brands including building Miniso’s first online store in 2020. In November, Surayyah launched Aduna Capital, a $20 million fund that is targeted at early-stage founders across Africa, with a focus on women and northern Nigeria. Surayyah Ahmad believes in the potential of the northern Nigerian tech ecosystem and is passionate about providing founders with the resources to build scalable startups. Adedeji Owonibi Adedeji Owonibi is the founder of blockchain solutions company, Convexcity Tech. One of the company’s products, CHAT is targeted at monitoring palliative distribution and aid disbursement across the country, and so far, the company has partnered with NGOs like the Red Cross and UNICEF, as well as the French Government on this. Adedeji has an MSc in Forensic Audit and Accounting from the University of South Wales and another in Forensics Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies from Montpellier Business School. He is committed to using blockchain to combat crimes like money laundering, the dark web and terrorism financing. Hadiyyah L. Hadiyyah is a passionate entrepreneur who has a long history of building software for health facilities in Abuja. Hadiyyah is a Venture Analyst at PennPromise Ventures, a venture capital company that’s looking to drive growth in middle-market economies in Africa. At PennPromise, Hadiyyah works with several entrepreneurs to ensure that their businesses and startups achieve sustainable growth. She is also the co-founder of Path4her, an initiative that provides support for young women looking to pivot into low-code and no-code careers in tech. Amal Hassan Amal Alhassan is the founder of Outsource Global, a contact centre business process outsourcing(BPO) company. In 10 years, she has successfully built her company from an IT training centre to one of the largest outsourcing companies in Africa, employing over 1500 people, and establishing Nigeria as a top destination for BPO. Amal has an MSc in Business Administration from Bayero University, Kano and is passionate about helping people, especially women, become digitally literate and space in the technology boom. Her workforce consists of 50% women. Farida Kabir Farida is a growth and policy expert who has worked extensively at the intersection of ICT and policy. She was CEO of OTRAC, a startup which develops enterprise software systems for the Nigerian healthcare sector, where she oversaw the startup’s $200,000 pre-seed raise to expand system operations in Nigeria and South Africa. She proceeded to the World Bank Group where managed the Digital Identity System project. Farida is now the group head of growth and brand at Sudo Africa, a fast-growing payments startup in Abuja.
Read MoreMansa partners with Big Cabal Media to spotlight its Moonshot conference in the United States
Mansa, a US-based free streaming platform for black content, has partnered with Big Cabal Media, the parent company of TechCabal to advertise its tech conference, Moonshot. Mansa, the free ad-supported streaming platform that raised $8 million in April, has partnered with Big Cabal Media, the parent company of TechCabal, to showcase its annual tech conference, Moonshot, to Mansa’s stateside audience. Founded by actors David Oyelowo, Chike Okonkwo, and Nate Parker, with Zak Tanjeloff, a tech entrepreneur, this is the first partnership Mansa is announcing to promote black-owned businesses on its platform. Mansa will use unsold ad inventory, when available, to promote these businesses for free. The ads will include pre-roll and mid-roll, 15- and 30-second ads. The company already has an average session time between 60 and 65 minutes, after coming out of stealth eight months ago. “We are thrilled to partner with Big Cabal Media, a pioneering force in African digital media,” said David Oyelowo, co-founder of Mansa and three-time Golden Globe winner. “At Mansa, we believe in the power of our voices and innovative content. This partnership is a testament to our commitment to showcasing our best and brightest and fostering a vibrant global community.” Big Cabal Media raises $2.3m to expand its compelling line of digital products TechCabal’s Moonshot conference, Africa’s premier tech conference, brings innovators and thought leaders from around the continent to explore the latest trends and developments in African technology for two days in Lagos. The conference builds on TechCabal’s robust coverage of the African tech ecosystem. The publication crossed one million monthly web users in October, the largest monthly audience size in its ten-year history, tripling the number of readers from 390,000 in January. Mansa was founded to showcase black content to black audiences, which make up almost 40% of advertising-based video-on-demand audiences. For Mansa, which already has thousands of hours of licenced content and dozens of channels and has streamed tens of millions of minutes to date, spotlighting African businesses aligns with the company’s mission to bring more black stories to the world. TechCabal hits one million web users – the largest audience in its ten-year history
Read MoreNigerian consumers feel the pinch as inflation hits 28.20%, food costs bite
