Facebook will open a “community hub space” in Nigeria next year to encourage software developers and technology entrepreneurs and become the latest technology giant to pursue a training program in fast-growing Africa.
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The U.S. social media company said the center would host an “incubator program” to help develop technology start-ups, while it will also train 50,000 Nigerians in digital skills.
Africa’s rapid population growth, falling data costs and heavy adoption of mobile phones rather than PCs is attracting technology companies looking to attract more users.
Facebook did not provide details of the period over which its planned training would take place in Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country with 180 million inhabitants.
“We understand the important role Facebook plays here in Nigeria with developers and start-ups and are invested in helping these communities,” Emeka Afigbo, its regional head of platform partnership, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Facebook said the training &#8211; aimed at software developers, entrepreneurs and students &#8211; would be offered in cities including the capital, Abuja, Port Harcourt in the south, Calabar in the southeast and Kaduna in the north.
Last year Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg visited technology companies in Lagos and his charitable foundation provided $24 million to Andela, which trains developers.
Google’s chief executive in a July visit to Lagos said the company aimed to train 10 million people across the continent in online skills over the next five years. He also said it hoped to train 100,000 software developers in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
Although Africa may not offer as much opportunity to add consumers as China or India, because large wealth gaps mean that many people in places like Nigeria have little disposable income, Facebook said more than 22 million people already use its social media website every month in Nigeria.
Widespread poverty means mobile adoption tends to favor basic phone models. That, combined with poor telecommunications infrastructure, can mean slow internet speeds and less internet surfing, which tech firms rely on to make money.
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Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by Alexander Smith
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Facebook to open Nigerian hub next year in African tech drive

China’s Tencent now holds a 12 percent stake in Snapchat operator Snap Inc, Snap said on Wednesday, turning over a 20 percent slide in the U.S. company’s share price after badly received third quarter results.
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Snap’s announcement of the stake taken by Tencent Holdings Ltd, one of China’s biggest tech and investment firms and among the world’s biggest video games makers, came in a regulatory filing and follow reports dating back to 2012 that the Chinese company had invested in Snap.
Snap shares had slumped nearly 20 percent earlier after disappointing Wall Street with much-slower-than expected advertising revenue and user growth on Tuesday.
They recovered to trade down just 2 percent at $14.80 in premarket trading from a close of $15.12 on Tuesday.
Media reported in late 2012 and 2013 that Tencent had bought shares in Snapchat through a series of private rounds, while an additional deal failed to materialize in 2014.
Snap said in its quarterly report on Wednesday that Tencent had bought 145.8 million shares of its non-voting Class A common stock on the open market. (<a href="http://bit.ly/2zqvybE">bit.ly/2zqvybE</a>)
Snap had about 1.2 billion shares outstanding, as of Oct 31.
Shareholders of Snap’s Class A share have no voting rights and 95 percent of the company’s voting power rests with co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.
As a result of Snap’s largely private ownership structure, Tencent and Snap, unlike many U.S. stock market-listed corporations, are not obligated to disclose changes in Tencent’s ownership of Snap’s Class A stock, Snap said in the regulatory filing.
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Reporting by Arjun Panchadar and Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar
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China’s Tencent buys 12% stake in Snapchat owner

Likun Zhao | Consumer Business Group SA
People seem to be rather dichotomous in their thinking when it comes to predicting the specifics of an AI-driven future, especially when it comes to the world of work. It has been suggested that machines will either take everyone’s jobs and render humanity useless, or they will be catalysts for a world where humans are freed up to ponder issues that have plagued our society for decades. Super AI in the world of singularity has been hailed as the ultimate slayer of modern economic systems – the government can’t tax AI. The reality, of course, is probably somewhere in between.
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What is certain, however, is that the fourth industrial revolution, just like the three movements before it, is ushering in change – and we have to do what we can to be prepared for that seismic shift, especially when it comes to how we plan on earning an income in the future.
What makes us human?
Perhaps an important starting point when imagining the future workplace is to ask: What differentiates people from AI? At the moment, it’s our emotional intelligence. Subtleties in tone and nuances in attitude are far more difficult to read than simple actions and predictable behaviours. Excellent interpersonal skills and human literacy will therefore be even more highly valued in the future, with a premium being placed on being able to work well in teams and communicate effectively. Although many functions humans perform will most likely be replaced and even enhanced by learning machines, the importance of the human touch should never be underestimated.
Another quality that is likely to be highly esteemed in the next few decades is creativity. This applies to both artistic pursuits – although robots have been known to create beautiful works of art – and also to approaching problems. People should be continuously exploring new ways of thinking about problems, and applying multi-disciplinary approaches. An attitude of continuous curiosity will be desirable, with the ‘what’ being far less important than the ‘why’ and the ‘how’.
Flexibility will also be well regarded in the workplace of the future. “Change is the only constant”, the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, once said, and his prophetic musings become even more apt as technology continues to shift our world at a rapid pace. Individuals will need to show increased agility in skills, attitude and thinking as they adapt to changes that will affect the world of work. There will be no place for rigidity when the environment requires a fluid workforce.
What can we learn from AI machines?
AI devices are learning machines. Unlike automated robots, instruments that make use of AI technology are devised to digest and analyse information, apply it, and then further build on that knowledge. Quite simply, AI is geared for constant improvement and development. Similarly, people should adopt this mindset of continuous learning if they are to be prepared for the workplace of the future. The professions of the future will not be role- or job-focused. Rather, there will be an emphasis on continuously acquiring new skills that can be applied in a wide range of industries.  In the future, learning and working will be interlinked – and this will apply throughout someone’s lifetime. A degree acquired 15 years ago, along with a decade of experience, will no longer be regarded as adequate learning for the job you are doing now.
A good example of how AI is being integrated more and more into our everyday lives is through smartphones. This year saw the launch of the first smartphones ever with on-device AI, one of these being the Huawei Mate 10, which combines machine learning and power management. It is able to listen, read and even understand how people think, anticipating what we need before we even request it. The phone also uses this information to intelligently manage its power usage, and allocate power to the applications you use more frequently, so that the phone’s battery is not drained prematurely. The ultimate result is the intelligent evolution of modern day devices. The superphone is not replacing us, but rather empowering us to evolve as humans, much like AI will help us develop new skills in the workplace over the next few years.
What does the future world of work look like?
While futurists have been able to make many predictions about what 2030 and beyond will look like, we must remember that the jobs of the future have not been invented yet, and so nothing is certain. What is definite, however, is that AI will play a significant role in reimagining how people will contribute to society and earn their bread and butter. Skills which we value today will most likely not be the talents that are at a premium tomorrow. The best approach may well be to focus on what makes us different from these learning machines and examine how we can complement AI technology, rather than try to compete with it.
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What workplace skills will get you to the top in the age of AI?

