As algorithms shape financial inclusion, accountability must keep pace
While public attention remains fixed on artificial intelligence (AI) tools that write, generate, and automate tasks, a more consequential transformation is quietly unfolding across Nigeria’s digital economy: algorithms are beginning to make decisions that affect people’s financial lives. AI is increasingly being used to make decisions rather than merely assist humans. In Nigeria’s fast-growing fintech sector, algorithms are beginning to influence who gets access to credit, how customers are assessed, how fraud is detected, and how complaints are resolved. As these systems become more sophisticated, a critical question emerges: who is accountable when an algorithm makes the wrong decision? This question is particularly important in Nigeria because financial services are becoming increasingly digital. According to EFInA’s 2023 Access to Financial Services Survey, formal financial inclusion in Nigeria rose to 64% in 2023, up from 54% in 2020, while overall financial inclusion reached 74%. More Nigerians now access financial services through digital channels, meaning decisions once made by human loan officers are increasingly being delegated to automated systems. AI-powered systems process applications faster, reduce operational costs, detect fraud more effectively, and expand access to financial services. For a country still working to deepen financial inclusion, these innovations offer enormous potential. However, efficiency is not the same as accountability. Unlike traditional credit decisions, where a loan officer can explain the factors that informed an outcome, AI-driven decisions are often based on proprietary models controlled entirely by the financial institution. Customers typically have no visibility into the metrics being used to assess them, no meaningful opportunity to challenge those metrics, and little understanding of how a decision was reached. This creates a significant information imbalance between service providers and consumers, undermining fundamental consumer protection principles such as transparency, fairness, and the right to seek redress. Consider a digital lending platform that uses artificial intelligence to determine creditworthiness. An applicant is denied a loan despite having a stable source of income and a history of responsible financial behavior. When the customer seeks an explanation, the company may be unable or unwilling to provide one beyond a generic statement that the application did not meet the platform’s risk criteria. Yet the algorithm, the variables it relies on, and the weight assigned to those variables remain entirely within the control of the institution. From the consumer’s perspective, this is more than a technology problem. It is an accountability problem. Who bears responsibility in such a scenario? The company may argue that the system operates automatically. The software developer may insist that it merely provided the technology. The data provider may claim responsibility ends with supplying information. Yet from the consumer’s perspective, someone must be accountable. What makes the Nigerian situation particularly significant is the speed at which technology adoption often outpaces regulation. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Fintech Report, close to 11 billion transactions were processed through the NIBSS Instant Payment platform in 2024, more than double the approximately five billion recorded in 2022. The report also notes that AI is already being deployed across the fintech ecosystem. Nigeria’s Data Protection Act already provides an important foundation for addressing some of these concerns. Because AI systems rely heavily on personal and behavioral data, organisations must comply with obligations relating to lawful processing, transparency, and accountability. However, data protection alone cannot answer the broader governance question. That scale makes AI accountability a practical concern, not a theoretical one. A flawed employee may affect dozens of customers; a flawed algorithm can affect hundreds of thousands. The real challenge is ensuring that organisations remain responsible for decisions made through automated systems. As businesses adopt advanced AI tools, there may be a temptation to treat algorithmic outcomes as neutral or objective. That would be a mistake. AI systems are designed, trained, deployed, and monitored by human organisations. Responsibility cannot disappear simply because technology is involved. Nigeria has an opportunity to act before a crisis forces action. Rather than waiting for widespread disputes over automated decisions, policymakers now develop a clear framework for AI accountability in sectors where algorithms affect people’s access to services, opportunities, and financial resources. The principle should be straightforward: automation should never eliminate accountability. Companies should remain responsible for decisions made through systems they deploy. Consumers should have access to meaningful explanations where automated decisions significantly affect them. Regulators should be able to identify who bears responsibility when harm occurs. This does not require an immediate, sweeping AI law. It requires clear rules that preserve innovation while ensuring that businesses cannot hide behind algorithms when things go wrong. The goal should be responsible deployment, not regulatory paralysis. Nigeria has often had to regulate emerging technologies after problems have become widespread. AI offers a rare opportunity to take a more proactive approach. ___ Omoruyi “Uyilaw” Edoigiawerie is a startup lawyer, policy advisor, and Founder of EandC Legal. He advises startups, investors, and institutions on technology, innovation, and regulatory strategy. His work focuses on technology governance, digital transformation, financial inclusion, and emerging technologies, with a particular interest in the policies shaping Africa’s digital and economic future.