Nigeria’s inflation rate has jumped for a record 11th time this month, adding pressure on the central bank to hold a rate hike meeting In November, Nigerian households felt the pinch even more as consumer prices rose for the eleventh consecutive month this year, making it likely that the country’s Central Bank will raise interest rates. Official data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that headline inflation, which tracks the prices of food, energy and other commodities, rose to 28.20%. Food prices continue to be a major cost component for many Nigerians. The price of staples like bread and yam rose. Overall, November’s food inflation figure was 32.84%. “The inflation rate will continue to rise throughout 2024 because of low economic productivity,” said Mayowa Badejo, a partner at 213 Capital, an investment and risk advisory firm. “The only way to reduce the impact is to boost local production, particularly agriculture and energy sectors which are responsible for over 50% of our inflation rate.” The Director of the Communications Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Julie Kozack recently called on the leadership of the Central Bank to further hike interest rates at the next rate meeting. However, the continuous silence of the Central Bank Governor on rate hike meetings does not inspire any hope for analysts that inflation would be curbed. Nonetheless, Cardoso, in a recent meeting with the Joint Committee on Banking, Insurance, and Other Financial Institutions assured that inflation would slump in 2024. “Inflation pressures may persist in the short-term but are expected to decline in 2024,” he said during the presentation yesterday at the nation’s capital.
Read MoreOPay faces scrutiny over weak KYC system: impersonation, account tiers raise red flags
Despite rising fraud concerns, Nigerian financial technology company OPay has continued to adopt lax registration processes that make its digital platform vulnerable to bad actors, checks by TechCabal have revealed. Since it launched in 2018, OPay has become one of the biggest mobile money services in Nigeria and has pursued an elaborate marketing campaign to win over new customers, particularly unbanked people who do not have a bank account. To draw in unbanked customers, the company joined other fintechs and commercial banks to simplify the registration process for new users, including removing strict requirements for identity verification for the most basic bank account type with limited features. However, in recent months, these lax standards have drawn criticism following rising concerns over financial fraud in the country. Now, checks by TechCabal show that OPay continues to allow new users to sign up to its platform without proper verification. After submitting basic personal information, new customers to the Chinese-owned fintech app can verify their identity using a phone number, a National Identification Number (NIN), a bank account number or a bank verification number (BVN). Users must also submit a real-time facial verification to confirm their identity. OPay uses a tiered verification process — ranging from tier 1 to 4 — allowing users to access a larger suite of services once they submit a BVN or an NIN. However, multiple tests show that OPay’s basic account verification process for tier 1 is weak, and the facial identity system is porous, which could allow bad actors to register for the service and begin carrying out transactions within 60 seconds. In one test, OPay allowed a user to sign up on the service using basic personal information, name and birthday, about a celebrity to register. While OPay requires users to submit either a bank account or phone number for verification, the app did not proceed to verify the details. Although OPay claims to require facial recognition to complete the registration process, perhaps to match the record to the bank account, the app merely took a picture and approved the user. A man completed the facial recognition while the newly created account was female. OPay’s system did not flag this anomaly, even days after creating the account. The checks show the weaknesses in OPay’s account management processes, which could make it a haven for bad actors looking to impersonate and defraud unsuspecting victims. “Face verification is not solving for anything if it does not match the BVN details,” said a KYC expert who asked not to be named so they could speak freely. The expert suggested that OPay should collect a user’s BVN before verifying their face. OPay did not immediately respond to TechCabal’s request for comments. Under OPay’s basic account type, tier 1, users can deposit up to N300,000 in their mobile money wallets, and make transactions of up to N50,000. While these transaction limits are restricted, the ease of creating dozens of fraudulent OPay accounts raises concerns about security practices at the company. In the first week of December, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) warned against such a weak verification process. The banking regulator tasked all financial services to implement stricter know-your-customer (KYC) processes and disable bank accounts or mobile money wallets that have not been verified with a BVN or a NIN. Financial services are expected to comply before the deadline in April 2024. *Additional reporting by Faith Omoniyi
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