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This content was supplied to CNBC Africa by AfricaCom
The FREE to attend <a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/ahub">AHUB</a> programme is designed to highlight the critical role of entrepreneurship in fuelling Africa’s digital economy and connect African tech start-ups and scale-ups to investors.
AHUB highlights include:
1) Meet 20 of the most promising digital start-ups in Africa – the World Bank’s XL Africa programme participants.  <a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/agenda/3?stream=1#empowering-the-architects-of-africas-digital-future-fuelling-innovation-creativity-and-entrepreneurship">Find out more</a>.
2) Hear Facebook’s perspective on empowering the architects of Africa’s digital future: fuelling innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.  <a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/agenda/3?stream=1#empowering-the-architects-of-africas-digital-future-fuelling-innovation-creativity-and-entrepreneurship">Find out more</a>.
3) Find out why tech start-ups should partner with African MNOs at our ‘when innovation and entrepreneurship meet scale and reach’ discussion at the AHUB.  <a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/agenda/1">Find out more</a>.
4) Receive feedback from Andy Volk, Head of Sub-Saharan Africa Ecosystem at Google on how corporates and tech leaders are supporting African start &#8211; ups.  <a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/speakers/andy-volk">Find out more</a>. 
Would you like to attend the AHUB?
Complete this short registration form to attend: <a href="https://goo.gl/mh475i">https://goo.gl/mh475i</a>
Interested in taking part in the AHUB meeting service?
The AHUB meeting service offers two key ways to meet your target audience, through a one on one basis arranged in advance and on site at the show; and through a speed networking function pre-registered but held at the show within the AHUB space. An extremely effective way to leverage time and effort across Africa’s largest technology show.
Cut right to core of why you need to be there – meeting your target audience group. Ultimately there are two reasons to get involved:
&#8211; Meet the VCs and Funds looking to invest in Africa’s technology landscape
&#8211; Meet significant innovators and entrepreneurs that will scale in Africa’s TMT sector
AHUB START-UP REGISTRATION: <a href="https://get.knect365.com/africacom-ahub-application/?_ga=2.27357692.159768990.1507023051-1826445331.1467279154">https://get.knect365.com/africacom-ahub-application/?_ga=2.27357692.159768990.1507023051-1826445331.1467279154</a>
If you require any further information or want to find out more about the AfricaCom and the AHUB please visit the website  <a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/">https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/</a>.

The AHUB at AfricaCom – Unleashing the power of Africa’s tech start-up ecosystem

This content was supplied to CNBC Africa by AfricaCom
<a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/?utm_source=CNBC%20NA1&amp;utm_medium=Homepage&amp;utm_campaign=20th%20Anniversary">AfricaCom</a>, Africa’s largest technology, telecoms and media event celebrates its 20th anniversary in November this year, and promises delegates and exhibitors three days of thought-provoking content and cutting-edge technology and a glimpse into what the future holds in terms of digital and its impact on life as we know it.
<a href="https://secure11.eventadv.com/africacom/?_ga=2.2997493.47320750.1505722000-1826445331.1467279154&amp;utm_source=CNBC%20NA1&amp;utm_medium=FREE%20VISITOR&amp;utm_campaign=20th%20Anniversary">Claim your FREE visitor pass here</a>.
Taking place from 7-9 November at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), South Africa, organiser KNect365 has introduced a host of innovations of its own to celebrate this auspicious occasion &#8211; a brand-new and happening Technology Arena that will provide a glimpse of the potential the future holds for forward-thinkers – whether it is in the Fintech space, or E-Health, education, energy, agri-tech or more.
<a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/technology-arena?utm_source=CNBC%20NA1&amp;utm_medium=Tech%20Arena&amp;utm_campaign=20th%20Anniversary">The Technology Arena</a> will also house an exciting array of new tech (over 100 exhibitors), some of which, will be interactive and on display in demo pods, along with many other novel developments that will debut at the show.  Included in this exciting space is another fresh feature, AfricaCom 20/20.  This is a brand-new show floor item dedicated to accelerating Africa’s digital transformation and is the centrepiece of the new arena.
Underpinning the event, is a business-critical agenda and, as always, world class speakers, alongside over 400 exhibitors. But AfricaCom is more than an exhibition and a conference.  It is now a staging ground for re-imagining and re-defining how we, as Africans and humans, will communicate and transact with one another.
“2017 is a landmark for AfricaCom. Over the past two decades, we have grown from being a purely telecommunications-focused event, to a broader, digital communications show now hosting the foremost group of influencers involved in every aspect of the African digital ecosystem,” explained Tom Cuthell, Portfolio Director of KNect365, the organiser of the event.
“As the digi-sphere continues to expand and impact every aspect of our personal and professional lives, AfricaCom has grown in scope to create a broad platform for everybody involved in powering the digital economy in Africa.”
The importance of this event is unquestionable.  Over the past two decades, it has provided a stage for robust debate, as well as identifying the needs for Africa’s growth and the solutions and subsequent policy making that has seen the continent leapfrog the desktop era, straight into mobile.
‘Digital’ is now intrinsic in our daily DNA, tomorrow and the day after.  As such, AfricaCom’s bringing together of front-end developers and backend engine drivers, into one place, is an essential service to the custodians of not just Africa’s future, but the planet’s, as we embrace the merging of man and machine in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
About AfricaCom 2017
AfricaCom is part of the Connecting Africa series of events that expose delegates, the media and the savvy, to the latest advancements and opportunities in technology and the digital ecosystem. Taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) from 7 &#8211; 9 November 2017, AfricaCom is now in its 20th year.   AfricaCom is Africa’s largest technology, media and telecommunications conference &amp; exhibition.  The conference programme covers the most strategic issues affecting companies in Africa’s digital market &#8211; services, efficiency, profitability, customer experience, partnerships, policy and more – and features several co-located events: LTE, TVC &amp; Mission Critical Africa.
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AfricaCom 2017 – Celebrating 20 years of Africa’s telecoms and technology journey

