Latest ways to create virtual NIN 2024
In compliance with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) directive, individuals are now required to create a Virtual National Identification Number (VNIN) to facilitate the integration of their NIN with their mobile numbers. In other words, if you are for example an MTN subscriber who is trying to link your NIN to your MTN number, you will need this virtual NIN during the process. The Virtual National Identification Number, or VNIN, serves as a digital representation of your NIN, offering a secure method to present this crucial identification information. Its design prevents unauthorised cloning or duplication, ensuring the protection of sensitive personal data. How to create a Virtual NIN for use Firstly, kindly note that Virtual NIN numbers are generated to expire within 72 hours whether used or unused. Therefore, if you do not make use of the number before its 72-hour lifespan elapses, you will need to re-generate another one. To initiate the process of creating a VNIN, you should: Dial *996*3# on your mobile phones. Upon dialling, you will be prompted to select Option 3 for Virtual NIN. Subsequently, you will need to enter your NIN to proceed with the virtual number creation. As part of the authentication process, you’ll be required to input ‘109071’ as your Enterprise ID, establishing a link between their NIN and the virtual counterpart. For an alternative method, individuals can dial *346*3*your 11-digit NIN*109071# to generate a VNIN. This ensures flexibility in the process, accommodating different preferences. The service usually costs ₦20 per attempt. Creating a Virtual National Identification Number not only aligns with NIMC guidelines but also adds an extra layer of security to individuals’ identity information. The virtual format minimises the risk of unauthorised access, providing users with confidence in the protection of their private details. Final thoughts on creating a VNIN As the demand for digital identity verification grows, the introduction of VNINs is a significant step toward enhancing the security and efficiency of identity management systems. This innovation allows for a seamless integration of National Identification Numbers with mobile services, fostering a more connected and secure digital environment.
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How to link your NIN and MTN line online 2024
MTN offices in different states in Nigeria have recently been experiencing a deluge of customer visits. This development is partly due to the recent text messages many MTN customers have received asking them to visit an MTN store to link their MTN line with their NIN. The instruction comes with threats to block call and data services on the mobile numbers of customers who do not comply with the directive. We spoke to a couple of people and some complained that they had linked their NIN before and did not understand why they had to visit the MTN office again to retake the process. We tried to examine the process, and according to our test results, it is possible to carry out the linking online, but your line must have been verified to an extent. Here, we will show you how to check if your MTN number is linked, how to know if you are eligible to link your MTN line to your NIN online, and show you how to link it online if you are eligible or not. How to check if your MTN number is linked to your NIN To know if your line is or isn’t linked to your NIN, follow the steps below: Visit the MTN check portal at https://nin.mtn.ng/nin/status. You’ll then need to enter the digits of your MTN line. When you enter the number, you will receive an OTP, please correctly enter the OTP into the space provided. After that, you’ll receive a confirmation of your MTN line’s NIN linking status. Should the system validate your number as registered, you’ll see something like the below On the other hand, if your MTN line isn’t linked to your NIN, you will see the following response: If you are eligible for a possible online linking, after the number entering and OTP part, you will get a prompt with 3 verification paths. If you didn’t get these 3 promptings, continue reading, you can also use the information we will provide to link your NIN to your MTN number. The first option will require you to create a virtual NIN to link your number to your NIN. You will see the following fields you need to fill. Fill them, and if the details you entered can be validated, your line should be linked. How to use USSD to link your NIN to your MTN line This option may work for you even if you didn’t get the 3 option prompts after your NIN linking status appeared negative. So anyone trying to link their MTN line to their NIN without visiting an MTN office can simply do the following: Copy your NIN into clipboard Dial *996# on your MTN line You’ll receive a prompt like the one below: Select option one, and you’ll see a prompt like the one below: Select option 2 from the above and you should see a prompt like the one below: Now paste in your 11 digit NIN number. Afterwards, you should get the following pop up: After that, you’ll receive a couple of text messages confirming the successful linking of your NIN to your MTN line. The messages should be in the following formats: That’s it! That’s how you can link your MTN line to your NIN without having to visit an MTN store. Final thoughts If none of the options listed above help you to link your MTN line to your NIN, then you may need to visit any MTN physical store or office close to you to carry out the process.
