Bridging the digital divide for socio-economic empowerment
Keynote speech delivered by Oswald Osaretin Guobadia, managing partner DigitA, at the 2023 Lagos Business School Tech Founders Summit. This subject is deeply rooted in the problem we must solve. The digital age has brought unprecedented opportunities, but it has also revealed a stark reality: the existence of a digital divide that threatens to deepen existing inequalities. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that this divide does not become a chasm and that every citizen of Africa can benefit from the digital evolution. Why is this important? The answer is clear: digital inclusion holds the promise of transforming societies and economies, uplifting communities and individuals, and fostering innovation and growth. I strongly believe that in the near future, a nation’s poverty line will share coordinates with its overall digital literacy and access levels. Essentially, a country’s economic status will be linked to the extent of digital training and access of its producers and consumers. The efficacy of consumer access and producer enablement will define the economic vitality in the society. Digital inclusion enriches lives, but only for those who have access to connectivity. While the pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital systems in Africa and across the world, universal connectivity remains a distant prospect in the least developed countries. In the United States, they have offered states grants to support universal connectivity initiatives, as it was discovered during COVID-19 that a large number of citizens were essentially offline. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) states that 2.9 billion people globally remain offline, that is around 37% of the world’s population. As of 2022, only 40% of the African population had access to the internet, leaving over 871 million people without any form of access. Now, with a ratio of 2:8 rural-to-urban access where 64% of urban dwellers had access to the internet compared with 23% of people in rural areas, people from poor communities, indigenous, and ethnic minorities, remain disconnected from an increasingly interconnected world. It is noteworthy to mention that this digital inequality doesn’t end with supposed poor Africans only; it also manifests majorly between genders. Women make up about half of the world’s population, but despite recent advancements, they still make up a disproportionate—and growing—share of the offline population, with South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa having the largest gender gaps globally. In Africa, it is estimated there are three men for every two women online. For these demographics, the potential of information and communication technologies to foster connections, facilitate essential services in healthcare, education, finance, commerce, governance, agriculture, and facilitate information sharing remains vastly untapped. One of the major factors responsible for Africa’s lags in internet connection—compared to global averages among youth, women, and those in rural areas—is the lack of access to internet-enabled devices. Internet-enabled devices like smartphones are critical for access to the digital economy and their affordability has improved steadily over many years. However, it still remains expensive for many Africans, with the cost of the cheapest available smartphone being equivalent to about 39% of the average monthly income. For a large population, smartphones remain out of reach, especially for women and people living in rural areas. Other accessibility barriers in Africa, include power shortages, high internet costs, and inadequate infrastructure. For instance, lacking power impedes mobile network establishment, leading to fewer devices in use. Moreover, device affordability poses another challenge, where network availability doesn’t translate to access due to actual device cost. We can die of thirst sitting on the ocean. So, who are these consumers and producers? To avoid delving into technicalities, let’s consider digital consumers as the user base or citizens from a governmental standpoint. Producers can be seen as founders and operators and also citizens. Producers innovate, creating markets, while consumers engage, deriving value and impact. In essence, the link between digital inclusion and economic prosperity is undeniable, and addressing barriers to access is crucial for Africa’s progress. What is the opportunity? I know that it has been established that there is a significant gap in digital access between urban and rural areas, as well as disparities along gender and socioeconomic lines. Ladies and gentlemen, there is more hope than despair. These statistics paint a compelling picture. What this means for us is the numbers are not just a challenge; they are also an opportunity waiting to be seized. Consider this (just 3 examples): Africa has the youngest population in the world, with over 70% of its inhabitants under the age of 30. Such a high number of young people is an opportunity for the continent’s growth–—but only if they are empowered to realise their best potential. Involving young people in politics and society is not merely a question of inclusion, but one that is vital for economic growth, innovation, peace, and security. By empowering these young minds with digital skills, we unlock a potential workforce that can drive technological innovation and economic growth. By 2030, young Africans are expected to constitute 42% of global youth. This means that Africa’s youth hold the key to its development potential. In 2019, a GSMA report estimated that closing the gender gap in mobile ownership and use could deliver US$140 billion in additional revenue to the mobile industry over five years. Closing the gap would also deliver an estimated US$524 billion increase in economic activity by 2025. Mobile technology has already demonstrated its transformative power across the continent. The mobile money revolution, for instance, has provided financial services to previously underserved communities. Harnessing similar innovations could unleash tremendous progress in education, healthcare, agriculture, and more. What does digital inclusion look like? Digital inclusion encompasses not just access to technology, but the ability to use it effectively. The stakeholders involved include governments, private sector entities, civil society organisations, educational institutions, and the communities themselves. At its core, it’s about ensuring everyone, regardless of their background, can participate in the digital world. It’s about equipping individuals with digital literacy skills, allowing them to access information, services, and opportunities. It involves establishing proper policy, legal and