Shareholders of  MultiChoice&#8217;s broad-based black economic empowerment scheme Phuthuma Nathi will receive R1.3bn in ordinary dividends or 1 926 cents a share. Read Phuthuma Nathi&#8217;s statement below&#8230;
Nolo Letele, Chair of MultiChoice South Africa Holdings, said: “We are proud of our BBBEE scheme, Phuthuma Nathi, and our contribution to economic transformation in South Africa. Today, black South Africans have more than 55% financial ownership of MultiChoice, through shareholdings in Naspers and the Phuthuma Nathi share schemes. Our board is made up of 60% black and 30% women directors. 87% of our employees are black and 51% are women. This is an excellent achievement for our group.”
Phuthuma Nathi shareholders will receive an ordinary dividend of 1 926 cents per ordinary share. The dividend, less 20% dividend withholding tax, will be paid to shareholders on or about 6 September 2017.
Chair of Phuthuma Nathi, Mandla Langa, said: “Our Phuthuma Nathi share scheme is an economic transformation success story.  We&#8217;re proud to announce that, despite a tough economic environment, we will again pay dividends to our shareholders this year. Since launching Phuthuma Nathi 11 years ago, shareholders have received dividends each year – starting at 43 cents in the first year and increasing to 1 926 cents per ordinary share this year. These dividends make a big difference in the lives of our shareholders.”
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MultiChoice’s Phuthuma Nathi shareholders to get dividend bonanza

Jean Twenge | San Diego State University
As someone who researches generational differences, I find one of the most frequent questions I’m asked is “What generation am I in?”
If you were born before 1980, that’s a relatively easy question to answer: the Silent Generation was born between 1925 and 1945; baby boomerswere born between 1946 and 1964; Gen X followed (born between 1965 and 1979).
Next come millennials, born after 1980. But where do millennials end, and when does the next generation begin? Until recently, I (and many others) thought the last millennial birth year would be 1999 – today’s 18-year-olds.
However, that changed a few years ago, when I started to notice big shifts in teens’ behavior and attitudes in the yearly surveys of 11 million young people that I analyze for my research. Around 2010, teens started to spend their time much differently from the generations that preceded them. Then, around 2012, sudden shifts in their psychological well-being began to appear. Together, these changes pointed to a generational cutoff around 1995, which meant that the kids of this new, post-millennial generation were already in college.
These teens and young adults all have one thing in common: Their childhood or adolescence coincided with the rise of the smartphone.
<h2>What makes iGen different</h2>
Some call this generation “Generation Z,” but if millennials aren’t called “Generation Y,” “Generation Z” doesn’t work. Neil Howe, who coined the term “millennials” along with his collaborator William Strauss, has suggested the next generation be called the “Homeland Generation,” but I doubt anyone will want to be named after a government agency.
A 2015 survey found that two out of three U.S. teens owned an iPhone. For this reason, I call them iGen, and as I explain in my new book “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood,” they’re the first generation to spend their adolescence with a smartphone. 
What makes iGen different? Growing up with a smartphone has affected nearly every aspect of their lives. They spend so much time on the internet, texting friends and on social media – in the large surveys I analyzed for the book, an average of about six hours per day – that they have less leisure time for everything else.
That includes what was once the favorite activity of most teens: hanging out with their friends. Whether it’s going to parties, shopping at the mall, watching movies or aimlessly driving around, iGen teens are participating in these social activities at a significantly lower rate than their millennial predecessors.
iGen shows another pronounced break with millennials: Depression, anxiety, and loneliness have shot upward since 2012, with happiness declining.
The teen suicide rate increased by more than 50 percent, as did the number of teens with clinical-level depression.
<h2>A link that can’t be ignored</h2>
I wondered if these trends – changes in how teens were spending their free time and their deteriorating mental health – might be connected. Sure enough, I found that teens who spend more time on screens are less happy and more depressed, and those who spend more time with friends in person are happier and less depressed.
Of course, correlation doesn’t prove causation: Maybe unhappy people use screen devices more.
However, as I researched my book, I came across three recent studies that all but eliminated that possibility – at least for social media. In two of them, social media use led to lower well-being, but lower well-being did not lead to social media use.
Meanwhile, a 2016 study randomly assigned some adults to give up Facebook for a week and others to continue using it. Those who gave up Facebook ended the week happier, less lonely and less depressed.
<h2>What else is lost?</h2>
Some parents might worry about their teens spending so much time on their phones because it represents a radical departure from how they spent their own adolescence. But spending this much time on screens is not just different – in many ways, it’s actually worse.
Spending less time with friends means less time to develop social skills. A 2014 study found that sixth graders who spent just five days at a camp without using screens ended the time better at reading emotions on others’ faces, suggesting that iGen’s screen-filled lives might cause their social skills to atrophy.
In addition, iGen reads books, magazines and newspapers much less than previous generations did as teens: In the annual Monitoring the Futuresurvey, the percentage of high school seniors who read a nonrequired book or magazine nearly every day dropped from 60 percent in 1980 to only 16 percent in 2015. Perhaps as a result, average SAT critical reading scores have dropped 14 points since 2005. College faculty tell me that students have more trouble reading longer text passages, and rarely read the required textbook.
This isn’t to say that iGen teens don’t have a lot going for them. They are physically safer and more tolerant than previous generations were. They also seem to have a stronger work ethic and more realistic expectations than millennials did at the same age. But the smartphone threatens to derail them before they even get started.
To be clear, moderate smartphone and social media use – up to an hour a day – is not linked to mental health issues. However, most teens (and adults) are on their phones much more than that.
Somewhat to my surprise, the iGen teens I interviewed said they would rather see their friends in person than communicate with them using their phones. Parents used to worry about their teens spending too much time with their friends – they were a distraction, a bad influence, a waste of time.
But it might be just what iGen needs.
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This article was first published in The Conversation.