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Freddie Omany: The French teacher who ended up moving millions of payments
“Be anything.” It sounds like the sort of advice printed on a graduation card. Freddie Omany’s older brother meant it literally. Long before he found himself helping move millions of mobile money transactions across Africa every day, Omany, PawaPay Kenya country director, taught French. He translated documents. He worked in government communications. He chased unpaid invoices for Booking.com, a digital travel platform, across Francophone Africa. None of those jobs looked remotely connected at the time. Looking back, he insists they were all preparing him for the same thing. We meet on the sidelines of Road to Moonshot in Nairobi, where PawaPay is one of the event partners. He is difficult to categorise. Payments executives usually talk in numbers: uptime, transaction values, fraud rates, APIs. Omany reaches instead for stories. Ask about financial inclusion, and he talks about a Bolt driver waiting to pay school fees. Ask about reliability, and he remembers a GiveDirectly—a non-profit that helps donors send money—recipient whose cash transfer could not afford to fail. Ask about leadership, and he quotes a mentor and not a management book. The longer we talk, the clearer it becomes that he does not think of payments as moving money. He thinks of them as moving trust. That may explain why the most interesting thing about Omany is not that he helps oversee one of Africa’s busiest payment networks. It’s that, after all these years and all these careers, he still approaches business like the curious boy from Molo, a small agricultural town 250km west of Nairobi, who kept asking why. Our conversation wanders far beyond payments. We talk about growing up in Molo, teaching French, why Africa’s payments revolution is still unfinished, and why he believes the best infrastructure is the kind nobody notices. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Let’s begin before fintech. What sort of child were you? What fascinated you growing up, and what kind of family shaped you? Molo. That’s where it starts. A small farming town in the Rift Valley, a couple of hundred kilometres from Nairobi, and famously cold. People don’t always believe me when I tell them there are places in Kenya where you can see your breath in July. It was quiet, and Nairobi felt very far away. My family was a normal Kenyan family, and I mean that in the best sense. Nothing dramatic, nothing that would make a good founder origin story. What they gave me was room to be curious. I was the child who asked why about everything and took things apart to see how they worked, usually without permission and often without successfully putting them back together. That instinct never left. Everything I’ve done since, and I’ve done a lot of different things, comes back to the same reflex: here is a problem, let’s figure it out. Was there a moment when you realised business, or solving commercial problems, was more exciting than following a conventional career? It crept up on me rather than arriving as one big moment. Believe it or not, I’ve been a teacher. I taught French and worked as a translator. I’ve done communications for a government fund. Then I spent time at Booking.com managing finance across Francophone Africa, calling hotel owners from Dakar to Antananarivo about unpaid invoices. Somewhere in those calls, I noticed I wasn’t tired at the end of the day. Every invoice was a puzzle. Sometimes it was a cash-flow problem, sometimes a currency problem, sometimes purely a trust problem. Untangling it felt a lot like teaching, actually. You meet people where they are and move them somewhere better. Once I saw that, the idea of a conventional career stopped being interesting. I never really followed conventional career advice anyway. What advice did you ignore when you were younger, and would you make the same decision today? The advice is to pick one lane and stay in it. Everyone tells you to specialise early. I ignored that completely, and my brother deserves the credit. He told me to be a master in B.A. Not Business Administration. Be Anything. So I have been a teacher, a communications person, a finance manager, a customer success lead, a strategic operations manager, a partnerships manager, and now a country director running Kenya and South Sudan for PawaPay. Every one of those looked like a detour at the time and turned out to be preparation. Would I make the same decision today? Faster. Looking back, which failure taught you more than any promotion ever did? There was a time we spotted a problem on a partner’s network before their own team did. Our monitoring picked up a pattern that usually comes before a bigger degradation, so we made the call, rerouted traffic, and flagged it to them. Technically, we were completely right. Two hours later, it played out exactly as predicted. But the way we delivered it made the partner feel accused rather than supported. The awkwardness of that conversation took longer to repair than the incident itself. Being right was not enough. That failure crystallised something I now hold as a rule: people care about how you made them feel more than almost anything else, even in business. A merchant remembers the support team that solved their issue in record time. A partner remembers that you reached out when their CEO was unwell. Nobody frames the invoice. We are in the business of being human. No promotion teaches you that. Failure does. Omany presents during the Road to Moonshot event in Nairobi on July 2. Image source: TechCabal You’ve worked through different phases of Africa’s payments evolution. What has surprised you most about how money actually moves across the continent? Not what reports say, but what you’ve personally witnessed. How impatient this continent is, in the best possible way. Africans love speed. Fast payments, reliable payments. A trader in Kinshasa and a farmer in Addis Ababa have the same expectation: money should move now, and it should arrive complete. That
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South Africa-founded startup launches AI model with 10 million-token memory