Read MoreDespite legal issues, Flutterwave moves closer to securing Kenyan operating licence
Flutterwave will likely receive a payments licence in Kenya, but it still has a lot of legal hurdles to overcome. Flutterwave is currently making key developments to its operations driven by its plans to onboard more international partners and widen its market base. The company has made progress in securing a payment license in Kenya, a key African market. Several legal issues may have delayed the licensing process, but there are positive signs that the continent’s most valuable fintech company will get the regulatory nod in Kenya. Payments licence in Kenya is incoming Flutterwave has received name approval for its remittance business and is a few steps closer to acquiring a money remittance license from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). Specific details about when this will happen remain undisclosed, as it is within CBK’s jurisdiction to make this decision. “We got the name approval from CBK for our remittance business; it is a great start and a show of good faith towards getting a money remittance license from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). On the timelines, we cannot speak to that as it is solely at the discretion of CBK. We are, however, in active communication with CBK and are optimistic about the process,” Flutterwave said in an email to Techcabal. READ MORE: Flutterwave wants to make Kigali its settlement hub in East Africa Flutterwave remains optimistic about its cases in Kenya In 2022, ARA froze $3 million linked to Flutterwave, Hupesi Solutions, and Adguru Technology Limited over money laundering and fraud suspicions and another $52.5 million from Flutterwave and six other companies. While the first suit was formally withdrawn in March this year, the court rejected the ARA’s withdrawal request for the second case due to insufficient reasons provided by the agency and the importance of transparency. High Court Judge Nixon Sifuna’s ruling highlighted the need for ARA’s decisions to be guided by public interest. He emphasised the agency’s role in combating corruption, economic crime, and money laundering and declined the withdrawal attempt due to the lack of explanations for its decision. However, this ruling seems unlikely to delay Flutterwave’s efforts to secure a license for operating in Kenya after receiving name approval from the CNB. “As it currently stands, the court has directed the ARA to take some steps to complete the ARA’s withdrawal of the matter against us. We are optimistic about the ARA obeying the Court’s directions and closing out the matter. Regardless, we will continue to actively cooperate with the Court and the ARA, where necessary, to bring the matter to a conclusion,” Flutterwave told TechCabal.
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Next Wave: The Ethiopian miracle has been waiting too long
Cet article est aussi disponible en français <!– In partnership with –> <!–TopBanner First published 27 August 2023 Some housekeeping news here. From September, we’ll be adding new voices to Next Wave as two of TechCabal’s senior reporters, Joseph Olaoluwa and Kenn Abuya, join me on the Next Wave beat! This is the last (for now) edition of our ecosystem reviews and was co-written with Kaleab Girma, of Shega, an Addis Ababa-based integrated media, data, and intelligence firm that focuses on the innovation, technology, and startup space in Ethiopia. Now on to today’s edition. Ethiopia has always enchanted foreigners with its rich history and dated traditions. Some of them are preserved in the form of solid rock monoliths that defy explanation, given the crude tools of the era they were built. More recently, Ethiopia enchanted global emerging market watchers with its average GDP growth of more than 10% from the mid-2000s to the 2010s. This economic growth miracle dipped to 8% in 2015 and has since struggled to break 7% since 2019, around the same time that violent fraternal conflict drew storm clouds over economic reform and progress. But investors, especially investors with geo-political interests, are not backing down. This historic nation of more than 120 million people and Africa’s 7th largest economy is far too important, especially in the face of a fracturing global order. This is despite lamentations from investors that Ethiopia is yet to shake off the remaining vestiges of its closed economy philosophy, they can’t seem to shake themselves away. Ethiopia is the one gem that, despite contradictions, global investors seem determined to have a foothold in. Naturally, technology is not left out of this drama. In 2021, the battle was over a drawn-out bidding process for a second telecom licence which a US-led consortium won over a China-backed consortium. Here’s how The Africa Report described the aftermath of the bidding in June 2021. “A new front” or even “a war of proximity” is taking place between Washington and Beijing, one that is creating “a new hitch” in the “deal of the century”. From the pages of the Wall Street Journal to the columns of the French press, the Ethiopian telecoms sector’s liberalisation—one of the most divisive battles within the industry in Africa over the past decade—has turned into a surprising ideological and geopolitical battle, open to the most varied interpretations. For those not familiar with the story, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) backed the Vodafone-Safaricom consortium with a $500 million loan that enabled it to offer $850 million to beat their rival bidder, South Africa’s MTN Group. MTN’s $600 million offer was backed by the Chinese Silk Road Fund, which is financed by the China Development Bank and Eximbank of China, among others. Eventually, the DFC backed out of the Safaricom deal, but the deal was already done. And American money would still come in in another form. Earlier this year, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) joined the Safaricom-Vodacom consortium as a minority shareholder. To gain this privilege, the IFC paid $157.4 million for its equity position and put up an additional $100 million loan to Safaricom Telecommunications. Partner Content: How Africa’s Business Heroes is advancing entrepreneurship on the continent On the other side of the equation, Ethiopia has benefited heavily from Chinese investment in infrastructure, especially industrial and technology parks stretching back the last two decades. As you know, last week, the second-most-populated African country received an invitation to join the BRICS bloc of developing nations alongside Egypt. Partner Message Did you know that you can embed financial services