Op-Ed: How the smartphone affected an entire generation of kids

Mlenga Jere and Raymond van Niekerk | University of Cape Town
More than 20 years after democracy it seems incredible that a leading South African insurance company, Outsurance would put out a Father’s Day advertisement which featured mostly white dads. If their marketing team didn’t see the problem, citizens on social media certainly did and helped the company to see the error of its ways – and fast.
Within hours of screening the advertisement, a twitter storm had broken out and the commercial was retracted. Outsurance issued an apology for any offence caused. It was a quick and decisive response – which is generally the right way to respond in a crisis – spoiled only by the fact that the company subsequently laid the blame at the door of a “junior lady” on the social media team.
The Outsurance experience underlines the growing importance of social media in branding. Branding scholars Chiranjeev Kohli and Anuj Kapoor point out that:
Outsurance isn’t the only firm to have been caught in a social media storm. Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick was forced to step down after a prolonged online assault leading to a “shareholder revolt”. London based public relations firm, Bell Pottinger, had to lock its twitter handle recently because it had been twitter bombed by South Africans outraged at the firm’s service to the controversial Gupta family.
Another South African business, the family restaurant franchise Spur, suffered considerable brand damage after a video showing an altercation between a (white) man and a (black) woman at a Johannesburg outlet went viral, causing a racially charged firestorm. Spur was castigated from different directions for mishandling the matter.
These cases show how social media gives consumers the ability to influence business behaviour. But, we argue, this power should be channelled in a constructive way to affect lasting change.
<h2>A new kind of activism</h2>
There are many examples of deliberate online anti-brand behaviours targeting well-known brands such as American Express, Coca Cola, and Wal-Mart. Widely respected New York Times technology columnist Farhad Manjoo recently noted, that online campaigns against brands have become a powerful force in business by handing power to consumers. It has also given birth to a new kind of political activism:
<blockquote>Posting a hashtag and threatening to back it up by withholding dollars can bring about a much quicker, more visible change in the world than, say, calling your representative.</blockquote>
This is of course not good news to most corporations, businesses and politicians. Those operating in the public domain know the importance of protecting their reputation and fear the power of social media. Many organisations pay research companies for daily feedback on how their brand is perceived. In addition to newspaper clippings and magazine articles, they also have to sift through thousands of tweets and emails.
Not all negative comments deserve to be dealt with publicly. Some outrage may be the result of a vindictive individual or interest groups with less honourable intentions. Responding to comments such as these may only fan the fire, doing more harm than good.
But the power of social media is such that even a falsehood can cause immense damage, ruining businesses and individuals. Social media can awaken the mob mentality in people. All that’s required is for people to become angry – and have access to a medium where they can be relatively anonymous and vent their fury.
Social media brings out the best and the worst in people. On the one hand, it gives the power to do untold damage. On the other it can be used to do tremendous good.
<h2>Disciplining business</h2>
Take the case of American airline United Airlines. The video of how security dragged Dr David Dao off a flight in April 2017 after he refused to leave his seat when he was selected to be bumped off due to overbooking went viral on the Internet.
Millions of people saw Dr Dao being dragged, bleeding and injured, off the plane. There was an enormous backlash from consumers slamming the airline – and other airlines – for the practice of overbooking.
The consequences of all the anger led to the airline revising its policy and operations and spilled over into wider investigations into general procedures at airlines. This resulted in new legislation being drafted in the US, which could prevent airlines from forcibly removing passengers seated on an overbooked flight and providing compensation for those not allowed to board.
<h2>A double-edged sword</h2>
Social media is here to stay – if anything its use is set to become more sophisticated. According to Pew Internet Research, YouTube reaches more 18- to 34-year-olds than any cable network in the US, 76% of Facebook users visited the site daily last year with over 1.6 billion daily visitors, and 51% of Instagram users engage with the platform daily. These trends are spreading across the globe.
Users may also become more discerning about which sites they visit and how often. For companies, this means a need to remain vigilant and being aware of how to react appropriately. They undoubtedly stand to profit as well – through clever marketing campaigns that make use of social media platforms.
But the biggest winners could be consumers – should they learn to properly use the power of social media to organise into interest groups, define objectives and agree on courses of action – thereby exerting pressure on companies to see the kind of change in corporations that they would like to see in society as well.
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This article was published on The Conversation.