Refiant AI, a South Africa-founded startup that uses algorithms to compress artificial intelligence (AI) models, has launched Protea, a suite of large language models (LLMs) that the company says is capable of processing up to 10 million tokens in a single prompt. The models can process and retain significantly more information at once before generating a response, according to the company. Protea comes in three versions with context windows of one million, five million, and 10 million tokens and can be accessed for free through Refiant’s platform without a waitlist or approval process. The launch comes three months after Refiant AI raised a $5 million seed round led by VoLo Earth Ventures to expand its AI optimisation platform and deepen research partnerships. Protea marks Refiant’s first major product launch since its fundraising. “Customers don’t need more waitlists,” Mathew Haswell, Defiant AI’s cofounder, said. “They need models they can test, break, and build with. Protea is live, and we want people to use it from day one.” Founded in 2025 by Haswell, Viroshan Naicker, and Siddharth Gutta, Refiant AI is building machine learning systems to reduce compute costs and improve AI model efficiency. According to the company, at its maximum capacity, Protea can hold roughly 7.5 million words, allowing users to analyse large volumes of information without splitting it into smaller chunks. It added that such a level of context could allow legal teams to review hundreds of contracts in a single pass, insurers to analyse years of claims data, and engineering teams to process entire software codebases. The launch comes as AI companies increasingly compete to expand the amount of information their models can process at once. Anthropic’s Claude supports context windows of up to 500,000 tokens on certain Enterprise offerings, while Google’s Gemini offers up to one million tokens on its higher-tier plans. As AI developers move to improve performance by expanding context windows, Refiant is betting that a larger AI memory will give enterprises an edge when analysing large datasets. “Long-context AI has been talked about for over a year now, but hasn’t really been commercially available,” said Naicker, CEO and co-founder of Refiant. The company said it has already demonstrated an internal prototype capable of processing up to 100 million tokens and is exploring how to benchmark and bring the technology into production. It added that Protea is the first of three planned product releases. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
Read MoreWhy Nigeria’s telemedicine sector is growing again
When we put together the first State of Health Tech report in 2018, one sector led overwhelmingly. Startups trying to help patients connect with doctors virtually had the highest number. The reason was simple; there was a low barrier to entry, and many of the founders were doctors themselves. It was a convenient choice. You simply layered a video conferencing tool, or if you could afford it, a chatbot on top of a service you already offered. It also seemed sexy. You got to brag that you are now a health tech entrepreneur. Quite frankly, there was also a glaring gap they were trying to fill. As of 2018, Nigeria had 3.8 doctors per 10,000 people, according to TechCabal Insights’ State of Healthtech in Nigeria 2026 report. Compare this to India, which has about 7.3 doctors per 10,000 people. But telemedicine had a problem. Funding was falling behind. Users were not forthcoming despite the convenience these solutions promised. Consequently, investors couldn’t be convinced. Many of these startups shut down. Almost one in two of startup closures tracked between 2017 and 2021 by TechCabal Insights in the 2026 State of Health Tech Report were in the sector. In our 2018 report, the sector raised less than 5% of total funding across 23 startups. While there was a gap, it was misunderstood. For one, how Nigerians access healthcare is different from the West, where telemedicine was invented. A combination of factors, including low health insurance penetration, relatively low broadband coverage, and cultural norms, means that patients have to make certain tradeoffs. The stars align In the 2026 edition of our healthtech report, not much has changed—on the surface. Telemedicine (now known as Telehealth) continues to lead in terms of startup activity. About 35% of startups in the sector are in telemedicine. It also continues to trail in terms of funding, ranking 6th out of 9 sub-sectors. However, there’s a quiet shift happening. Between 2019 and 2026, telehealth startups raised $21.79 million, averaging $3.11 million per year. This is more than 10 times the average amount raised annually between 2014 and 2018. The funding raised was spread across 38 startups in the sub-sector. Telemedicine appears to be attracting more investor interest. But what has changed between 2018 and 2026? First, user habits are changing significantly. Users of all ages are increasingly getting used to ordering food, rides, and clothes via their mobile apps. As AI chatbots became ubiquitous and many more people got access, patients are coming into doctors’ appointments with research in hand. These have contributed to users being comfortable using telemedicine platforms. It’s eroded some of the distrust that existed years ago. Ikpeme Neto, CEO/Founder at Wella Health and health tech leader, believes that payment startups such as Moneipoint, OPay and PalmPay have played a significant role in shaping digital behaviour and building trust in app-based services. “Fintech normalised the idea that a phone could be the interface for serious services. Telemedicine is now benefiting from that behavioural infrastructure,” he said. Patients are beginning to consider telemedicine platforms a must-have. Evelyn*, a user I spoke with, explained that their telemedicine app is the first place they and their friends go when they fall ill. One study showed willingness to use telemedicine being as high as 96.2%. Since the users consider them necessary, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) are paying attention. A 2025 report by the Rome Business Schools says that over 60% of healthcare providers now integrate telemedicine. Neto tells me about the CEO of an HMO who reported growth in their telemedicine offering and was excited about prospects. HMOs are now more willing to include telemedicine as part of their offerings, either by paying, reimbursing, or operating it. “HMOs are beginning to see it as a cost-saving tool,” he said. “A good telemedicine service can reduce unnecessary visits to physical facilities.” Scaling telemedicine Despite the shift the industry is experiencing, the sector has yet to produce a clear winner – a telemedicine startup built at scale. Can telemedicine leverage the ubiquitous technology and user education to build sustainable businesses? Potentially. Armed with a clear understanding of the cultural nuances and an honest sense of the market size, the path to sustainability becomes clearer. A clear lesson from one of the industry pioneers was leveraging telemedicine as an entry point and not the end game. Nigerian startup Reliance Health started as a telemedicine startup and quickly pivoted to provide health insurance and physical clinics. The lesson still rings true today. According to Neto, “telemedicine’s broader potential lies in becoming the front door to everyday healthcare for millions of people who are not currently well served by the traditional system.” Telemedicine in Nigeria is having its moment. It’s gradually transforming into a clear VC-backable commercial opportunity. Its future, however, relies on its ability to mint a winner, a clear marker of its maturity. *The user’s real name has been withheld.
