Loads of great things have happened in the tech industry in Africa and the world this week. For those who missed them and those who have forgotten, let’s cursory take you on a journey of this week’s tech news and events in Africa.
GOOGLE SURVEY MOVES TO KENYA… Google’s business product that facilitates customized market research, Google Survey, was launched in Kenya.
SEEDSTARS, OMIDYAR TO LAUNCH STARTUP INCUBATOR IN TANZANIA… Seedstars is launching its fifth hub in the African continent, Tanzania in partnership with Omidyar Network.
5 AGRIC START-UPS TO PITCH AT MTFC GHANA FOR INNOV8AGRIC CHALLENGE… Crenov8 Consulting, organizers of top Agro Export Conference, Meet the Farmers Conference (MTFC) has announced the selected five Ghana Agric start-ups that will take part in the Innov8 Agric Pitch Competition at the Ghana MTFC where they compete for a chance to win the $5,000 grant prize at the maiden edition of the Agric Innovation Contest, MTFC Innov8Agric Challenge.
VOLKSWAGEN LAUNCHES FIRST CAR FROM ITS RWANDA PLANT… President Kagame’s anti-used vehicle campaign has been yielding meaningful impact as Volkswagen unveiled the first car built in Kigali in Rwanda. German carmaker Volkswagen rolled off a Polo from its new assembly plant at Kigali’s Special Economic Zone.
FLUTTERWAVE EXPANDS TO KENYA, LAUNCHES PAYMENTS SOLUTION APP, BARTER… Nigerian FinTech company, Flutterwave launched its payments solution called Barter in the East African country of Kenya.
FACEBOOK IS WORKING ON KEYWORD SNOOZE BUTTON… American based social media and social networking company, Facebook has unveiled a feature that allows users to snooze some keywords. When users don’t want to see posts about a current event, a show, or even just something they don’t want to look at for a while, they can simply snooze posts which contain words related to that topic.
China Unveils Bird Drones To Watch Over Its Citizens… Over recent years, more than 30 Chinese military and government agencies have been reportedly using drones made to look like birds to surveil China’s citizens in at least five provinces, according to the South China Morning Post Sunday.
Tech Start-ups To Benefit From FG Tax Holidays… Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo stated that the Federal Government is including technology start-ups in the list of businesses eligible for tax holidays. The VP revealed this in Lagos while launching Vibranium Valley, a hub for technology and innovation start-ups described as the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.
Nigerian Software Startup Launches Artificial Intelligent Bot… Nigerian software startup, KariXchange has launched Artificial Intelligent Bot. KariXchange built a Social and Service Artificial Intelligent Bot called Nyra, which will underlie most of its applications and platforms.
See What Makes The TECNO Spark 2 Super Special in the TECNO Spark Series… One of Africa’s mobile telecommunication giant, TECNO mobile, has released an updated version of their TECNO Spark series – the TECNO Spark 2, which is currently one of their bestselling smartphones, comes with a number of new exciting features.
Now, Let’s Move To The Other Side Of The Tech
NIGERIAN SENATORS MAKE SECOND ATTEMPT TO PASS LAW REGULATING SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES… After unsuccessful attempt to enact laws to regulate social media in 2017, the Nigerian Senate has made another attempt to regulate the Nigerian Internet space. The legislators are bent on passing laws that would monitor what Nigerians do on the cyberspace.
EGYPT TO START IMPOSING TAX ON ADVERTISERS ON FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, AND OTHERS… Egypt is considering imposing a tax on people and organization that advertise on social media platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others.
MTN, AIRTEL AND ZAMTEL FINED FOR POOR QUALITY OF SERVICE IN ZAMBIA… Telecommunication giants MTN, Airtel and Zamtel have been fined a total of K12.6m by the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) for not adhering to the Quality of Service parameters set out in their guidelines from the last quarter (Q4 2017) and the first quarter of 2018 (Q1 2018).
Also, read HOW DIGITAL MEDIA HAS BECOME A MAJOR TOOL FOR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ADVOCACY IN AFRICA.