South African social media is giving consumers power to discipline corporations

Cameron Stevens, founder and CEO of Prodigy Finance was an INSEAD graduate who experienced difficulties financing an international MBA &#8211; his response was to start Prodigy Finance in the UK before he brought it back home to South Africa.
His international fintech platform that has developed the world’s first borderless credit model, just raised R3.19 billion or $242 million. This includes a R532 million Series C equity round led by venture capital firm <a href="https://www.indexventures.com/">Index Ventures</a>, with participation from <a href="http://balderton.com/">Balderton Capital</a> and <a href="http://www.alphacode.club">AlphaCode</a>; and a R2.66 billion debt facility led by a global investment bank.
The company, which has 126 staff across offices in London, Cape Town, and New York, offers loans to postgraduate students accepted into business, engineering, law and public policy degrees at the world’s top universities, such as Harvard, Oxford, INSEAD and the University of Cape Town. Since it was established in 2007, the company has provided more than 7,100 students over R4.32 billion in funding. The business expects to lend to 20,000 customers by the end of 2018.
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This fundraise marks the firm’s tenth anniversary, and will help the UK-headquartered company expand its operations and create highly skilled jobs in its subsidiary locations – Cape Town and New York offices.
Prodigy Finance’s unique global credit model assesses applicants based on projected earnings rather than historical credit, allowing the company to provide funding to students without collateral, a cosigner or guarantor. To date, more than 80 per cent of its borrowers have had no alternative access to financing. It also enables qualified investors, and the alumni of top schools, to help fund students from their alma mater or home country, while earning a financial return.
Stevens hails from Cape Town. He noticed that students from emerging markets were particularly disadvantaged in financing their education at leading universities, and that banks were unable to assist.
Stevens said: “We’re excited about this investment as it will help us double the size of our student portfolio. We saw a market failure in international lending and have spent the last decade rectifying this problem. Our business model and the schools we work with have also allowed us to build a talented team of experts, including our tech professionals and programmers in Cape Town. We believe in financial inclusion and talent mobility, and look forward to continuing to help international students break the funding barrier and further their education at a top school.”
Farai Mwamuka, a Zimbabwean who worked for a number of years in South Africa, needed funding for his 18-month MBA at London Business School, which costs almost R1.28 million in tuition fees alone. He cites the exchange rate as a major issue affecting his budget.
Mwamuka explains: “It’s tough to get financing especially for MBA courses of this magnitude. Prodigy Finance fills a gap that students from developing countries need.”
Dominique Collett, Head of AlphaCode, the fintech investment arm of <a href="http://rmih.co.za/">Rand Merchant Investment Holdings</a>, said: “Prodigy Finance has a truly differentiated business model solving a real customer need, and is powered by a talented team – it is one of the leading lights of international fintech.”
<ul>
<li>With additional reporting by Prodigy Finance</li>
</ul>

This South African just raised over R3bn in a fintech funding round

The amount of data generated every year grows exponentially. <a href="https://www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/ai-future-iot/">In 2015, there were less than 10 zettabytes (or 10 trillion gigabytes) of data created globally.  Estimates suggest that, by 2025, 180 zettabytes will be created annually</a>. Big data has become an early 21st-century gold rush, and those who best know how to mine data—<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronhirson/2015/03/23/uber-the-big-data-company/#23885c8118c7">Uber</a>, Airbnb and Google, for example&#8211;are the new titans of industry. For tech companies in established markets, data not only drives operations, but becomes an additional revenue stream through transactions with advertisers and other third parties.  But in African markets, long considered data deserts, data-driven strategies are not an add-on luxury to existing businesses – they are at the core of today’s successful start-ups.  The current generation of African entrepreneurs are data scientists by default, and venture capitalists looking to find African unicorns need to invest in firms with data models in their DNA.
Data is critical for good decisions, and allows for the efficient allocation of resources. Never has the phrase, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” been truer.  In today’s global, ultra-connected, ultra-competitive business landscape, the most successful companies not only collect large volumes of good data; they also devote resources to developing the human and technical capital required to analyze it well. Data-driven businesses have an enhanced capability to react more quickly to market changes, to find ideas for new business lines, to efficiently acquire customers, and to hone their competitive advantage.  As analytics improve, productivity and profitability gaps between companies that use data effectively and those that don’t will expand.
African markets – from Nigeria to Tanzania, Mali to Kenya – are simultaneously rich and poor in data.  Their economies remain <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/REO/SSA/Issues/2017/05/03/sreo0517">highly informal</a>, and, although billions of data points are created on the continent every day as billions of cash transactions are made, only a miniscule amount is recorded in any way.  Without records that can be sorted and mined in meaningful ways that would allow for lending and borrowing, African markets such as <a href="https://youtu.be/tQap6HkoJ08?t=198"> Lusaka City Market</a> and Abidjan’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew4zeZ2Y1sw">Adjame neighborhood</a> remain teeming pools of information that immediately disappears after transactions are made.  In informal cash-based systems, data from vendor sales is rarely translated into an accessible and manipulatable format, rendering it effectively useless.  Even in formalised and regulated African sectors, like banking and telecoms, where some aggregated data does exist on customers, it is owned by the individual companies and usually inaccessible to businesses seeking growth.
A new generation of entrepreneurs across Africa, however, are forging a path through the data desert and aiming to make it green by collecting, analysing, and monetizing data.  Nigeria, a key market for the Africa Internet Group, the continent’s <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d4bf5786-ce4b-11e5-92a1-c5e23ef99c77?mhq5j=e2">first data-driven tech unicorn</a>, is a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity.  <a href="https://www.cars45.com/">Cars45</a> uses technology to gather and pool data every time a client brings a used car to one of its inspection and sales centers in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. The company is on its way to having enough data points to create an African version of the <a href="https://www.kbb.com/">Kelley Blue Book</a>. Cars45 can not only leverage data to optimise used car transactions in its own marketplace, the company can also sell its data to other parties interested in the used car market. <a href="https://deliveryscience.co/">DeliveryScience</a>, a Lagos-based logistics firm, is using its own data on distribution routes, restocking habits of distributors, and payment terms to help major consumer goods companies become more efficient.  Clients such as Dangote Group and Nestle use the real-time transparency, tracking and invoicing information to limit pilfering, improve distributor financing structure, and manage production schedules.
In East Africa, where Kenya’s burgeoning tech community has earned the nickname of “Silicon Savannah,” <a href="http://msurvey.co.ke/">mSurvey</a> is unlocking consumer data by leveraging mobile subscriber networks. Over 10 million consumers engage with mSurvey through structured conversations collecting information on demographics, consumer preference, and geolocation.  The company also integrates with mobile wallets and payment platforms tracking purchasing habits. <a href="http://kytabu.com/">Kytabu</a>, a Nairobi-based education technology company, provides access to digital textbooks by leasing content paid for by mobile money. In addition to providing basic statistics to publishers, it is using data it collects to understand how its customers like to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-we-have-lot-learn-from-edtech-kenya-l%C3%A9a-douhard">read, learn, and search for content, allowing it to adapt publishers’ materials for each individual user’s learning style</a>, reinventing the way education-publishing works.
As the amount of minable data grows around the world, there is no doubt that Africa will continue to contribute an ever-bigger share and be a source of reverse innovation. Governments, international organisations, and companies all need to continue to support the building of data infrastructure and push for data-friendly policies that can help formalise markets and make it easier to create, collect, aggregate, and, most importantly, share relevant data all over the continent. But, in the meantime, the most talented entrepreneurs are creating products and platforms that embed data solutions in their business models.  Venture capitalists not only need to understand this reality, but seek out the best African data scientists who will build the billion-dollar success stories on the continent.
*Aubrey Hruby is co­founder of the Africa Expert Network and co­author of “The Next Africa” (Macmillan, 2015). Lexi Novitske is the Principal Investment Officer at Singularity Investments.  
http://cnbc.africa/news/2017/07/28/google-hopes-train-10-million-people-africa-online-skills-ceo/