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JéGO, GoCab strike deal to put 6,000 EVs on West African roads
JéGO, a US-incorporated electric-vehicle company building for African roads, has signed a commercial agreement with GoCab, the drive-to-own mobility startup, to deploy 6,000 electric vehicles across four African markets over the next 24 months, the companies said. The first 600 vehicles, meant for commercial use on ride-hailing apps like Uber, Bolt and inDrive, will roll out in the coming months across Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, according to JéGO. The deal comes as Africa’s EV market grows but remains limited by two problems: financing and charging. Much of the region’s electrification so far has centred on two- and three-wheelers. JéGO is aiming at commercial four-wheelers, a segment that needs heavier charging and financing support. Charging also depends on a power supply that, in Nigeria especially, often runs on diesel and petrol generators, which complicates the clean-energy case. “We didn’t start JéGO to just sell EVs,” said Frederick Akpoghene, CEO & Founder, JéGO. “We built it to give a continent the freedom to move on its own terms, powered by its own sun, run on its own intelligence. Africa doesn’t need to catch up to the future of mobility. Africa is where it gets built.” The deal is a bet on a market that is expanding quickly. Africa’s shift to electric transport has so far run mostly on two wheels. Electric motorcycle sales across the continent rose from fewer than 1,000 units in 2020 to about 70,000 in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2026, pushed by high fuel costs and the spread of battery-swapping networks. Investors have taken notice of the growth in Africa’s electric vehicle industry, and the clearest sign of their appetite is Spiro, Africa’s largest electric-mobility company. The Dubai-based firm, founded in 2022, has raised one of the largest funding totals in African e-mobility, including $215 million announced on June 1 and a further $55 million from China’s NewTrails Capital weeks later. Passenger and commercial four-wheelers, the segment JéGO and GoCab are chasing, sit further back. They need pricier vehicles, heavier charging and larger financing tickets, which is why most of the continent’s EV activity has stayed on bikes and three-wheelers. At the centre of the startup’s pitch is JéGO X, an AI fleet-management system the company says handles telematics, predictive maintenance and driver-earnings tracking. Under the deal, JéGO leases vehicles and charging infrastructure to fleet operators such as GoCab, which then offers drivers a path to ownership through daily payments. JéGO said the arrangement removes the biggest barrier to fleet electrification, which is the upfront cost, and lets operators scale without loading the full capital cost onto their balance sheets. “The next African startup to impact the world will come from an African village,” said Oswald Osaretin Guobadia, a director at JéGO. “[Our] mission is sustainable transport and renewable energy for cities and rural communities alike.” GoCab, founded in London in 2024, raised $45 million in February this year and already runs drive-to-own operations in all four markets named in the deal. It reported $17 million in annual recurring revenue after 18 months of operation. Electric vehicles made up about 10% of its fleet at the time of the raise, with a target of 50% by the end of 2026. This partnership is one of the ways GoCab plans to hit that target. JéGO’s own track record is shorter. Founded by Nigerian-born engineer Frederick Akpoghene, the company began around 2020 in Miami, US, building autonomous pods for healthcare and delivery, then shifted focus to African EVs. It unveiled a car it calls the Zero Carbon at the University of Lagos, one of Nigeria’s largest public universities, in November 2025 and is now raising a Series A. It says it is already an Uber fleet partner, with vehicles averaging more than 60 trips a week. Neither company disclosed the value of the agreement or how the 6,000-vehicle target will be financed. JéGO said it has a pipeline of prospects across Africa, Latin America, the US, the UK and India. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks.Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Why a South African fintech chose the UK before the rest of Africa
Float, a South African payments startup, is taking a card-linked instalment product developed at home to one of the world’s most sophisticated fintech markets, with the belief that innovation built for Africa can compete globally. The Johannesburg-founded payments company, which enables shoppers to split purchases made on existing credit cards into interest-free instalments, has expanded into the United Kingdom (UK). Rather than viewing Britain as a market to learn from, Float believes the constraints of building in South Africa have given it a competitive advantage in one of the world’s most sophisticated fintech ecosystems. The move reflects a broader shift in African fintech, in which homegrown payment infrastructure and business models are being exported to developed markets rather than simply imported from them. “We think it’s a broader story than just Float,” founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Alex Forsyth-Thompson told TechCabal in an interview. “South Africa has built genuinely world-class payments and fintech capabilities. On a relative basis, South Africa is as, if not more, competitive than the UK.” Founded in 2021, Float is a card-linked instalment platform that allows consumers to convert purchases made with their existing Visa or Mastercard credit cards into interest- and fee-free monthly instalments of up to 24 months. Unlike traditional buy now, pay later (BNPL) providers, Float does not issue new credit or require customers to apply for another loan. Instead, it works within the customer’s existing credit card facility, with merchants paying Float a fee for the service. The company says it has signed more than 2,200 merchants in South Africa, including Samsung, iStore, The North Face, Cycle Lab and Tiger Wheel & Tyre. According to Forsyth-Thompson, Float has also raised more than R280 million ($17.1 million) in equity and debt funding from investors including Standard Bank, Invenfin, Platform Investment Partners and Saad Investment Holdings. He said the company’s expansion into Britain is supported by the UK Government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme, an initiative designed to attract high-growth international companies to the country. Float’s choice of Britain over another African market may appear surprising at a time when many fintechs are chasing continental expansion. Fintechs such as Moniepoint, Mukuru, and Yellow Card have steadily grown their footprints across Africa. That regional strategy has become the default playbook for many startups seeking scale, making Float’s decision to enter the UK before pursuing broader African expansion a notable departure from the norm. But Forsyth-Thompson argues that the company’s technology depends on markets with mature credit card ecosystems. “The UK has over 55 million credit cards in circulation, with over £70 billion ($93.8 million) in credit card balances that are incurring interest,” he said. “At the same time, there is roughly £250 billion ($335 million) sitting unused on these cards. These shoppers don’t need more credit; they need more time.” Rather than competing directly with BNPL providers such as Klarna and Clearpay, Float believes it serves a different segment of the market. “Similar to African BNPL players, Klarna and Clearpay focus