Africa

Google Street View enables humans to hang out with their blood-related chimpanzees

There is not a place Google has not taken us human beings, be it for education or leisure. It appears that Google wants to…

Airtel partners with UNESCO for IT youth training in Gabon

Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel — an Indian multinational telecommunications services company with its headquarters in New Delhi — has launched a…

French phone manufacturer Wiko makes a play for Nigeria

Wiko, a French phone manufacturer, is preparing to launch in Nigeria, one of the biggest mobile markets in Africa. On 22 October 20014 the…

African women in tech: Emma Kaye on changing the conversation around women

“In my experience, women tend to create a collective around them and then it is ‘lets go into battle together’. For me, it is…

Wikimedia announces winners for Wiki loves Monuments South Africa

What better way to document all of South Africa’s great monuments in one library than through Wikipedia. Wiki Loves Monuments is an initiative by…

WeChat cannot succeed in Africa if it holds tight to its Chinese legacy

WeChat is blazing around the globe caring very little of what is in its path. In the last year, the platform’s global launch has…

Fiber-optic cable to increase Africa’s mobile coverage by 20% in 2015

We all know Africa has a massive mobile population, right? Well, recent efforts will see a massive increase in internet coverage for this fast-growing…

4 Factors shaping social impact investment in Africa’s tech scene

I recently took part in a panel discussion focused on “investing in tech in Africa”. It was a good session, as it was very…

What kind of disruption does Africa’s tech scene really need?

What is it really to disrupt, or what is a disruptive innovation? And to put it in the African context, what does ‘disruption’ mean…

A geek at the helm: Memeburn’s interview with Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys

It’s not often that a geek rises to the top of a multi-billion dollar company. These are spots frequently filled by accountants or lawyers….

30 brilliant African tech startups

The methodology behind this list of startups had two simple directives. First, the startup had to have African roots and secondly it had to…

How M-Pesa disrupts entire economies

Back in 2011, I was asked to give my thoughts on what I thought would trend in mobile within between then and 2020. One…

Fabrication and manufacturing: The future of African hardware innovation

Across Africa there is a vibrant culture of people creating things. Hardware products. It’s rarely glamorous as our inventors and micro-entrepreneurs innovate on products…

Why Mpesa is still a financial disruptor

Farhad Manjoo makes a compelling argument for why the real winners of the payments revolution are the same players we already know, the credit…

Young mobile users responsible for most Twitter growth in Africa [Infographic]

New research suggests that Twitter’s growth in Africa is being driven primarily young people using mobile devices and that South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and…

Mocality scandal: How far in the cookie jar was Google’s hand?

Last week, Google got caught with its hand in the cookie jar, allegedly engaged in a range of questionable activities with regard to a…

Mocali-gate: Where is the broken link in Google?

The recent Mocality debacle has brought to light a few concerning issues surrounding Google’s business practices in Africa and the supposed ethical transparency by…

10 African tech startups worth watching

It’s practically a tradition to follow a post like this with a good old-fashioned flame-war where everyone reveals his or her own sense of…

Why 2012 could be the year of the African startup

The past few years have been about building an infrastructure that improves the chances of the technology startups in Africa to succeed. Seeing this…

Four things Africa has to get right to guarantee future innovation

Fail to innovate and you will simply be left behind. As I previously noted, this is especially the case for the African continent. Africa…

Necessity is the mother of invention: Why utility beats ‘cool’ in Africa

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention and indeed that could perfectly describe Africa where it comes to innovation, particularly on…

Undersea cables set to launch African bandwidth explosion

Many years ago, I worked for UUNET Internet Africa in South Africa. I remember sitting in the Operations room and looking at an international…

Africa’s mobile operators need to be more disruptive

Generally speaking, in the 90s, Africa’s mobile network operators (MNOs) were highly disruptive. In this last decade however, they have continued to decrease in…

Broadband Africa Forum 2024

South Africa’s Deskless Workers: A Workforce Under Strain

How AI is Rewriting Urban Planning in Developing Regions

Microsoft launches new Surface devices in new AI era

Honor Magic V3 launches, four things to know

Honor Magic V3, a Guinness world record attempt

Jaguar rebranding creative is crazy – good?

German luxury cars require a rethink for China

Trump wins – Tesla goes beyond $1 Trillion