Africa’s big opportunity lies in data

Ravin Naidu | Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise
As with most other technologies, data centres have to keep on evolving through the addition of new features and updates to meet increased user needs, ever-increasing capabilities of mobile devices and apps.
Moreover, this rapid pace of innovation has to keep on ticking while data centres have to become more efficient in terms of power, the office real estate that they consume, cooling and in terms of the value that they offer.
For this to happen, corporate data centre infrastructures must evolve. Mobility, real-time applications and virtualisation have created new demands that outdated data centre architectures are simply not equipped to handle.
Automate your network
The next critical phase in network evolution is automation of the data centre network. Server virtualisation has enabled rapid application deployment and increased movement of applications between virtualised servers or data centres.
Traditional networks are not designed to handle this, causing poor application performance and latency as networks and administrators adapt to virtualised internal changes. Automation at the network control layer eliminates latency and optimises application delivery.
Data centre networks must be intelligent
Application Fluent Networks automatically react to the dynamic requirements of virtualised workloads, such as following virtual machine movement. Furthermore, quality of service (QoS) is automatically adjusted for application flows within the data centre and across the network, as a result of these data centres being application aware. Application Fluent Networking is basically the first stage of software defined networking (SDN).
SDN makes networks adaptable to applications, providing automation at the network level that parallels the automation and flexibility at the server level. SDN bridges the gap between application control and network control elements, optimising application delivery and performance across the entire data centre network and the converged campus LAN.
The smartest data centre solutions for organisations of all sizes
For larger enterprises, application fluency enables the corporate data centre to become a multi-site private cloud, by extending layer-2 connectivity between multiple data centre sites. Hybrid cloud models are also supported, so public cloud-based services can be seamlessly delivered on the corporate network.
Conversely, advanced mesh architecture allows top-of-rack switches to be directly connected together. This means small and medium-sized enterprises can benefit from a full-featured fabric with built-in automated virtual machine mobility. The mesh is less complex, highly scalable and delivers unmatched performance at a fraction of the cost.
Once companies have an intelligent data centre in place, users will be able to access rich-media applications anytime, anywhere from smartphones, tablets as well as other devices. In addition, they will be empowered to be more productive and enabled to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, partners, suppliers and customers from anywhere, anytime, using the device type and platform of their choosing.

Op-Ed: Making intelligent data centres smarter for business

Digital money transfer service WorldRemit has partnered with Chinese smartphone maker Huawei to enable the international transfer of money across Huawei&#8217;s mobile services in Africa, the companies said on Tuesday.
Mobile money services that allow customers to transfer funds using their phones have proved hugely popular in parts of Africa, particularly where people have less access to traditional bank accounts.
&#8220;International remittance is a very important mobile money service in Africa, and our partnership with WorldRemit will bring international remittances directly to Huawei’s customers across the continent,&#8221; David Chen, Vice-President of Huawei Southern Africa, said in a statement.
Safaricom&#8217;s mobile phone-based financial service M-Pesa in east Africa has already seen success in this market.
The partnership will allow London-based WorldRemit to connect to over 100 million mobile accounts currently using Huawei’s platform, which delivers basic banking transactions through its mobile money offerings on smartphones and basic handsets.
The deal will reduce the barrier of technical integrations with new mobile money operators to offer international remittances for mobile network operators to enable all Huawei partners to swiftly switch on this service, WorldRemit and Huawei said.