on issuing new loans to shoppers at checkout,” Forsyth-Thompson said. “We are serving people who already have a credit card with room on it, don’t want new loans, and don’t want another sign-up process and app download standing between them and checkout.” The distinction also shapes Float’s regulatory positioning. As a company that operates on top of existing bank-issued credit facilities rather than extending new loans, it leverages credit assessments already completed by banks while allowing consumers to spread repayments over a longer period. Building the technology for multiple markets presented its own challenges. While the platform already runs on global card networks, Float had to redesign its infrastructure to support multiple territories and payment processing environments. “Our technology platform required significant build to enable us to run a multi-territory architecture and cater for processing payments in different markets,” Forsyth-Thompson said. “Now that this build is complete, we are able to expand markets and product sets with more speed.” Perhaps the biggest lesson from Float’s expansion is that Africa’s difficult operating environment can become an advantage rather than a handicap. South Africa’s fintech market is crowded with banks, payment providers, and alternative payment methods competing for merchants, forcing startups to become efficient long before they consider international growth. “Because we have such strong proof points with global brands in South Africa, as well as some great operational experience, merchant take-up in the UK has moved faster than in our early days in South Africa,” Forsyth-Thompson said. “Having built here in a more cost-conscious and capital-constrained environment turned out to be very good preparation for a mature, competitive market like the UK.” True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks.Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Google Pixel 11 release date and everything you should know
Google has locked in a date for its next Pixel launch. The Made by Google 2026 event will take place on August 12, 2026, and will bring the Pixel 11 series into the spotlight. Here is everything confirmed so far, so you know what to expect before the big reveal. At a glance Event: Made by Google 2026 Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2026 Time: 6 PM ET (11 PM WAT) Location: New York City Expected devices: Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and Pixel Watch 5 Storage: the 128GB tier is reportedly dropped, with 256GB as the new base Price: increases are expected across most models Chip: Tensor G6, built on a 2nm process Google confirms Pixel 11 release date and event details Google sent out official press invites on July 7, 2026, confirming the date, time, and location of its next hardware event. This is the confirmed part of the story. The invite mentions “the next generation of Pixel” and shows a gold metal frame with a horizontal camera bar, but it does not name any device directly. Google has not published an official event page yet, nor is there a blog post, social media teaser, or livestream link. The confirmation so far comes only from the press invite, which outlets like 9to5Google and The Verge received directly. How does this year compare to last year? Pixel 10 launched on August 20, 2025, and Pixel 9 launched on August 13, 2024. This year’s Pixel 11 arrives on August 12, 2026, eight days earlier than last year’s event. The event also starts later than usual. Instead of Google’s typical early afternoon keynote, this year’s show starts at 6 PM ET, moving into the evening hours. Analysts believe this earlier date and later time give Android buyers a longer window to decide before Apple’s expected September announcement. How to watch Google usually streams its Made by Google events through its official website, the Google Store, and YouTube. Google has not shared a direct stream link yet, so keep watching those channels as August 12 gets closer. Expected lineup Google is expected to unveil four phones alongside a new smartwatch. Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro Pixel 11 Pro XL and Pixel 11 Pro Fold Pixel Watch 5, expected in two sizes New Pixel Buds Pro, though no details have leaked yet The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is expected to arrive later than the rest of the lineup, likely around October 2026. This matches how Google released the Pixel 10 Pro Fold last year, so foldable fans should plan for a longer wait. The Pixel Watch 5 is rumoured to come in 41mm and 45mm sizes, each with Wi-Fi and LTE options. Leaks point to a design close to the Pixel Watch 4, with the same health sensors carried over. Pricing leaks suggest a $50 increase across the board, with prices ranging from $399 to $529 depending on size and connectivity. Price and storage One of the biggest changes rumoured for this year is the removal of the 128GB storage option. If this leak holds up, every Pixel 11 model will start at 256GB, with 512GB and 1TB options available on higher tiers. European and UK pricing has leaked from Dealabs, a source with a strong track record on pre-order pricing. Based on these leaks, the base Pixel 11 could start around €999, with the Pro, Pro XL, and Pro Fold priced higher. US pricing has not leaked yet. Some outlets estimate the base Pixel 11 could land around $899, up from last year’s $799, but this is only an estimate at this stage. Google may not confirm final US pricing until closer to the event. Why prices might go up The tech industry is dealing with a global memory chip shortage. RAM and storage prices have climbed sharply over the past year, and companies like Samsung and Apple have already cited this shortage as a reason for higher prices on their devices. If Google follows the same pattern, a price increase on the Pixel 11 would not come as a surprise. Design and colours Google tends to redesign the Pixel every two to three years, and last year’s Pixel 10 was that redesign. This means the Pixel 11 is expected to bring smaller changes rather than a full overhaul. Leaked renders show a similar body shape to the Pixel 10, with slightly slimmer bezels and a thinner build. The camera bar is expected to switch to an all-glass, all-dark finish instead of the two-tone look used on the Pixel 10. One of the most talked-about rumoured features is something called “Pixel Glow.” This would be a small LED light on the back of the phone that lights up when the phone is face down, such as during an important call or notification. Code found in Android 17 points to this feature, but it is still unconfirmed whether it will appear on the base Pixel 11 or only the Pro models. Leaked colour options include: Pixel 11: Light Sterling, Midnight Haze, Fuchsia, and Moss Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL: Light Fog, Midnight Haze, Dune, and Pine Pixel 11 Pro Fold: Midnight Haze and Pine 1TB versions of any model: Midnight Haze only Specs to expect Everything below comes from leaks, not from Google directly. Chip: The Pixel 11 series is expected to run on Google’s new Tensor G6 chip, built using a 2nm process for the first time. This chip is also rumoured to include a new MediaTek modem, replacing the Samsung modem used in past models. This change alone could improve connectivity and battery life, since past Pixels have struggled with signal issues and battery drain. Battery: Leaks suggest the battery capacities may be smaller than those of the Pixel 10, which is unusual. Google is expected to rely on the new chip’s efficiency to compensate for smaller batteries, though it is too early to know how this will affect everyday use.