with SeerBit Alpha? No??? Well now you do! Say goodbye to developmental stress and hassles, and launch your fintech products faster when you build with SeerBit Alpha. Click here to learn how you can add fintech to your product Why is all of this important? Because technology, especially today (and in fact for all time), never exists in isolation from economic prospects and the resulting social and political consequences. And Ethiopia, with a mostly young population, is as good as any candidate for the combination of youth, economic reform and tech-assisted advances to unlock the Ethiopian miracle. This miracle is already in the early stages so I invited my friends from Shega, to help shed light on this. The next section is what Kaleab had to say. A growth boom all round Early stage startups dominate the nascent ecosystem. Chart by Shega Research Not too long ago, news about Ethiopian startups securing funding was a rare occurrence. Nowadays, these advancements grace media outlets and capture public attention with greater frequency. Venture capitalists are increasingly directing their focus towards Ethiopian startups, while Ethiopia is witnessing a rapidly growing pool of startups launching various digital services that dared to change the traditional ways of doing business. Digitisation in Ethiopia is advancing at an accelerated pace. It stands as a national agenda supported by several international development organisations. With a vision to cultivate a digital economy, the Ethiopian government has enacted a comprehensive digital strategy known as “DIGITAL ETHIOPIA 2025”. This strategic framework is designed to extend digital services to pivotal sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism, with a particular emphasis on empowering the private sector. In addition, the country’s first National Digital Payments Strategy was passed in 2021 aiming to use digital financial services as a vehicle to enhance financial inclusivity. Several person-to-government and person-to-business payments have been digitised, with citizens only being allowed to pay for certain services such as fuel using only digital platforms. The state contends that it is at the forefront of driving the adoption of digital platforms throughout Ethiopia. In parallel, a massive liberalisation agenda is unfolding, including one that has seen a century-old state telecom monopoly come to an end. In the past three years, several home-grown fintech startups have also erupted making waves after working areas were freed for them simultaneously with changes. The likes of Chapa and Santimpay were able to process one billion birr (around
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – Africa is BRICd up
In partnership with Share this newsletter: Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning Musk is making do with his promise to make X the everything app. Last week, the platform announced two critical updates. First, it’s introducing grid display to its media tab so the media gallery will look similar to Instagram’s. And verified organisations will be able to list their job openings on X because there’s no better place to find suitable talents than a platform that rewards people for exaggeration In today’s edition Two African countries to join BRICS Hackers attack SA’s defence department SA joins China’s space alliance TC Insights: Big data for Africa The World Wide Web3 Event: The Moonshot Conference Job openings Economy Two African countries to join BRICS GIF Source: Tenor BRICS is adding more blocks to its building plans. The world economies have invited six new countries to join their crew. BRICs—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—have announced that they will be expanding their membership to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Argentina, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The expansion will take effect on January 1, 2024, if the countries accept. The announcement was made at the 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa last week. Side-bar: The BRICS countries are a group of emerging economies that have been meeting regularly since 2009. The group’s goal is to promote economic cooperation and development among its members. The group presently has five member states and a combined GDP of over $28 trillion, making it one of the most powerful economic blocs in the world. The BRICS countries are also major players in global trade, accounting for over 25% of world trade. The expansion of the BRICS is seen as a way to increase the group’s influence on the global stage. The new members are all important economies in their own right, and their addition to the group will give the BRICS a larger voice in international affairs. Zoom out: The expansion of the BRICS is a major development that is likely to have a significant impact on the global economy. Already, at the Summit, the group also announced plans to reduce dependence on the US dollar and global payments systems SWIFT which BRICS says is used as a bargaining chip in political discussions. Get a working card from Moniepoint With the Moniepoint personal banking app, you get reliable payments every time and a card that always works. Enjoy seamless payments powered by the infrastructure that 1.5 million businesses trust. Download the app. Cybersecurity Hackers attack South Africa’s defence department Cyber threats against South Africa are increasing. Last week, a ransomware gang called “Snatch” reportedly hacked the country’s Department of Defence (DoD) and stole over 200 TB of data. While the department is yet to confirm the hack, a source close to the case told South African publication MyBroadBand that the hackers have already posted about 1.9 TB of the data it stole online. Per MyBroadBand, the information released includes contact details for senior government officials including phone numbers of South African president Cyril Ramaphosa. ImageF Source: MyBroadBand A long time coming: The hacker group has also claimed responsibility for the hack. In a post online, Snatch claims that the data was stolen over the course of a year. It also notes that it specifically released the data the same week of the BRICS Summit to spread its message that South Africa is laundering arms for the US and money for corporations. “The BRICS summit for Africa is just a screen issued by the white masters from a country with a constantly stumbling president,” the attackers said. Zoom out: So far, DoD has yet to confirm the attacks or comment. This marks a continuous strain of cyber attacks on South African institutions following the 2020 hack of the ministry of justice where R10 million ($536,000) was stolen from the Guardian’s Fund, the 2021 simultaneous hacks on the ministry of justice and Space Agency, an attack on credit bureau TransUnion in 2022, and several other hacks. The 2023 MEST Africa Challenge is officially live MEST Africa is calling on all early-stage tech startups operational in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa to showcase their innovations on a global stage and vie for the grand prize of $50,000 in equity investment. Read more. Space South Africa joins China in space alliance Image Source: YungNollywood South Africa and China have become besties. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to South Africa last week, both countries signed two agreements to officially work together on space cooperation. What are the agreements? One agreement covers human spaceflight, and the other involves the International Lunar Research Station, a plan to build a base on the moon. The agreement is the first of its kind between the two countries and is part of China’s efforts to bolster its influence in the competition for lunar dominance against the United States and its allies. Forging partnerships: Space has become a frontier in the competition between the US and China, and they’re seeking out allies in their race to the moon’s south pole. The US has already made deals with more than two dozen countries to cooperate in space activities. China has been working closely with Russia, but their partnership might not be as strong anymore. Why? Over the weekend, Russia’s spacecraft, Luna-25, crashed on the moon, and this is likely to further strain relations between China and Russia. South Africa is teaming up with China, but some African countries like Nigeria and Rwanda are working with the US. Many groups want to offer space services to African nations, and this might create divisions. TC Insights Big Data for Africa’s digital economy African countries are increasingly turning to big data technology to drive economic growth as the continent pursues its digital economy ambitions. A report by the World Bank found that the digital economy in Africa could be worth $180 billion by 2025. Big data has facilitated the growth of e-commerce in countries
Read MoreKhalil Halilu’s ShapShap is working to improve last-mile delivery in Nigeria
Khalil Halilu is the founder of ShapShap, an Abuja-based logistics company looking to expand into other parts of the country and continent. In October 2022, ShapShap, an Abuja-based logistics company, won the Supernova Challenge Pitch competition at the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX) in Dubai. The competition, one of the biggest pitch competitions in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, comes with a prize money of $8,000, which the startup used to facilitate some of its expansion plans. ShapShap, founded in 2019 by Khalil Halilu, has two offerings: a logistics app for drivers and vendors and an e-commerce app for vendors, with features ranging from delivery logistics to routing and payments. TechCabal spoke to Halilu about the challenges of running a logistics startup in Nigeria today and what opportunities for growth exist. How did you come up with the idea of ShapShap? KH: Logistics is something that moves everything. I was privileged to experience smooth logistics services while in school abroad. So when I came back to Nigeria, I thought investing in making deliveries easier was essential. There are a lot of SMEs in Nigeria, and commerce, primarily e-commerce, is thriving here. We must build a working system to enable products to move from retailers to consumers as seamlessly as possible. I saw a huge opportunity and threw my hat in the ring. What have been some of your biggest challenges in four years of operations? KH: I frequently tell people that I don’t envy anyone in the logistics industry because of the challenges. There are many of them, in terms of poor government policies, operational costs, and infrastructural deficits, but the biggest for us is the human element. By human element, I mean getting people to work effectively with the resources provided because that is within our control. You build a technology, and the riders use it differently or decide not to. We have riders who try to beat the system by bypassing payments, trying to get fake ratings etc. We don’t have the best work ethic here in Nigeria. Another challenge that rocks the industry is government policies and the lack of regularisation. There are a lot of players in the industry and no clear guidelines on how to enter or operate properly. Anyone can start a logistics business, as all it takes is to buy a bike, open an Instagram page and set prices. These people you’re competing with, and the customers on the other end don’t care. They want the cheapest prices. What is ShapShap’s strategy for improving the quality of customer experience? KH: Our unique strategy focuses on our riders and keeping them satisfied. We value our riders because they’re the business drivers, literally and figuratively. We try to make the work attractive in terms of salary, which helps us attract quality staff. We also approach it like any other job, there are growth opportunities, and we incentivise riders with bonuses so that they know that it’s a real job with a future rather than a transit job they’re doing to pass the time. What do you hope to see in the next few years in the logistics space? KH: I’d like to see better policies in place. We need better policies to support entrepreneurs because few are currently on the ground. We’re dealing with the effects of the fuel subsidy removal and high exchange rates. All these repel investors from putting their money into the country because they don’t know what they will wake up to the next day. What are the growth opportunities for ShapShap? KH: Africa has one of the fastest-growing populations in the world. We also have a booming e-commerce market, which makes last-mile delivery crucial. A lot of upcoming e-commerce platforms are looking for fulfillment partners that are already established, to take the headache of last-mile deliveries off their hands. We have over 400 riders and have completed tens of thousands of deliveries already, so we have the background required. We also want to collaborate with as many other logistics providers as possible. We’ve collaborated with Red Star, one of the biggest logistics companies in West Africa. We are also working on collaborating with Max to give us access to electric bikes for our riders. Collaboration is one of the fastest avenues for growth, and we don’t play with being able to leverage another organisation’s strength. We’re constantly looking for partners and companies with the same values to expand into other African cities and ride the current economic recession together.