Huawei joins WorldRemit in mobile money transfer deal for Africa

&nbsp;
When I began to teach in 2012, I decided to start my course with an analysis of how money affects social order. What my students found particularly fascinating was the then-nascent world of cryptocurrencies, which I described at length as a crucial feature in the future of money.
Some colleagues criticised my approach. They accused me of indirectly encouraging students to invest in what they saw as a shady, crime-ridden financial underworld. But I was simply exposing young minds to a fast-evolving, complex phenomenon that in my view would have a major impact on power distribution in the global economy.
Behind most cryptocurrencies is a simple technology known as “<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Blockchain-technology">blockchain</a>”, a system residing in multiple computers that allows for peer-to-peer financial ledger recording of all transactions occurring in a network.
This results in a transparent open-access registry of monetary flows which makes the intermediation of banking authorities unnecessary. Thus it challenges the conventional belief that money can only work through central planning.
As I explain in my book, <a href="http://panmacmillan.co.za/catalogue/wellbeing-economy/">Wellbeing Economy: Success in a World Without Growth</a>, money systems are undergoing an unprecedented transition from centralised authority to decentralised networks.
Conventional money is managed by states and banks, with users on the receiving end of monetary policy decisions. By contrast, most alternative currencies are peer-to-peer. That means they are managed by users themselves and do not require intermediaries. Some of them have global outreach thanks to digital technology, while others are locally based.
Take BitCoin, the most popular peer-to-peer currency in the world, with a market capitalisation <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/">above 40 billion US dollars</a>. A person buying the equivalent of $1 in BitCoin in 2009 would now possess roughly $25 million. One BitCoin is currently equivalent in value to two ounces of gold. Other rising stars include Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple.
<h2>Taking the world by storm</h2>
Many of these currencies remain quite volatile in the short term. Their upward and downward swings reach over 10% of the value on a weekly basis. But the long-term trend is impressive. States are warming up to them.
In April 2017, Japan <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-spikes-as-japan-recognizes-it-as-a-legal-payment-method-2017-4">accepted BitCoin</a> as a legal payment method for retail markets. After threatening digital currencies last year, the Russian government took a U-turn. President Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-06/ethereum-could-change-russian-banking-and-government">met the developers of Ethereum</a> and committed to recognising cryptocurrencies in 2018.
Following an initial freeze, the People’s Bank of China <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-bitcoin-idUSKBN18S42X">readmitted withdrawals</a> in BitCoin in June 2017, catapulting the currency to new heights. In the US, cryptocurrencies are becoming increasingly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/27/coinbase-bitcoin-irs-government-summons-data-cryptocurrency">accepted</a>as both a method of payment and store of value.
The Australian government will soon make it easier for new innovative digital currency businesses <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/2017-18/content/glossies/factsheets/html/FS_innovation.htm">to operate</a>, exempting traders and investors from goods and services tax.
It’s clear that cryptocurrencies will in the near future become much more common as methods of payment for a wide range of purchases, from online shopping to the local supermarket.
<h2>Developing countries are leapfrogging</h2>
Developing economies, too, are opening up to cryptocurrencies. In <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/02/03/why-venezuelas-currency-crisis-is-a-case-study-for-bitcoin/#7f41f14819b2">Venezuela</a>, BitCoin has become the leading parallel currency. It provides millions of citizens with an opportunity to perform transactions and generate livelihoods, including buying food and other basic necessities in a country where official money is worth almost zero. It also allows them to purchase goods from overseas, overcoming ever-stricter capital controls.
In East Africa, local innovators have introduced cryptocurrency systems to support cross-border transactions, as exemplified by initiatives like <a href="https://www.bitpesa.co/">BitPesa</a>.
In <a href="https://mybroadband.co.za/news/banking/206590-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-on-the-rise-in-south-africa.html">South Africa</a>, cryptocurrencies are becoming particularly popular. In <a href="https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/africa-ripped-bitcoin/">Nigeria</a>, local traders and activists believe this new money presents an opportunity to democratise the economy. This is propelled by the fact that people in Nigeria have been failed by conventional money.
According to my colleague Verengai Mabika, founder of <a href="http://techloy.com/2016/12/27/zimbabwean-bitcoin-startup-bitfinance-raises-funds-from-angel-investor/">BitFinance</a> in Zimbabwe, the collapse of his country’s formal financial system has made BitCoin an attractive alternative. This is especially the case for online payments, which are restricted by banks, and for remittances, which constitute the backbone of the economy.
A growing number of Zimbabweans are also using cryptocurrencies as a saving mechanism (37% of all Bitfinance customers use it for that purpose), Verengai tells me. This is after the massive loss of personal savings during the hyperinflation period of 2008, which led to the collapse of the country’s banks.
<h2>Decentralisation and local economic development</h2>
The decentralisation of money is indeed at the core of this new trend, with potential repercussions in other fields. For instance, <a href="https://www.ethereum.org/">Ethereum</a> is designed as a smart contract platform, that is a trading system completely based on peer-to-peer property rights. <a href="https://fair-coin.org/">FairCoin</a> was developed as the preferential currency for cooperatives, social economies and fair trade networks around the world.
Cryptocurrencies are just the tip of an iceberg. According to <a href="https://payment21.com/blog/complementary-currencies-entering-digital-era">recent estimates</a>, there are over 6,000 complementary currencies in the world, over 50 times the number of conventional money systems. Most of these are user-controllled and are interest-free. One cannot make money by simply trading in them.
Hoarding makes no sense in this new world. This is because value is not in the accumulation but in the exchange.
The scope is often limited to certain territories or types of transactions (for example, personal care, sustainable mobility and local trade). This creates an incentive to support local economic development and forms of exchange that are valued by communities of users.
<a href="http://regiogeld.com/">Regiogeld</a>, a network of local currencies which I studied when I was a researcher in Germany, has proliferated throughout the country. It has become the world’s largest system of local currencies, supporting small businesses and empowering communities.
In the near future, we will have a variety of money with different qualities and different purposes. This will make economies more resilient against shocks and will support more equitable and sustainable development, by putting users in the driver seat and reinforcing local economic development.
As <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/lorenzo-fioramonti/how-complementary-currencies-can-save-europe">my research</a> demonstrates, a combination of regional, national and local currencies could also be the best way forward for the European Union, engulfed by its monolithic and unsustainable euro, and for any other process of regional integration, from Africa to other continents.