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Kelvin Obasuyi learned entrepreneurship by failing at almost everything first
Kelvin Obasuyi says his mother used to tell him that there is dignity in labour. It is a piece of advice that has guided him through years of work that rarely looked dignified from the outside: a chocolate popcorn business that folded within a year, selling varsity jackets, and freelance data analysis for anyone willing to pay. “I was [doing] anything I could do for money,” he says. Years later, as an entrepreneur, his mother’s words stopped being about his own survival and became about everyone else’s. “People [who] work for me are depending on the business to feed families,” he says. “That gave me a different idea about what entrepreneurship means to me.” Today, that idea runs through two companies. Obasuyi is the co-founder at 56 Capital, a finance firm lending to informal African businesses, and chief executive of Vector Innovations, a cross-border fintech company. None of it was mapped out when he had just graduated from the university. ChopChat and economies of scale In July 2013, Obasuyi graduated with an Economics degree from Covenant University, a private university in Ogun State, southwestern Nigeria. In November of the same year, Obasuyi began his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Nigeria’s mandatory one-year post-graduation programme. To make ends meet during the period, he launched his first business venture. “It was a very difficult time for me,” he says, “So, I wanted to make more money”. The venture he pursued was ChopChat, a chocolate-flavoured popcorn business. “This [venture] also made me love business,” he recalls. “We sold [ChopChat] stands at Iyana Ipaja Bus Stop [in Lagos], and we sold at some plazas.” Broke and living in Lagos with a group of friends, Obasuyi realised their combined savings could cover a popcorn machine and ingredients. The business, however, folded in 2014. “As demand grew, we simply weren’t equipped to produce 500 packs a day by hand from a single machine,” he reveals. “Our labour was a handful of friends who later took up jobs and could no longer help, and we had no access to finance to invest in bigger equipment or more hands”. In the same year, Obasuyi rounded up his NYSC, but was unable to get a job. “Even though I finished from Covenant University, a top school, it was still very difficult to land some jobs,” he says. “And I think I was also very picky [about] what I wanted to do” He says he wanted to land a banking job. When he could not get the roles, what followed, between 2014 and 2017, was a stretch of freelance work. He says he sold varsity jackets, marketed American career-guidance software to secondary schools, and ran data analytics jobs. Looking back, he says the period taught him the value of grit. Theory alone, he learned, does not survive contact with the real business world. It also sharpened his emotional intelligence: reading what people are not saying out loud to close a sale. “Vocal communication is less than a third of what’s actually being communicated,” he says. “The rest you have to read.” He also credits the stretch with teaching him how to keep moving without the structure of a salary, and how to keep evolving in tough terrain. “If you don’t, competition simply wipes you out,” he says. “Those are lessons the comfort of a bank job could never have given me.” Learning banking from the inside Obasuyi says in 2017, he joined Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank), one of Nigeria’s leading commercial banks, in a marketing role. He spent two years there. “[Working at GTBank] taught me grit,” he says. “People have this funny idea that when you go to a private school, you are a bit lily-livered, but GTBank exposed me to toughness”. He recalls joining the marketing team at the time when the bank’s goal was to capture the youth population. “We had ambitious targets given to us,” he recalls. “They didn’t mind what school you went to; you just had to get the job done.” He also recognises his time there as a period that taught him market segmentation— that not every market can be served the same way. “I realised that the banks couldn’t serve the unstructured financial markets, even though the unstructured financial markets are making a lot of money,” he says. It was at GTBank, watching customers get turned away for lacking formal financial records, that the seed of an idea began to form. In February 2018, while at GTBank, he says he recalls a woman who came in seeking a loan to fund her laundry business but lacked the formal documentation the bank required. She was turned down. “It was right to refuse because the bank was a structured organisation,” he says. That experience stayed with him and made him think about starting his own business that catered to unstructured businesses. But the idea would take years to take shape. First, there was more banking left to learn. Obasuyi says that in 2019, he joined Stanbic IBTC Bank, another commercial bank, as a business analyst. “Stanbic, being a global bank, strengthened my understanding of financial instruments, financial markets, and corporate businesses,” he says. At Stanbic, he also learned what it meant to work within a system that was “bureaucratic” for a reason. People would often complain about how long it took to get anything done, but he says he came to understand the delays were rooted in compliance, not rigidity for its own sake. “I learned how to guard operational systems, business systems, and systems thinking,” he adds. In 2020, Obasuyi left Stanbic IBTC to join First Bank of Nigeria, the country’s oldest bank, as a Product Manager. He was in charge of robotics process automation (RPA), which uses automation technologies to perform repetitive office tasks of human workers, such as extracting data, filling in forms, moving files, and more. “I learned what it means to do a corporate turnaround,” he recalls. “How do you convince an old, established bank that you can employ
