Hello Africa!
We kick off today’s big 5 with news from Google.
Google to Shut Down Google+ After User Data Leaked… Google will close down the consumer version of its social network, Google+ and intensify its data sharing policies. This comes just after its announcement on Monday that private profile data of not less than 500,000 users may have been exposed to hundreds of external developers.
Also on Google, Chrome 70 will be unveiled in the coming weeks and may block many secure websites with old certificates.
TechCrunch reported that Chrome will show security error messages for sites which run Symantec certificates issued before June 2016. This includes legacy Thawte, VeriSign, Equifax, GeoTrust, and RapidSSL certificates.
Moving on, Mozambique based pay-as-you-go (PAYG) firm, SolarWorks! has raised a €2 million fund. The investment round was led by EDP Renováveis (an EDP Group subsidiary) in partnership with venture building firm Persistent Energy Capital LLC.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Egypt’s Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation (MIIC) will be selecting 100 Africa-based entrepreneurs. The selected start-ups would be to linked up with business leaders, investors, financial institutions and policymakers at the Africa 2018 Forum.
Interested applicants can apply here and the deadline for submitting applications is October 21st, 2018.
And lastly, Taxify customer can now get estimates for their rides, fares and duration through Google Maps. The ride-hailing company announced this in a communique by Taxify General Manager East Africa, Shivachi Muleji, he said the service tab will display information on the proximity of Taxify cars to allow customer’s book the ride.
And that is all for the day, see you tomorrow.