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🚀Entering Tech #011: How to write a stellar CV
Plus: Here’s a free CV template you can customise! 18 || January || 2024 View in Browser In partnership with #Issue 55 How to write a stellar CV Share #EnteringTech Hi If you’ve been online this past week, mainly on X (Twitter), then you’ve seen the HR v Applicant conversation going on. If you haven’t, here’s a recap. An HR professional made a tweet on how difficult it was to get 20 suitable candidates from a pool of 600 applicants. Why is this contentious? Well, on the HR side of things, the talent teams are arguing that people are not as employable or are applying with second-rate CVs. On the other side, applicants are saying job descriptions these days are asking for too much and are unready to invest in talent. In today’s edition of EnteringTech, we’re taking another direction. Instead of talking about who’s wrong or right, we’re going to show you how to create the best CV so you’re getting jobs left and right. Let’s get into it. by Timi Odueso Tech trivia questions Some trivia before we begin. Answers are at the bottom of this newsletter. How long does the average recruiter spend on a CV/resume? What’s the average length of a CV? Why are CVs important? A CV—short for Curriculum Vitae—is a document that briefly summarises your work experience for prospective employers. They’re basically sales pitches that tell employers why they should buy hire you. In many cases, CVs are the first impressions of the corporate world; they’re the first thing your bosses and managers will learn about you. So to make a great first impression, you have to ensure your CV stands out. How do you curate resumes/CVs that shine? We spoke to two HR executives and here’s what Chiazagom Anisiebo and Felix Bissong have to say. Chiazagom Anisiebo and Felix Bissong Five tips on creating stellar CVs 1. Show results A great CV is the enemy of a math teacher—you have to show your results without focusing on the workings. In the tech world, what matters is what you’re able to build and how fast you’re able to build it. If you’re applying for a role as a product manager, your CV must show how many [successful] products you have built. “We want to see your achievement, not your job description. It’s also important that your achievements are quantifiable,” says Bissong. Instead of just stating what you did in old jobs, show what your efforts produced. Here’s an example: Responsible for building a newsletter product. Contributed to the 4x growth of a digital product within my first 18 months in the role. Measurable metrics—results—are what matter, and they’ll make your CV stand out. 2. Add only essential information You may have heard this before but your CV is not your autobiography. It’s your corporate FAQ. Only essential information regarding your corporate or work history should be added. Take out information like your date of birth, your primary and secondary schools, marital status, and your physical addresses. “A lot of people have unnecessary information in their CVs. The thing is, only relevant job experiences should be in your CV. A lot of times, you don’t even need to add all your past roles, especially when they don’t align with the role you’re applying to,” Anisiebo says. Your CV is selling you and your skills to potential employers. It’s the real-life elevator pitch! 3. One size doesn’t fit all CVs are not like wristwatches, one size type does not fit all. You have to create CVs for every job you’re applying to. The CV you send to TechCabal is not the one you’ll send to Zikoko. Each job has key requirements, and if your CV doesn’t measure up to them, it’ll be tossed aside. For every job you apply to, modify your CV to showcase the skills and requirements they’re looking for, if you have them. Both Anisiebo and Bisssong agree with the sentiment. For Anisiebo, she says “The goal is to create a CV that will get you in the door. Your CV should be crafted with keywords that match those in the job descriptions. If they don’t match, the HR Information System (HRIS) will not pick it up” If you’ve applied for jobs recently, you’ll notice that companies use sites like Bamboo HR, SeamlessHR or Lever to collect applications. These sites use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to qualify or disqualify candidates based on how their CVs match the job description. So if you have just one CV, you’re probably going to get a lot of nos. There are tools like JobScan and SkillSyncer that help make sure your CV has the right keywords for a job application. From Bissong’s view, the way to go about this is to first understand the sector, then the company, and finally the job description. “Edit your CV to fit the role, align your professional experience to the job description” he says. For example, a data analyst job might call for expertise in the Python language. A CV that states “proficient in all data languages” will not scale through, but one that specifically mentions proficiency in Python will. To be clear, we’re not asking you to lie about your skills. We’re asking you to make sure you specify the skills you have that match the job’s requirements. Simplify with Zido Streamline your global supply chain from procurement to distribution with Zido. Start here. 4. Size matters In today’s trivia, you’ll learn how long the average recruiters spend on one CV. A hint: it’s not that long. Like tech recruiter Joseph Gichuhi said in this edition of #EnteringTech, recruiters get hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications, depending on the role. The longer your CV is, the less time recruiters will have to focus on key aspects of your application. The optimal length of a CV should be two to three pages. 5. Choose the right format Finally, the format of your CV will also play a role in which