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Nothing Ear 3a: Price, release date and full specs
Table of contents Release date Price Full specs Nothing Ear 3a vs Nothing Ear a Where you can buy it Who should buy the Nothing Ear 3a Nothing has launched the Ear 3a, the newest earbuds in its affordable lineup. The earbuds went official on July 7, 2026, alongside the Nothing Phone 4b. If you want Nothing’s design and sound at a budget price, here is everything confirmed about the Nothing Ear 3a, from price and release date to full specs and how it compares to the Ear a. Release date Nothing confirmed the global launch of the Ear 3a on July 7, 2026, through a livestream event held alongside the Phone 4b reveal. The earbuds went on sale the same day in several regions. UK, Europe, and Switzerland: available immediately on July 7, 2026, through nothing.tech. Germany: also available in stores such as MediaMarkt, Amazon, and Otto starting July 8, 2026. Nothing has not confirmed a release date for India yet. There is also no official word on when or if the earbuds will reach Nigeria. Price Here is what Nothing has confirmed on pricing so far: US, UK, and Europe: $99, £99, and €99. Switzerland: 89 CHF. India: no official price yet, though early trackers estimate it could land around ₹9,999. Nigeria: no official price or availability yet. This price matches the Ear a, which also launched at $99, £99, and €99 back in 2024. Despite rising costs elsewhere, Nothing kept the price of the Ear 3a the same. Full specs Here is a full breakdown of what the Nothing Ear 3a offers. 1. Drivers and sound Driver size: 12mm dynamic driver Frequency response: 20Hz to 40,000Hz Codecs supported: LDAC, AAC, and SBC Extra: Hi-Res Wireless certification and Static Spatial Audio 2. Active noise cancellation ANC strength: up to 45dB, adaptive Coverage: wider noise blocking, especially in the range where everyday noise sits Voice clarity: better suppression in the human voice range Extra: Transparency Mode included 3. Battery and charging Buds alone, ANC off: up to 10 hours Buds alone, ANC on: up to 6 hours Buds and case, ANC off: up to 42 hours Buds and case, ANC on: up to 25 hours A 5-minute charge gives you up to 1 hour of playback, and a full charge takes around 70 minutes. Charging is via USB-C only, with no wireless charging option. 4. Connectivity Bluetooth version: 6.0 Multipoint: connect to two devices at once Pairing: Google Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair Extra: Low Latency mode 5. Design and build Build: signature transparent design with a small, rounded case Protection: IP54 rating on both the buds and the case Ear tips: four sizes, including a new extra small size Weight: each bud weighs 4.53 grams, and the case weighs 40.92 grams 6. Controls and app features The standout new feature is on-device recording. Each earbud has 16 MB of storage, for a total of 32 MB. Pinch both buds together to capture up to 1 minute of audio from what you are listening to, including a few seconds before you pinch. You can also record calls directly from the earbuds for up to two hours. Both recordings sync to the Nothing X app, where you can play, edit, and even get a written transcript. Controls: customizable pinch and touch controls through the Nothing X app Sound: four EQ presets plus a full 8-band advanced EQ you can adjust yourself Sharing: you can share your sound profile with others using a QR code Compatibility: works with Android 8.0 and above, and iOS 13 and above Nothing Ear 3a vs Nothing Ear a Here is how the Ear 3a compares to Nothing’s own Ear a. The Ear 3a costs the same as the Ear a but gives you more. You get a bigger driver, wider ANC coverage, longer battery life per bud, a full advanced EQ, and on-device recording that the Ear a never had. Nothing built the 3a to replace the Ear a, not just sit beside it. Where you can buy it Right now, the Nothing Ear 3a is confirmed for the UK, Europe, Switzerland, and the US. UK, Europe, and Switzerland: on sale now through nothing.tech, with Germany also stocking it at MediaMarkt, Amazon, and Otto. US: on sale now through nothing.tech, with Amazon expected to carry it soon. India: no confirmed price or sale date yet. Nigeria: no confirmed price or availability yet, though Nothing products are sold locally through resellers like the Nothing store in Lagos and Jumia. Who should buy the Nothing Ear 3a The Ear 3a is built for buyers who want good sound and Nothing’s design without paying flagship prices. You get a bigger driver, stronger noise cancellation, and a genuinely useful new way to record audio and calls, all at the same price as the earbuds it replaces. If on-device recording and a full EQ matter to you, this is one of the better budget picks out there. Rivals like the Google Pixel Buds 2a, the Samsung Galaxy Buds FE, the CMF Buds 2 Plus, and the OnePlus Buds sit in the same price range and are worth comparing before you decide. Buy the Ear 3a if you want strong ANC and long battery life for your money. Skip it if wireless charging is a must, since the case only supports USB-C. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks.Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Google’s Intelligent Eyewear vs Ray-Ban Meta glasses: Key differences explained
