[Africa Tech Week] Facebook continues to empower African communities

Since opening its African office, Facebook has been at the forefront in supporting African initiatives. This week, the social media giant announced the winners of its community leadership programme. Six Kenyans were among those who were selected to join the programme and will each receive cash prizes from Facebook to support their community initiatives.

At the same time, Facebook also announced a new partnership with the Internet Society to expand internet connectivity in Africa. This will be done by developing Internet Exchange Points (IXP) throughout Africa. This is not the first time Facebook was entering into such partnerships, in a previous article published here, Facebook announced that it had partnered with over 20 non-governmental organisations and government agencies to promote online safety.  In 2017, it also partnered with MainOne and Tizeti to enable the expansion of internet services in Lagos.

This week, Microsoft also announced a new partnership with the Lions@frica initiative of the African Technology Foundation to empower the startups' finalists that will be pitching at DEMO Africa 2018. Through the Microsoft 4Afrika initiative, Microsft will provide the finalists with a variety of venture creation and technology support services through. This came just a few weeks after Microsoft announced the three startups that have been selected for Microsoft’s third annual Airband Grant Fund. The grant is part of the Microsoft Airband Initiative launched in 2017, whose goal is to expand the internet’s reach across the world. Last month, the company also launched Kaizala Pro, a mobile app for Kenyan businesses that improve the way businesses communicate and collaborate.

Still on startups, Labes Key – schoolap was named the winner of  Seedstars World Kinshasa. The ed-tech startup which aims to improve the quality of teaching via the internet by providing access to digital lessons beat 10 other startups to emerge the overall winner for its innovative sustainable solution.Seedstars world has been on African tour selecting innovative startups that will represent their respective countries at the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland to compete for up to USD 1 million in equity investment. SUDPAY, a startup that allows municipalities to mobilize more revenue by digitizing the collection of local taxes and financially including merchants is the winner of Seedstars Dakar. In Uganda, Agri-tech startup Agro Supply Uganda Limited emerged the winner.

Google has also recently been involved in a number of activities across the continent this week. First, Google Search marked its 20th anniversary and also went ahead to announce what it is calling the future of search with new updates.  Remember earlier on, Google Search has now made it possible for Swahili users to get more intelligent and contextualized results of people, things, and entities that Google already knows about. Early this month, the search giant also partnered with Vodacom Tanzania to give customers the option to pay for content on the Google Play Store using Vodacom Airtime balance. This came after its Art Selfie, new tool that connects art lovers with thousands of art pieces that resemble their face from art galleries across the world went live in Kenya.

On matters fintech, MTN Uganda in partnership with Mastercard and United Bank for Africa (UBA) have announced MTN MoMo,  a new service that will enable quicker, safer and more convenient online payments globally.

This week, Safaricom was also recognized as a Global Compact LEAD company for its ongoing commitment to the United Nations Global Compact and its Ten Principles for responsible business. This came just a few weeks after the telecommunications company had announced a number of partnerships with Kenya Red Cross, WorldRemit among others. It also recently received Tier III Design Certification from Uptime Institute for the Thika Data Center, thus joining elite data centres in the world to be certified by the leading Data Center Authority.

The Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) this week launched its fourth incubator and tech hub in Nairobi. The pan-African entrepreneurial training program, seed fund and tech incubator's new hub located at the Nairobi Garage will serve as its flagship East African space. Last you MEST Launched two new Incubator spaces in Lagos, Nigeria, and Cape Town, South Africa, as the program continues to expand its presence across the continent.

Infor, a provider of industry-specific cloud applications, announced that Ibnsina Pharma, one of Egypt's largest distributors of pharmaceutical products, has invested in a warehouse management system, and Infor OS to help unify and integrate its business processes across its developing operations. Redstor, a leading South Africa-based cloud data management SaaS business also expanded its operations in Kenya.

Still, on data, Africa's technology company, Techno Brain Group signed a major distribution contract with ZAP, for sales and channel partnerships of its data management and analytics software across Africa and the Middle East. In 2014, the company was ranked the 2nd  fastest growing technology company on the Deloitte Technology 50 fastest ranking.

On matters travel, Jumia this week entered into a new partnership with Amadeus, a leading travel technology company to launch the first flight marketplace in Africa. In a previous article published on Africa Business Communities, Jumia travel unveiled Web Extranet, a web version of the previously launched Extranet App on Android. The tool allows hotel managers to confirm and view their incoming Jumia Travel reservations, change their rates and update availability.

This week, Angola Cables has also announced that the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) linking Angola and Brazil has gone live for commercial traffic. The undersea cable is the first low-latency trans-Atlantic cable connecting Africa to the Americas with the lowest latency and will provide a more direct routing for internet traffic in the Southern Hemisphere. Last year SACS began deep water installation between Africa and South America.