Read MoreBreaking: Glo avoids disconnection as NCC gives 21 days to reach agreement with MTN
Globacom, one of Nigeria’s major telcos, has been granted a further 21-day grace period to resolve and pay the interconnect fees — an amount charged by telco for calls terminating on their network — it owes MTN, one day after the telecoms regulator’s planned to begin a phased disconnection. “The Commission is pleased to announce that the parties have now reached an agreement to resolve all outstanding issues between them,” the Nigerian Communications Commission said in a press statement. “The Commission expects MTN and Glo to resolve all outstanding issues within the 21 days.” On January 8, the NCC issued a disconnection notice to Globacom, which permitted MTN to disconnect Glo subscribers over years of unpaid interconnect fees. According to one publication, Glo owes around ₦6 billion ($6.7 million) in fees to MTN. The standard interconnect fee for local calls in Nigeria is ₦4.30k per minute. A phased disconnection would have meant that Glo’s 61.39 million subscribers would have been unable to call MTN users. However, MTN users would still have been able to reach Glo users. According to the Daily Trust, Glo denied any claim that it owed MTN any outstanding fees. “We do not owe MTN any interconnect charges,” said an unnamed Glo official quoted by the publication. The dispute over interconnect fees stretches back over 15 years, with several threats from MTN to disconnect Glo. In 2019, MTN disconnected Globacom from its network for five days, forcing Glo to pay around ₦2.6 billion in owed interconnect fees out of a total ₦4.4 billion. Airtel also threatened to disconnect Glo during the same period.
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – The YC of Africa
In partnership with Share this newsletter: Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Happy pre-Friday At TechCabal’s Moonshot Conference last year, we were privileged to meet a lot of you, and one of our most important highlights was learning how differently-abled people are using tech in Nigeria. My colleagues Noah and Tobi spent some time with Victor Ekwueme, a visually impaired software developer who’s now leading a company that’s helping other visually impaired Nigerians find their path. We’d like to share Victor’s story with you. You should meet the blind Nigeria prodigy helping others see through tech. In today’s edition Patricia set to repay customers within 2–5 years Iyin Aboyeji launches “YC of Africa” Access Bank takes another stab at digital lending Unpacking Samung’s S24 Series OpenAI says no to politics The World Wide Web3 Opportunities Crypto Patricia announces five-year repayment plan for customers GIF Source: GIPHY Patricia’s customers are about to face a marathon to repayment. The crypto exchange’s latest time frame for repayment is now two to five years which the company says it set for “expectation management purposes.” After a $2 million hack in 2022 was revealed in May 2023, thousands of customers’ funds have been stuck in the crypto exchange. Since then, Patricia has tried several measures to repay its customers including an app relaunch, a stablecoin backed by the dollar, and fundraising. However, several customers remain frustrated as they have yet to recover their funds. PR stunt or genuine concern? Although Patricia claims it has paid 24% of its customers, a customer reportedly says Patricia requested a video testimonial as a precondition for getting their money back. Patricia says this will help ensure a safe process for everyone, but it remains to be seen why the company would need video testimonials if it has records of all its users. It calls into question if Patricia is showing genuine concern or pulling a PR stunt. Seven identified suspects: Hope flickered in the form of a police investigation in November 2023, when the police identified a politician as a suspect in the hack. He had confessed to diverting ₦607 million ($760,000) to his account. In January 2024, 7 more suspects were identified. They reportedly stole ₦142.8 million ($155,734) from the fintech. A trial slated for June 2024 offers a potential path to justice, but for customers desperate to access their funds, it’s a cruel consolation prize. Access payments with Moniepoint Moniepoint has made it simple for your business to access payments while providing access to credit and other business tools. Open an account today here. Funding VC veterans launch Accelerate Africa to become the YC of Africa Aboyeji and Koschitzky-Kimani Iyin Aboyeji and Mia von Koschitzky-Kimani have invested over $10 million into 101 startups across Africa. Now, Aboyeji who was a two-time unicorn founder and Koschitzky-Kimani, an investment powerhouse, are teaming up under Future Africa to launch a new venture: Accelerate Africa. Both veterans want Accelerate Africa to become the Y Combinator (YC) of Africa, to help produce the next generation of global businesses. Speeding up new drivers: Accelerate Africa’s first cohort