Op-Ed: Alternative currencies are the future: why it matters for development

Naspers has an unhealthy addiction to Tencent. The South African company is worth $28 billion less than its stake in the Chinese gaming behemoth. Boss Bob van Dijk rules out a spinoff, but that would be the best fix. Unfortunately for would-be activists, supervoting shares make it hard to apply pressure.
Fuelled by an early bet on Tencent, the tech and media group has become South Africa&#8217;s largest public company by market value. The problem is, Naspers&#8217; other investments, which span e-commerce in India to online classifieds in Poland, are effectively worth less than nothing to shareholders. As of June 30, the one-third stake in Hong Kong-listed Tencent was worth roughly $113 billion &#8211; a third more than Naspers.
Graphic: Naspers is worth less than its one third stake in gaming giant Tencent: <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2tGMaKc">tmsnrt.rs/2tGMaKc</a>
The situation echoes the dilemma at Yahoo, where its core business ended up being worth a lot less than its stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. Yahoo fixed that by selling the internet business to Verizon and rebranding as Altaba.
Naspers’ discount has more than tripled over the past year partly due to Tencent&#8217;s surging share price. That has prompted some investors to speak out. Last month, a Geneva-based shareholder published an open letter, urging a spinoff, among other things. The company rules out any sale or unbundling of the stake, saying Tencent is &#8220;an appreciating asset&#8221; that is core to its strategy.
The activist has a point. At best, the market is now applying a big “conglomerate discount” in valuing Naspers. That could prove enduring. At worst, investors are sceptical that the company is creating value with its other businesses. Last month, the company said annual operating losses at its e-commerce division, which includes bets on classifieds, payments and food delivery, widened to $682 million from $648 million. Smaller pay-television and media arms also disappointed, as operating profit slumped by over one-third.
Unfortunately, supervoting shares account for 68 percent of votes at Naspers, recent filings show. It is not clear who ultimately owns these shares. But if these owners support management, it can easily continue to be dismissive.

Naspers’ addiction to Tencent is unhealthy

South African telecommunications firm Blue Label Telecoms said on Tuesday it would buy a mobile device supplier for 1.9 billion rand ($148 million) to expand its existing business in that field.
Blue Label, the largest distributor of pre-paid voice and data airtime in South Africa, said it would buy shares in unlisted 3G Mobile Proprietary Limited in two stages with its subsidiary, The Prepaid Company Proprietary, initially acquiring 47.37 percent for 900 million rand followed by 52.63 percent to be acquired for 1 billion rand.
Blue Label said 3G Mobile would be used to expand into the financing and supply of mobile devices, handsets and allied products to distribute into the low cost smartphone market.
&#8220;Both of these functions supplement Blue Label&#8217;s strategic objectives to provide value added services to both Cell C and its own customer base. 3G Mobile provides the ideal platform to consolidate Blue Label&#8217;s low cost and certified pre-owned mobile handset divisions into a consolidated group,&#8221; the company said in a statement.
South Africa&#8217;s third largest mobile phone company, Cell C, and its creditors agreed a deal where Blue Label would pay 5.5 billion rand for a 45 percent stake in the debt-laden mobile firm.
The deal will give Blue Label a share of profits on a product it distributes as well as a major stake in a company facing a consumer backlash due to slow network speeds.
3G Mobile, which is one of Africa’s largest distributors, and financiers, of mobile devices and handsets, operates in 8 African countries.
By 0758 GMT, shares in Blue Label were treading water at 15.15 rand following the announcement.
($1 = 12.8401 rand)
(Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg; Editing by Mark Potter)

South Africa’s Blue Label Telecom to buy mobile device supplier

Senegal Air SA has ordered two ATR 72-600 aircraft in a 50 million euro ($56 million) deal as the new flagship carrier seeks to build up a fleet ahead of its launch later this year, the ministry of tourism and air transportation said on Thursday.
Toulouse, France-based ATR, a partnership between Airbus and Italy&#8217;s Leonardo, will deliver the two turboprop planes in November, the ministry said.
Senegal Air was formed in April 2016 with 40 billion CFA francs ($68 million) in state capital to replace the now defunct, heavily indebted carrier Senegal Airlines.
Senegal is aiming to become a regional air transportation hub with the scheduled December opening of the new Blaise Diagne International Airport located outside the capital Dakar.
Senegal Air will initially fly to Senegalese and West African regional destinations before opening a Paris-Dakar route during the course of 2018.
Airlines have long been a fraught business in West Africa though there have been some success stories, including Ivory Coast&#8217;s Air Cote d&#8217;Ivoire.
Senegal revoked the air operator&#8217;s certificate of Senegal Airlines after it ran up debts of more than 100 billion CFA francs in less than five years of operation.
($1 = 0.8968 euros)
($1 = 587.6800 CFA francs)
(Reporting by Diadie Ba; Editing by Joe Bavier and David Evans)
&nbsp;

Senegal Air orders two ATR aircraft in 50 mln euro deal -ministry

<div id="article-byline"> <a href="http://www.reuters.com/journalists/david-ingram">David Ingram</a> | SAN FRANCISCO</div>
Twitter Inc (<a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TWTR.N">TWTR.N</a>) plans on Wednesday to launch a system for people to earn money by streaming live on its Periscope service, a first for Twitter and a way for the company to try to compete with YouTube and others in the search for internet talent.
People watching Periscope will be able to send performers and broadcasters they like a gratuity using a variety of heart shapes that are, in effect, a virtual currency they can purchase, the company said.
Broadcasters who receive the equivalent of about $175 in &#8220;super hearts&#8221; will be designated &#8220;super broadcasters&#8221; and be able to cash out the money as earnings, the company said.
At first only broadcasters in the United States will be eligible, but Periscope plans to expand to other countries soon, it said.
<blockquote>&#8220;The spirit and the goal is for all broadcasters to be able to do this,&#8221; said Sara Haider, Periscope&#8217;s director of engineering.</blockquote>
After fees and payment processing, broadcasters will get about 70 percent of the remaining revenue, Twitter said. It declined to provide an estimate of its own potential revenue from the service.
Periscope, which Twitter launched in 2015, said it streamed 77 million hours of live, user-generated video in the first three months of this year. It does not release the number of viewers.
YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc (<a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOGL.O">GOOGL.O</a>), said in February it was rolling out live streaming from mobile devices for users with more than 10,000 subscribers, expanding its own bid to help online performers make money.
(Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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Facebook to open Nigerian hub next year in African tech drive

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The AHUB at AfricaCom – Unleashing the power of Africa’s tech start-up ecosystem

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Huawei joins WorldRemit in mobile money transfer deal for Africa

Op-Ed: Alternative currencies are the future: why it matters for development

Naspers’ addiction to Tencent is unhealthy

South Africa’s Blue Label Telecom to buy mobile device supplier

Senegal Air orders two ATR aircraft in 50 mln euro deal -ministry

Twitter to let streaming video stars collect money from fans

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