Read MoreEden Care Medical: Y Combinator’s latest health insurance bet in Africa
Moses Mukundi, founder and CEO of Eden Care Medical —Y Combinator’s Summer class, 2023— speaks to TechCabal about how the team is re-imagining healthcare. In 2018, Moses Mukundi had a life-threatening health emergency. As an investment banker accessing health insurance, he needed the doctor to sign off on his form. “My insurance rejected paying a claim because the doctor had stamped but had not signed the claim form. I had an acute allergy attack and had to be treated immediately,” he said on a call with TechCabal. And as the turnaround time took much longer than usual, Mukundi had to pay out of his pocket to get treated. That was his motivation to begin Eden Care Medical, a health tech startup. Eden Care Medical uses technology to simplify access to healthcare through its group life insurance and wellness plans. Mukundi believes this can be achieved by making healthcare accessible in terms of price point while aligning payments of healthcare premiums to a monthly-based payment— as opposed to 12 months upfront. With the right product, Mukundi believes that via this method, fraudulent claims are reduced and a viable plan is generated. He tells me that he launched his startup first for personal reasons. “This is not just something that I think has a large impact. But it’s also personal. I think I would not want anyone else to experience what I went through just because of a very minute detail,” he said while speaking from San Francisco. According to Mukundi, access to Healthcare, which is facilitated by health insurance, remains very limited. “About 15 million Africans go into poverty every year due to a large medical bill. When you look at health insurance penetration in Africa, it’s sitting at about 0.2%,” he said. In Rwanda, healthcare has been historically low over the years. The country has suffered shortage of medical personnel and high cost of accessibility. President Paul Kagame is paying more attention to this problem by creating health posts and unbundling the problem to a system of health insurance providers called mutuelles de santé. When I tried to use the app on the call, I was presented with a login that needed me to provide my company’s email login and password. Mukundi said the major target market for Eden Care is workers (remote or full-time) and students. “Already, the national health insurance covers anyone who’s unemployed. So, that’s not our target market. We believe where insurance will have material impact is for the employed and students. The product here is built with freedom for you to be able to buy the product through your employer. Or you can buy the product directly,” he said. To that end, the issue of defaults is lesser. He remarked that he had never encountered default issues while growing the startup. The road to Y Combinator As an investment banker who moved from Uganda to Rwanda to work, Mukundi knew all there was about crunching numbers and selling insurance—he spent six years understanding its failures and experiencing those failures on a personal level. During the pandemic, he got admission to Wharton for an MBA. But he didn’t finish. “I was not going to pay another $100,000 for another Zoom university. So I decided to drop out of school and go build a business,” he told me with a chuckle. In 2017, the Rwandan Central Bank had placed a ban on new health insurance licences. According to the Eden Care Founder, the market was on the verge of collapse as competitor firms in the space cut prices until it became unsustainable. The Central Bank of Rwanda responded by regulating the market. After three months of convincing, the apex bank lifted all restrictions in August 2021. At this stage, the startup sought a funding raise to meet the financial obligations involved in getting a licence. Mukundi did not disclose how much was raised in pre-seed funding, but by the end of 2021, they succeeded in gaining their license and the funds required to forge ahead. In January 2023, the startup rolled out the product to the market. Mukundi says Eden Care Medical is present in over 500 healthcare facilities, but some of the challenge of building a digital infrastructure is repeatedly rethinking its tech infrastructure. “This is probably the most complex startup I have done in terms of all the number of moving parts, right? You are dealing with six plus stakeholders as opposed to many startups where you largely have two or three maximum stakeholders. This is a lot more complex, and you must figure out how to build technology and connect different parts of this stakeholder group.” The biggest win Despite the challenges with regulation, Mukundi’s biggest win is cutting the time of seeing a doctor from 30 minutes to five minutes. Instead of queuing to fill out paperwork before seeing a doctor, you can go to the hospital and show them an OTP on your mobile phone through your app and see the doctor. “We are making health insurance simple, fast and stress-free,” he said. Mukundi said that their tech infrastructure is fast enough to onboard staff in large organisations without having to fill out any paper. Mukundi says insurance is easily sold through an aggregator and that aggregator here could be your employer, university, or an association. This is how Eden Care Medical onboards large groups and receives premiums through which the individuals enjoy healthcare. Next steps The usual funding given to Y Combinator firm is around half a million dollars. Mukundi says the funds are for expansion into other African countries, making sense of the data they have collated in building something new and perfecting the app on wellness and prevention. “Eden care products are focused on wellness and prevention because we have identified that there is a big gap in the market,” he said. The Y Combinator funds, according to Mukundi, is a validation of efforts of the growth of African healthcare and the innovation of AI in diagnostics and
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New way for PSIRA check with ID 2023
Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) registration plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety and professionalism of private security services in South Africa. Individuals and businesses engaging in security-related activities are required to be registered with PSIRA. Verifying the registration status of a security service provider is essential to ensure their legitimacy and compliance with the law. One way to do this PSIRA check is with the issued ID number. The PSIRA registration system was established under the Private Security Industry Regulation Act of 2001. This framework aims to regulate and monitor the private security industry to prevent illegal or unethical practices and to uphold public trust. Individuals and companies offering security services, such as security officers, private investigators, and security training providers, must undergo registration with PSIRA. This process involves meeting specific requirements and demonstrating a commitment to professional standards. To check the PSIRA registration of a security service provider with their ID , follow these steps: 1. Gather Information Obtain the ID number of the individual or business you wish to verify or check their PSIRA. This is a unique identifier that is linked to their PSIRA registration. 2. Visit the PSIRA website Access the official website of the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (www.psira.co.za). 3. Navigate to verification section Look for the section on the website that provides verification services. This could be labeled as “PSIRA Verification” or “Check Registration Status”. 4. Enter ID number Input the ID number of the security service provider into the designated field on the verification page. 5. Initiate PSIRA verification/check after inputting ID Click the “Verify” or “Search” button to initiate the verification process. 6. Review results after PSIRA check with ID The system will provide you with the registration status of the security service provider associated with the entered ID number. The results will indicate whether the individual or business is registered with PSIRA and whether their registration is up to date. It’s important to note that the verification process is only as accurate as the information entered. If the ID number is incorrect or misspelled, the results may not reflect the accurate registration status. Therefore, it’s essential to double-check the ID number before initiating the verification. Final thoughts on how to carry out PSIRA check with ID Verifying PSIRA registration using an ID number is a quick and convenient way to ensure that the security service provider you are dealing with is compliant with the regulations set forth by the regulatory authority. This process helps individuals, businesses, and clients make informed decisions when engaging security services, promoting transparency and professionalism within the private security industry. Have you got your tickets to TechCabal’s Moonshot Conference? Click here to do so now!
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Cook or code? Gender norms continue to nurture the gender gap in tech
The gender gap in tech careers continues due to inhibitive gender norms and the gender gap in tech education. “My superior at work is a woman. The two best backend engineers on our team are female. So when people talk about gender inequality in the tech ecosystem, I do not see it,” Philip Awotepu, a product manager, said to me at a party. The party was to celebrate the graduation of 18 youngsters who had spent 12 months learning at Semicolon, an ed-tech startup that offers cohort-based training in tech skills like engineering and product management. This party was for its 11th cohort, with 30 graduates, of whom only eight were women. In the previous cohort, 36 graduated; again, only eight were women. The product manager’s assertions in the face of real-life contradiction mirror a stubborn belief that gender inequality in tech careers is a natural outcome based on divergent interests between the sexes or it is being blown out of proportion. This belief makes people frown at and sometimes protest initiatives or policies that exclusively support or prioritise women. For instance, in 2021, Kuda Bank was accused of discriminating against men when it advertised internship positions exclusively for women. After receiving many negative reactions to the tweet about the internships, the fintech explained that it was trying to close the gender gap in its team. Eleven people, but only two are female. Image source: Dall-E Similarly, Semicolon—which trains both women and men—has a separate mentorship programme exclusively for its female trainees: SWiT (Semicolon Women in Tech). Interestingly, Awotepu was volunteering as a mentor on SWiT. He shared that he initially had no idea it was exclusively for female students. However, he mentored one of the few ladies graduating that day who had learned product management and landed a paid internship at the popular fintech company Moniepoint. “During one of our mentorship sessions, she shared concerns about being the only woman on her team. I told her that no one cared about her gender and all she had to do was do great work, and she would be okay,” he recounted. She probably agreed with him on the call, but her experience before entering Semicolon begs to differ. “When I told my parents that I wanted to move to Lagos to train at Semicolon, my father asked me whether I didn’t want to get married,” the mentee said to me in a later discussion. If she hadn’t been committed and ready to leave all that was dear to her—her family and friends—in Kano state and move into a shared apartment in Lagos with the few other ladies who were attending Semicolon as well, she might not have taken up product management, a skill that pays within ₦100,000–₦300,000 in Nigeria. “I knew I wanted to change my life for the better,” she said. Her experience, echoed by many other women across Africa, answers a weighty question: “What barriers do women face in acquiring tech skills that men don’t?” The first and perhaps most