will run for eight weeks, admitting ten pre-seed and seed-stage startups from any sector and any African country. Think of founders who would have made it into YC but lack access now. The accelerator will run in person in two cities, Nairobi and Lagos, simultaneously for the first six weeks. The final two weeks will see collaboration between teams in Nairobi and Lagos. Success will be measured by how much follow-on funding the startups secure during and after the programme. According to the duo, selected startups will pitch to investors who typically write checks ranging from $250,000 to $500,000. Filling the vacuum: Accelerate Africa arrives at a time when established accelerators like YC are retreating from Africa. YC has been a major player in shaping Africa’s tech ecosystem. The accelerator has backed over a hundred African startups, including Flutterwave, Wave, and the Stripe-acquired Paystack. YC’s Winter 2022 batch comprised 24 startups from Africa. After this cohort, fewer African startups were accepted into the global accelerator. Its Summer 2022 batch had just eight African startups, a 63% decline from the previous cohort, and the Winter 2023 cohort welcomed only three startups. The American accelerator has made a significant shift towards its homeland, which comprised over 90% of the Winter 2023 cohort. Could Accelerate Africa be the mission that fills that void? Secure payment gateway for your business Fincra payment gateway enables you to easily collect Naira payments as a business; you can collect payments in minutes through cards, bank transfers and PayAttitude. Create a free account and start collecting NGN payments with Fincra. Fintech Access Bank takes another stab at digital lending Vodafone Group CEO Margherita Della Valle and Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella. Source: Vodafone Group After two years under the Quickbucks name and 7 million users, Access Bank’s Oxygen X is making a comeback. The company’s idea for Oxygen is to extend digital lending solutions beyond the bank’s existing customer base, targeting a broader market in Nigeria. Although the launch date is undisclosed, Access has secured approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to commence operations. Competition awaits: Unlike other holding companies in the financial services sector, such as GTCO and Stanbic who have Squad and Zest as their digital lending arm, Access is launching Oxygen X as a standalone digital lender, positioning it to compete directly with other digital lending players like OPay which has over 30 million users. The app’s rebrand needs to deliver though. The old version languishes with poor ratings due to clunky UX and weak offerings. To compete, significant service improvements are essential. If the app must win, it must give people better access. An expansion play: Access Corporation is on a strategic acquisition spree, expanding beyond traditional banking. In the past three years, the company has made six significant acquisitions ranging from its 2021 acquisitions of the Mozambiquan and Botswana arms of BancABC to the
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Scoop: Safaricom avoids penalty despite drop in quality of service for third year in a row
The ICT regulator will not fine Kenya’s largest telco as its overall QoS performance surpassed the 80% threshold. Safaricom, Kenya’s leading telco, recorded a drop in its quality of service (QoS) for a third consecutive year, according to data from Kenya’s Communications Authority (CA). Yet, it escaped a fine from the regulator because it met the minimum compliance threshold of 80% for several QoS parameters. Safaricom’s end-to-end QoS performance, which measures communication services’ overall quality and reliability, dropped from 95.68% in 2020/2021 to 95% in 2021/2022. In 2023, this number dropped to 87.60%. None of the three major Kenyan telcos—Safaricom, Airtel, and Telkom—registered improvements in their quality of service in the last financial year. Per the CA, the test was conducted across 44 of Kenya’s 47 counties: “During the year, the Authority monitored quality of service for three mobile network operators (Safaricom, Airtel, and Telkom). The drive tests were done across 44 counties that are currently accessible in terms of local security and advisories received.” While Telkom and Airtel recorded improvements during the 2021/2022 period at 73% and 79%, respectively, their performance dropped to 54.75% (Telkom) and 75.07% (Airtel Kenya). Source: The Communications Authority of Kenya The big drop in Telkom Kenya’s quality of service is linked to a network disruption in June 2023 after the American Tower Corporation (ATC) switched off its towers for failing to pay $24 million in outstanding leasing fees. Telkom has yet to address the disruption and has been exploring a sale. UAE-based Infrastructure Corp. of Africa LLC owns Telkom after a successful bidding process in late 2023. Overall performance Safaricom recorded the highest overall compliance with 87.60%, followed by Airtel Kenya at 75.07%. Telkom Kenya’s performance stood at 54.75% in end-to-end tests. This means that the CA will fine Telkom and Airtel for failing to meet the QoS standards for the 2022/2023 financial year. Source: The Communications Authority of Kenya Over the past five years, the CA has collected over KES 500 million in fines from operators for not meeting quality of service standards.