Smart glasses are now in high demand. Meta and EssilorLuxottica sold over seven million AI glasses in 2025, more than triple sales for 2023 and 2024. What used to be a camera bolted onto a pair of sunglasses can now give you turn-by-turn directions, translate a conversation as it happens, or let you reply to a WhatsApp message with a flick of your wrist. Meta has already put its Ray-Ban Display glasses in customers’ hands. Google is now moving to challenge that dominance with Google Intelligent Eyewear, its own eyewear line, built in partnership with Samsung. If you’re trying to choose which smart glasses to get, this article is your guide. It breaks down the features of Google’s intelligent eyewear and Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and which is actually worth your money. What is Google’s intelligent eyewear? Image source: Google Google unveiled its plans at I/O 2026, branding the category “intelligent eyewear” rather than smart glasses. There are two types: audio glasses and display glasses. Audio glasses have built-in microphones and over-ear speakers to deliver help directly to your ear and a front-facing camera. Display glasses that show information in the lens when needed. The audio glasses launch first in September 2026. Both the audio and display glasses are built on Android extended reality (Android XR), the platform Google developed with Samsung and Qualcomm. Both glass types also run on Gemini, Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) assistant. A pair of Google smart glasses. Image source: Google Users can activate Gemini by saying “Hey Google” or tapping the frame, then ask questions about their surroundings or have the assistant carry out tasks on their behalf. The hardware runs on Gemini 2.5 Pro paired with the Project Astra vision system, which enables real-time object recognition and contextual memory, so the glasses can recall where an object was last seen. Google is not manufacturing the frames itself. The audio glasses are being built with eyewear brands Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, chosen for their design credentials rather than a tech-first aesthetic. What are Meta Ray-Ban glasses? A pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Image source: Meta Meta Ray-Ban Display launched in September 2025, priced at $799. The glasses use a 600 by 600 pixel monocular display in the right lens, which offers a 20-degree field of view at 42 pixels per degree. The glasses are controlled largely through the wrist rather than touch or voice alone. The Meta Neural Band reads electrical signals from the wearer’s wrist muscles, allowing them to scroll, select, and type using subtle hand movements rather than tapping the frame. Meta has since added a teleprompter feature and neural handwriting, which lets users send WhatsApp and Messenger messages by writing with a finger on any surface. The camera captures 12-megapixel photos with 3x digital zoom, and the display doubles as a viewfinder. Battery life runs to roughly six hours of mixed use and up to 30 hours with the collapsible charging case. Beyond the flagship Display model, Meta’s wider 2026 lineup spans four product lines from $299 to $799, covering casual users, athletes and content creators. Differences in hardware design and display Meta has built its glasses around the Ray-Ban Wayfarer silhouette, a shape closely tied to sunglasses and lifestyle wear. Google, by contrast, is positioning its eyewear as a stand-in for prescription glasses, not just a fashion accessory worn outdoors. A pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Image source: Meta One industry view is that Meta pigeonholed itself into the sunglasses market with the Ray-Ban partnership, whereas Google’s glasses are meant to appeal even to people without prescription lenses. That distinction matters for everyday wearability, particularly for people who already wear corrective lenses and are unlikely to swap them for a sunglasses-first product. Another difference between the two brands is the display. Apart from the Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, Ray-Ban Meta glasses typically do not have an in-lens screen. Google, however, is actively working on a version of these glasses that integrates a small in-lens display. These will beam visual information, map routes, and display translated text directly into a user’s line of sight. AI and software ecosystem Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses are deeply integrated with the WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram platforms. Meta’s AI lets users stream directly to social media and use hands-free Meta AI for visual search and translation. Google’s Gemini AI powers Google’s intelligent eyewear. These glasses leverage Google’s pre-existing ecosystem across Google Photos, Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Calendar. The in-lens display lets you read texts, view snap photos, and use real-time automatic language translation directly on the glass. Software ecosystem and phone dependency Both products lean on a smartphone for full functionality, but the depth of that dependency differs. Google’s audio glasses pair with both Android and iOS phones and can tap into apps like Uber and Mondly using voice commands routed through the connected phone. That cross-platform support is notable, since Android XR’s deeper display features are widely expected to favour Android handsets first. Meta’s glasses similarly require a companion app. Users need a compatible smartphone with the Meta AI app installed, a Meta account, and an internet connection to access translation and other cloud-enabled features. Differences in pricing and availability Meta’s pricing is public, and the product is already in stores. Meta Ray-Ban Display is currently limited to select US retailers including Best Buy, LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Ray-Ban stores, and Meta Lab. Google, on the other hand, is set to launch its intelligent eyewear in Fall 2026. Final thoughts The smart glasses you should pick depend on what you need the glasses to do and how long you’re willing to wait to get them. If you want something you can wear today, Ray-Ban Meta glasses are the practical choice, since Google’s intelligent eyewear is not yet on shelves. If you already wear prescription lenses and want a device built to replace your everyday glasses rather than sit on top of sunglasses, Google’s approach is closer to what you’re after, once it ships. If your
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