important answer is that many religious and cultural beliefs suggest that a woman’s most useful role is homemaking and nurturing children. Nafisa Idris, a data scientist who also mentors women who are interested in a tech career, told TechCabal, “[After my father died,] our uncle tried to get me married at age 11, but my mother refused because she had promised my dad that she would make sure I was educated as much as possible.” Even when women are just as educated as men, their productivity is hampered due to the gender roles expected of them, especially by their immediate family. A 2023 research paper tried to probe why educated African women in science and technology published fewer papers than their male counterparts, and it discovered that it was because a greater proportion (≥50%) of care work, family commitments, and housework in the home are overwhelmingly performed by women. Women would make more academic contributions if they were not so constrained by these responsibilities. Image source: Dall-E Nearly 74% of respondents to a survey created by TechCabal commented that the cleaning, cooking, and caretaking chores leave them exhausted and with little to no time to learn tech skills, even when their families know they are enrolled in such programmes. “I’ve had to take classes with my laptop in the kitchen [while cooking], and most times because [I am worried about gas explosions, I have to skip classes,” said a respondent who was taking online tech skill training at a popular ed-tech. Rachael Onoja, head of operations at AltSchool—an ed-tech like Semicolon—told TechCabal that there have been several instances of female students missing classes because they were helping their siblings get to school or handling some other family matter. “Several female students have dropped out to care for a sick family member.” Men have dropped out of school, too, but it has mostly been due to financial shortcomings, not caretaking responsibilities. Rachael believes that these gender norms or cultural expectations of women are contributing to the gender gap in the tech ecosystem. Addressing the impact of gender norms on women’s tech skill development at the 2022 SheCode Africa conference, Semicolon’s co-founder, Ashley Immanuel, said that, out of approximately 10,000 applicants to Semicolon, many women excelled and received admission offers. However, many had to reject these opportunities due to parents’ or guardians’ beliefs that it was not a worthwhile use of resources or the woman’s time. “Those who come despite not receiving that permission may do so under the condition that their families do not provide financial support,” she explained. Image source: Dall-E Due to this pattern of women lacking access to funding, notable figures, tech professionals, and some organisations set up scholarships to exclusively fund the registration fee or full tuition fee for women interested in participating in tech training. AltSchool, which currently has a school of engineering and products, told TechCabal that such female-focused scholarships have sponsored many of its female students. “We often hear comments asking
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Despite price fluctuations, Africa’s Bitcoin maximalists remain bullish on its future
Bitcoin, as well as other crypto, has had a wild run in the past year. In the face of this, however, the African Bitcoin community has remained unfazed. Anita Porsch is a digital nomad who has spent the past two years travelling Africa as a Bitcoin educator and teaches Bitcoin at grassroots levels. For Porsch, who started a learning platform titled Crack The Orange, Bitcoin has one goal; facilitating a more just financial system. She believes in the potential of Bitcoin as an equaliser, giving people across the world access to the same monetary system and is committing a lot of time and effort to that gospel. On Thursday, August 18, 2023, Bitcoin hit a new low as it fell over 8% to rest at $26,172, its biggest one-day drop since FTX collapsed in November 2022. Hundreds of thousands of traders liquidated about $500 million worth of the digital currency in 24 hours amid rumours that Space X had sold off all the Bitcoin they were holding. The past year has been a wild ride for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The collapse of FTX triggered a lot of speculation around the legitimacy and fate of crypto, with investors liquidating their remaining assets and startups folding in the face of loss and limited capital. All of these sent the prices of digital assets plummeting, as the price of Bitcoin fell 22% percent in a day. The asset has since regained its losses since then. In 2022, I spoke to a number of Bitcoin maximalists working on Bitcoin-related projects across the continent. There were a lot of elaborate plans on what Bitcoin could do for Africa, including plans for a Bitcoin village in Lagos, and Machankura, a custodial wallet that allows people to send and receive Bitcoin via USSD codes. One year and multiple scandals later, Bitcoiners still believe that real Bitcoin has largely been unaffected. According to Porsch, who is currently in Zambia, people who really understand Bitcoin aren’t bothered by the price fluctuation and donations to her non-profit haven’t really been affected. “Bitcoin is not a game for you to win quick, free money, and that is the mentality we are working to combat. Sometimes people are short-sighted, and understandably so, because they need money and they need it fast, which is what causes a lot of the problems we keep hearing about. The goal of many people using Bitcoin is to save for the long term, and going by that, Bitcoin is the best currency to do that with. You might say the dollar or pound are better but even those currencies are currently being racked by inflation.” “We ensure that we tell people in our communities to only invest money for the long-term and not the one they need immediately. Don’t risk all your money just because you’re looking for quick returns. Bitcoin has a lot of functionality, but it is not a get-rich-quick scheme,” she