Read MoreDigital lending Battleground: Access Bank gets approval for standalone lending company
Access Corporation, the parent company of Nigeria’s biggest bank by assets, is launching Oxygen X, a consumer lending subsidiary, to provide digital lending solutions to a bigger market than its banking customers. While Access Corporation has not disclosed a launch date for Oxygen X, it has received approval in principle from the Central Bank to commence operations in Nigeria, according to a statement published on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Oxygen X is not entirely a new product for the Access Corporation, having originally been named Quickbucks. The Quickbucks app has a 2.6-star rating on Android’s Playstore and was originally launched two years ago. “The Quickbucks app has about 7 million customers, and that is what they are trying to migrate to Oxygen,” one person with knowledge of the business said. “FairMoney and Opay lend to everyone, but banks want you to be their customer before lending to you.” A standalone lending app means that Oxygen can acquire users who don’t have Access Bank accounts. While other holding companies in the financial services space have focused on fintech plays (GTCO has Squad, Stanbic has Zest, and Access has Hydrogen), Access Corporation has become the first to make a play for standalone digital lending. Oxygen will compete with digital lenders like Carbon and OPay, serving a growing mass of digital-first customers. Since moving to a holding company structure in 2020, the Access Corporation has made big bets, including the launch of Hydrogen and a rapid expansion across the continent. “We want to be present in 22 countries over the next five years,” Herbert Wigwe, Access Corporation’s CEO, said in a Bloomberg interview. Since then, the banking subsidiary has acquired several banks to deepen its global reach. In November 2023, Access Bank said it was expanding to Asia, joining the likes of South Africa’s bank TymeBank to open shop in Asia. Early this month, the bank acquired Megatech Insurance Brokers Ltd, an insurance brokerage company licensed and regulated by the National Insurance Commission.
Read MoreFirst review of the new Showmax: A big leap forward with content & UI
This week, Showmax shared the content slate for Showmax, its soon-to-be relaunched streaming service. TechCabal got early access to the streaming platform, which will officially launch on February 12. After a couple of days of looking under the hood and tinkering with the new Showmax, here’s what we like and think could be better. SPOILER ALERT: It’s impressive! What we like The user interface of the new Showmax is sleek, unlike the original Showmax, which was somewhat clunky. Searching for titles on the homepage is straightforward, and the titles are sorted into categories like “Top 20”, “Recent releases” and “Best of Rotten Tomatoes.” Users can also watch content from Universal, Warner Bros and HBO. One of the main issues that many users of DStv, the satellite TV service offered by Showmax’s parent company MultiChoice, had was the bundling of sports channels into the overall subscription fee. The new Showmax lets users subscribe either for a Premier League-only mobile package or a bundle of the PL and entertainment content, which is also only available on mobile. The other thing we like is the sheer volume of content. With parent company MultiChoice’s expansive content library, Showmax never had a content problem, but it is still doubling down on providing new offerings. On the revamped platform, Showmax will increase its African originals by 150%, or 1,300 hours, while its partnership with Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Sky means access to international classics from those two behemoths. It was great seeing series like The Sopranos and The Wire on the platform, which are unavailable on Netflix. Additionally, Showmax already has hugely popular reality shows, including Big Brother Naija and Real Housewives of Lagos, which will add to the already expanded content slate of Showmax 2.0. And now to the price point. Showmax’s premium plan, which includes a bundle of entertainment on all devices and the EPL on mobile, costs $8 across the “rest of Africa” markets. In South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria, the price goes as low as $5, which is an attractive offer. For comparison, Netflix’s standard plans with ads cost a minimum of $7 across most African markets. Additionally, MultiChoice’s Moment payment gateway gives customers access to various payment channels, including banks, mobile money providers, and retailers. What we think could be better on the new Showmax As much as this author loves the PL (COME ON YOU GUNNERS!), Showmax’s sports offering is limited in that only the PL is available. What about La Liga, PSL, Serie A and other sports leagues like the NBA and IPL cricket league? Another limitation is that the majority of Showmax 2.0’s launch plans are limited to mobile. Only the entertainment bundle will be available for all devices. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not a big fan of watching football games on my phone. Another thing that caught my eye is the lack of 4K quality on all the available launch plans. When MultiChoice announced that the new Showmax would be hosted on the Peacock platform, I assumed it would mean all the niceties that come with Peacock. But it looks like users will have to wait a bit longer because the highest streaming quality available now is 1080p and HD for a selected number of movies. Also, despite Showmax 2.0 having content from its NBCUniversal and Sky parent companies, not all titles from these broadcasters are available. I was excited to see The Office, for which NBCUniversal paid $500 million for licensing rights in 2019. To my disappointment, it was not available on the new Showmax. Showmax has stated that some movies and shows will gradually be added, so let’s hope that will happen sooner rather than later. After trying out the new Showmax, it’s an improvement on the streaming platform’s previous iteration. Of course some annoyances, as we mentioned, but there are also nice features which make up for those. The big question is whether this new platform can build up on the momentum made on Netflix. For that, we say let the customers decide when they finally get access to Showmaxo on February 12.
