![[Africa Tech Review] Duncan Mochama: AWS is tapping into Africa’s cloud skills base](Images/Key Persons/DuncanMochama-IncentroAfrica.JPG)
[Africa Tech Review] Duncan Mochama: AWS is tapping into Africa’s cloud skills base
The demand for cloud skills in Africa is growing every day. This has seen different organizations intensify their interest in the continent's cloud skills base.
This week, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that it will be bringing its re/Start cloud skills training program to Kenya and South Africa this month as part of its rapid expansion plans this year. This came just a few weeks after Google announced that it will also be offering new scholarships for Android, Web, and Google Cloud development to developers across Africa. The program will be offered in partnership with tech talent companies Pluralsight and Andela.
In our Africa Cloud Review article this week, we also highlighted how South Africa is one of the biggest cloud markets in South Africa.
This week, Vista Bank Group (Vista) announced that it has selected its paytech provider Radar Payments to drive its global payment processing activities in West Africa. The Econet Group through its subsidiary Cassava Fintech International (Cassava Fintech) and Mastercard also entered into a strategic partnership to develop fintech solutions for Covid-19 response in Africa. Again, Mastercard partnered with Billetera – a digital payments technology company headquartered in Kenya – to provide millions of unbanked and financially excluded residents in DRC access to formal financial and digital services through a diverse range of digital payment solutions.
Still, on matters payments, Kenyan-based payments firm Cellulant this week hired Akshay Grover as the Acting-CEO effective May. Aksha takes over from Ken Njoroge, the co-founder and CEO transitioned from his position to take up new roles at the firm’s board level. African cryptocurrency exchange Quidax, also shared plans to expand beyond Africa to the global market. The company announced the launch of its native token, QDX, and revealed plans to reposition as the global home of BEP20 tokens.
In Nigeria, Secure Identity Alliance (SIA), the global identity and secure digital services advisory body announced that Nigeria NIMC is pioneering Africa-first Mobile Identity Ecosystem. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced that it’s exploring a partnership with American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX.
African startups were also in the news this week. Nigerian social and video commerce platform Rabawa raised US$163,000 in funding from US-based VC firm Aptive Capital to help it scale its operations. The Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) announced that it will be hosting the fourth cohort of its flagship AWIEF Growth Accelerator, sponsored by Nedbank. IMPACC which supports social and sustainable enterprises in fragile markets announced plans to provide smart equity investment of between $30,000 – $150,000 with a period of 6 to 12 months to social businesses in Africa.
We also covered news on leading telcos from Africa this week. In South Africa, Vodacom deployed new sites in 21 villages to deepen rural connectivity. In Egypt, Juniper Networks, a player in secure, AI-driven networks, announced that it has been selected to design and deploy a significant network capacity expansion and upgrade for Telecom Egypt across its national infrastructure. In Kenya, Safaricom announced its full-year results recording a flat growth in the financial year ending March 2021 despite the tough economic conditions triggered by the covid19 pandemic. Still, in Kenya, Telkom announced that it is creating two 100% wholly-owned subsidiaries to house its Digital and Financial Services businesses. In Uganda, MTN launched the first FREE gaming service of its kind in Africa dubbed “MTN GoGames”, which offers MTN customers access to a huge catalog of mobile games, for FREE!
A new research by Research and Markets this week also revealed that the Africa data center market size by investment was valued at $2 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $5 billion by 2026.
Other highlights include Marilyn Moodley being appointed as South African Country Leader for SoftwareONE and trade enabler DP World launching DUBUY.com, a global wholesale e-commerce platform in Rwanda.
Duncan Mochama is the solutions consultant at Incentro Africa.
