Innovation & Technology

A new study by Google and International Finance Corporation has revealed that the Internet economy and business has the outstanding potential of contributing $180bn to the economy of Nigeria and other African countries by 2025. The findings of the study which was made public on Wednesday, November 13 2020, featured within its pages the numerous growth opportunities within the African...

Kuda Nigeria based fintech startup, which is a pan-African mobile challenger bank for customers has announced it has a US$10 million seed funding round focused on accelerating its growth and expansion to meet customer's intense demands for its services across Africa. According to TechCrunch, this funding round is the biggest seed round ever to be raised in Africa. The funding comes...

Telecom giant Huawei Technologies, together with the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy alongside Advocacy for Human Value Foundation, announced their donations of various ICT equipment to Al-Walidyn Charitable School in the Pantami community of Gombe State – Nigeria. The group also disclosed that they also wholly renovated a building at the same school. The news was made public during...

The advent of COVID-19 has accelerated the speed of tech adoption among companies, industries, and individuals. Before the arrival or COVID-19, many small and medium enterprises did not think it was possible to operate their businesses outside the office's four walls. Many companies viewed online engagements and home deliveries as being too risky, expensive, and cumbersome. On the corporate divide,...

Stripe, a US-based payments giant, is venturing its business into Africa by obtaining Lagos-based payments firm Paystack in an arrangement supposedly worth more than $200 million. Established in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, Paystack tackled online payments in Nigeria. Via seamlessly interfacing all multi-channel payment alternatives with traders nationwide, it empowered them to acknowledge payments from around the globe...

There’s still no clear path back to any sense of ‘business-as-usual’ as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, but United Airlines is embarking on a new pilot project to see if easy access to COVID-19 testing immediately prior to a flight can help ease freedom of mobility. The airline will offer COVID-19 tests (either rapid tests at the airport or mail-in at-home tests...

Google on Monday said it will launch its newest slate of consumer devices at a virtual event on Sept. 30. The lineup includes the search giant's the Pixel 4A 5G and Pixel 5 phones, a new Chromecast streaming device and voice-enabled smart speaker. The event, which will start at 11 a.m. PT follows the launch of the company's Pixel 4A budget...

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to put huge stress on people’s and businesses’ finances, in an effort to meet some of the crunches, today PayPal and Visa announced an expansion of service to get cash into people’s hands faster. Instant Transfer — a service where PayPal lets people and businesses quickly access transferred funds by moving them to bank accounts (cutting down waiting time...

Apple and Google are continuing to make good on their planned roll-out of exposure notification technology for helping with COVID-19 contact-tracing efforts. The two partners are introducing new tools that make it much easier for public health authorities to implement digital exposure notification, without the need for developing and maintaining their own individual apps. Apple makes this possible via the iOS 13.7 system update,...

Apple has quietly acquired an AR technology startup Spaces, a former project of DreamWorks Animation for an undisclosed amount. "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," a company spokesperson told Protocol via email. Spaces announced last week that it was shutting down its existing services, telling visitors on its...