Read MoreExclusive: Backed by $750k grant, Aboyeji and Koschitzky-Kimani are launching the YC of Africa
Iyin Aboyeji, the founder of the VC firm Future Africa, and Mia von Koschitzky-Kimani, a general partner at the firm, are launching Accelerate Africa, an accelerator backed by a $750,000 USAID grant. Aboyeji and Koschitzky-Kimani, who have two unicorns and several exits between them, hope to produce the next generation of global businesses. “The big idea is to become the YC of Africa,” Aboyeji told TechCabal. Accelerate Africa’s first cohort will run for eight weeks and admit ten pre-seed and seed-stage startups across all sectors and from any of Africa’s 54 countries. During the programme, Accelerate will work with founders to improve their storytelling, build their team, and figure out business development and product development. The launch of Accelerate Africa comes as accelerators are quietly shutting down across the continent. Y Combinator, arguably the world’s most famous accelerator, is also beating a retreat from Africa. The accelerator’s summer 2023 cohort had only three African startups. “We are looking for founders with great ideas and massive market opportunities. The impressive ones who would have gotten into YC but can’t because YC is closing their doors to Africa, so to speak,” Aboyeji told TechCabal. Aboyeji doesn’t find the American accelerator’s refocus on its homeland surprising. “When capital is scarce and expensive, you will focus on the demography you know. Especially if you have had egg on your face several times.” Last year, YC-backed companies like 54Gene and Dash shut down in clouds of controversy after raising significant amounts of money. Accelerate Africa will fill the shoes of now-retreating American accelerator Y Combinator, a funding magnet and a mark of credibility for African startups. Iyin Aboyeji is confident of success. “We have an African perspective, which YC lacked. We also have access to regulators and leaders at [traditional financial institutions like] banks and can provide guidance grounded in the context of Africa’s market and business realities.” How will Accelerate Africa measure success? Unlike the recent trend of accelerators running remotely, Accelerate Africa will work with the startups in person throughout, and the ten selected startups will be divided into two groups of five. For the first six weeks, the programme will run concurrently in two cities—Nairobi and Lagos—headed by Koschitzky-Kimani and Aboyeji. In the final two weeks, five startups in Nairobi will join the teams in Lagos. The first cohort will run from April to May. The accelerator will measure its success by the amount of follow-on funding the ten startups get during and after the programme. However, unlike YC, participating in the accelerator does not come with guaranteed funding from the accelerator itself. This distinction is important to Aboyeji because of an earlier experience in the pilot phase of the accelerator, where all 25 startups received investment for participating. “Finalising those equity investments was a messy process, as we realised later on that the thesis of the Future Africa fund did not align with some of these businesses.” At the end of the accelerator programme, participating startups will get a chance to pitch to investors on demo day. This will include angel investors who typically write $25,000-$50,000 cheques, Series A and Series B investors, and Future Africa, whose cheque size ranges from $250,000-$500,000. But Aboyeji is clear that the accelerator is not a pipeline into Future Africa’s portfolio. “We may invest or might not.” The accelerator is separate from the VC firm, but the programme will be facilitated by some staff of Future Africa and may raise some concerns about a potential conflict of interest between Future Africa and its new accelerator program, considering that some startups may hold ideas and technology similar to existing portfolio companies. “We’re not signing NDAs,” admitted Iyin Aboyeji, “but we have no interest in building startups ourselves.” He also said Future Africa has a reputation for ‘Chinese walls’ within its portfolio, so startups can rest assured their information won’t be shared with potential competitors.