shared. Anita Porsch at a Bitcoin workshop Porsch’s Bitcoin platform, Crack The Orange, teaches people about the complexities of Bitcoin and its uses. For her, it is crucial at this stage where there are a lot of wrong assumptions about the currency and a lot of ignorance surrounding its potential. “I’ve worked on Bitcoin education and have reached hundreds of people. However, the point of this is to build something that’s long-lasting and sustainable because there’s only so much that I can do. I’m doing this so that people from these communities can learn themselves even when I’m not there, and even teach others. There are a lot of opportunities for people who understand Bitcoin out there and my goal is to get people enlightened and possibly plugged into these opportunities.” All across Africa, there are people like Porsch, who still believe in the power of Bitcoin, regardless of the scandals and fluctuations in price. Abubakar Nur Khalil, CEO of Bitcoin VC firm, Recursive Capital is one of such people. According to Khalil, a big mistake that the Bitcoin community made was allowing themselves to be lumped into a broader crypto industry. “This kind of framing harms people, as they are often unfamiliar with the technicalities behind how projects, including Bitcoin, work and their differences, which encourages misinformation. This misinformation puts unsuspecting people on a path of becoming bankrupt, ultimately disillusioned with the space, uninterested in any legitimate benefits of Bitcoin, and only poisons the well,” he wrote. According to them, their operations as a Bitcoin organisation have continued per usual despite everything that has happened. In his article, Khalil shared that there has even been a significant increase in the quality of projects that come through their pipeline. “Previously, the messaging of ‘crypto VC’ only filled our inbox with projects that were either outright scams, well-dressed yet-to-be-uncovered scams, or impractical ideas.” For years now, Bitcoin maximalists have insisted on a large difference between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, asserting that Bitcoin is the only digital currency worth paying attention to. In this article from the Bitcoin Magazine, Jimmy Song writes that “Bitcoin is the original and very different from ‘crypto’ projects, which are all basically cheap knockoffs. Bitcoin has no central controller, there aren’t misaligned incentives, the people involved have no special rights and there’s no marketing team.” According to Bitcoiners, it is this difference that will make Bitcoin stand the test of time and continue to operate even while the price is shaky. For Heritage Falodun, the founder of the Bitcoin advocacy community, DigiOats, they’ve been working extra hard to shift the interest in Bitcoin beyond being an investment with the possibility of high returns to its other functionalities like facilitating financial innovation. According to Falodun, the bubble of crypto has burst and a lot more people are open-eyed and more critical of Bitcoin. “We have to teach people how to protect themselves from centralised exchanges in terms of creating private keys to store their Bitcoin. These days, it is not enough to just tell people revolutionary objectives or theories
Read MoreEgyptian payments provider Fawry is considering digital banking
Egyptian payments provider Fawry plans to launch a digital bank this year. This comes weeks after the company announced its plan to obtain a digital bank license from the Central Bank of Egypt. Per local media reports, Egyptian payments provider Fawry, will be turning its online payment portal—myFawry—into a digital bank to provide financial services including payments, consumer lending, savings, and investments, by the end of 2023. However, the company’s head of investor relations, Hassan Abdelgelil clarified that the decision to launch a digital bank is yet to be finalised. “The management hasn’t taken the decision as well as the board. We are thinking of it. We will conclude by the end of the year or early next year. Contrary to the reports, we plan to convert myFawry into a neo-bank to include financial services,” he told TechCabal over a call. Last month, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) issued rules for licensing, registering, monitoring, and supervising digital banks. Like Fawry, several companies such as eFinance and Opay have shown interest in applying for a digital banking license. The Egyptian fintech industry is projected to witness significant growth in the coming years, with its market volume hitting $10 billion by 2027. The number of fintechs in the North African country grew five-fold from 32 in 2017 to 177 in 2022. Fawry—Egypt’s largest e-payment platform—is betting that a digital bank will further expand its serving offerings and diversify its revenue streams by tapping into different segments of the Egyptian market. Earlier in August, the company’s subsidiary, Fawry Microfinance got preliminary approvals from the Financial Regulatory Authority for the addition of SME financing to its portfolio, according to WeeTracker. To tap into Egypt’s growing remittances market, Fawry has partnered with UAE-based voice-calling app Botim to allow Egyptian workers residing in the UAE to pay bills and send home remittances. TechCabal recently reported that Flutterwave, the Nigerian fintech unicorn, is also hoping to capture a share of the Egyptian remittances market. According to its H1 2023 financial report, Fawry reported a total revenue of EGP 1.4 billion ($45.3 million) in the first half of the year, representing a 42.4% increase from the previous year. Its adjusted net profit also rose 290.4% year-on-year to EGP 327.9 million ($10.6 million) with a net profit margin of 22.7%. The company also recorded 67.6 million transactions on its mobile wallet and EGP 80.5 million ($2.6 million) in transaction value, a rise of 73.9% and 107.7% year-on-year, respectively. Have you got your tickets to TechCabal’s Moonshot Conference? Click here to do so now!
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