[Africa Tech Week] Cybersecurity still a major concern for African businesses, governments and organisations

Cybersecurity is one of the biggest challenges African organisations, businesses and even governments have been grappling with. The threat continues to accelerate especially due to the power of digital technology and also cybercriminals becoming more sophisticated.

This week,  IQPC Middle East & Africa in conjunction with the Cyber Security Africa unveiled a new report about these threats ahead of Cyber Security Summit Africa to held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 20-21 November. According to the report, in 2018 alone, 29 per cent of South African organizations reported being attacked in 2018. Cybercrime was also by far the leading economic crime voted by South African organisations. The report, however, notes that there has been a slightly greater awareness and response to cybercrime in the past two years.  Remember in April 2018, Pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom and Serianu, a pan-African cybersecurity specialist firm, announced a new partnership to improve cybersecurity standards and practices across Africa.

A lot of news also came from the African startup ecosystem this week. DEMO Africa finally announced the winners for the 2019 edition of the Lions@frica Innovation Tour in Silicon Valley. The winners were announced after presenting their technologies to the world at the 7th edition of DEMO Africa held in Casablanca, Morocco. Thirty startup finalists had been selected for the annual conference. The startups were selected following a few months of innovation roadshows, city tours and virtual adjudication across different countries in the continent. Before the final event, Microsoft also announced that it had partnered with DEMO Africa to provide the finalists with a variety of venture creation and technology support services through its Microsoft 4Afrika program.

Still, on startups, TechCrunch announced this week that the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield in partnership with Facebook is returning to Africa in 2018. Following the breakout success of last year’s Startup Battlefield Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, the 2018 competition will unfold in Lagos, Nigeria. The hottest startups from across the Sub-Saharan Africa region will be competing to be crowned the continent’s best startup on 11 December, following in the footsteps of 2017 overall winner, Lori Systems hailing from Kenya, who have built a logistics platform that is revolutionising the cargo-transport value chain in Africa.

Samsung unveiled its largest Samsung Experience Store in Africa in Nairobi. The store is also the largest Samsung Experience Store in Africa and will offer new and existing customers an immersive tour of the firm’s mobile and consumer electronics product portfolio. This came just a few weeks after the company unveiled its first device equipped with a triple camera in Kenya. Earlier on, the Samsung had also unveiled its 2018 lineup of QLED TVs in the country.  Introducing new products in the African market is not just what Samsung has been involved in. In an article published by African Business Communities, we told you how the company was also involved in mentoring African startups as part of employee volunteer programme.

Mastercard was also in the news this week. The company’s President and CEO, Ajay Banga, visited Zimbabwe to show Mastercard's support for the country's drive to create a new wave of digital payments and inclusive growth. The company, in partnership with M-KOPA Solar and Centenary Bank, also celebrated the first ‘pay-as-you-go’ QR transaction this week, officially launching the initiative, which provides a simple and inexpensive way to power the homes and businesses of Ugandans. Mastercard has over the last few months been rolling our mobile payment services across different countries, most of which we covered here. In South Africa, it introduced a new app to ease bill payments while in Uganda through another partnership with MTN Uganda, UBA bank, it announced MTN MoMo, a new service that will enable quicker, safer and more convenient online payments globally.

On matters Telecom, Kenya’s Communication Authority released its latest statistics on the total revenue earned by mobile service providers in the last 12 months. The revenue increased by 8.5 per cent to Ksh 252.3 billion, approximately $2.5 billion.  Safaricom which is one of these providers also marked its 18th anniversary and launched a number of promotions for its customers. In Egypt, the country’s telecom operator signed a  $500million medium-term syndicated loan, which will be used to support its capital and operational expenditure and refinance an existing short-term facility. In South Africa, Vodacom partnered with device manufacturers to introduce the next chapter in the evolution of the Vodacom network, Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) – also known as Super High Definition (SHD) voice or HD Voice+ in a live commercial network.

Other highlights of the week included AMN and Intelsat partnering to connect ultra-rural Sub-Saharan Africa,Uber launching a safety toolkit for riders and drivers across Africa and Versa Networks, the innovator of a next-generation software platform, Versa Secure Cloud IP announcing a joint SD-WAN deployment with BringCom Incorporated, a telecommunications provider focused on wholesale and retail telecommunications services in Africa.