Read MoreHow Isaac Sesi is countering food loss in rural farming communities
This article was contributed to TechCabal by Sefakor Fekpe via bird story agency. Isaac Sesi picks up a small bucket of maize to demonstrate the latest iteration of his moisture-measuring device. Powering the device with batteries, he presses a button. A white screen shows the types of grain to select for the test; he selects the maize category and then presses another button to take the reading. Sesi is demonstrating the latest model of the GrainMate moisture meter, his solution to countering food loss in rural farming communities. “Moisture content is one of the physical quantities that are essential in determining the quality of your end product, so we have come up with the GrainMate to make it easy to know how much moisture content you have in your product,” Sesi explained. As a young man from a farming community in the Ashanti region of Ghana, Sesi became familiar with the challenges of storing grain the hard way, witnessing the difficulties his parents and other farmers experienced when trying to store their farm produce. He dedicated his academic career to finding a solution to this food loss. His first iteration of the device was completed in 2018. The idea was to help farmers, aggregators, feed producers and anyone in the grain value chain to easily measure moisture content in their grain before storage, feed preparation or processing. “One aspect of food security is in the process of being able to reduce or mitigate post-harvest losses because 30 per cent of the food that we produce is lost and if we can cut down on these losses, that will bode well for our food security because the food that is being lost is food that can feed other people,” Sesi shared. Currently, Sesi Technologies’ GrainMate is less expensive compared to other, imported, moisture meter brands. Sesi’s company offers two models. One is for regular grains, which is sold at 800 Ghanaian cedis ( about US$65) while a second model extends to high-value commodities such as shea nuts. That version costs 1000 Ghanaian cedis (about US$83). Sesi graduated from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and used his final year research project to come up with the GrainMate. “In Ghana, with research, you just finish and put it on the shelf so you move on with your life but we thought that we developed something pretty good so we wanted to make it beneficial to farmers so I started Sesi Technologies to commercialise the output of my research at KNUST,” Sesi said. The company’s breakthrough came with a sale of 150 of the devices. Since then, Sesi has depended on revenue from sales of moisture metres and other services, while his company has received funding from a range of sources. “We started with no money, absolutely no money. We just started by trying to commercialise this technology and how we were able to manufacture our first batch was that we got some pre-orders so we asked the client to pay for 70% so that we could use it to finance the initial inventory,” Sesi shared. Sesi was determined to reach as many farmers as he could, which pushed him to participate in different start-up support programmes. He emerged as the overall winner of the GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize, an award for African agri-food innovators and entrepreneurs who are developing solutions for the agriculture value chain, in 2019. “We won the overall US$50,000 prize”. This prize helped him to scale both production and human resources. “We have about 25 people in our team and that tells you that our wage bill every month is substantial and we’re making progress. We also have our field team who are in charge of providing services that we provide to farmers,” he explained. Over 5,000 farmers have now tried out the device, with uptake still slower than he and his team of mostly 20-somethings would like. “There’s very slow adoption to new technology and so we have not seen the kind of rapid adoption that we are looking at,” he explained. However, feedback from the current pool of users keeps Sesi and his team motivated. “For instance, poultry farmers use our device to check the moisture content of the different components of the feed before they put it together. When they do that they tell us that once they know the moisture content they see the quality of the feed is high, productivity is high and their birds don’t suffer from diseases because our device helps them. “There was a time when the device was not there to check the right moisture for storage, I bagged the maize thinking that they were safe but when I needed them at a point to use them they were all green in the bag and I lost a lot of money,” explained Kofi Korsah, a commercial maize and poultry farmer and one of Sesi Technologies’ clients. Joseph Oppong Akowuah, a local professor and expert in post-harvest management who uses the device to educate farmers explained the importance of having young entrepreneurs like Sesi innovate and sell local solutions. “It can help farmers move away from the indigenous approach of checking the level of moisture in their produce by using a scientific approach…These are very critical,” he explained. Akowuah believes the government’s support for entrepreneurs like Sesi under the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), an initiative aimed at increasing production and increasing revenue for farmers, will have a far-reaching impact. “If we want to get this technology on a wide scale, there must be some kind of policy intervention from the government because I think one of the critical issues has to do with training, exposure, and making farmers aware of some of these technologies,” he advised. Sesi is optimistic about growth and is eyeing a local manufacturing facility employing skilled engineers to increase production capacity and push mass adoption of the GrainMate device. “In the end, the goal is to be able to produce and assemble more,”
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