In The News: Five African startups selected for Dubai mentorship programme
Check out our regular news roundup of some of the top headlines in African tech, civic tech and digital innovation — a quick summary designed to keep you updated! Opportunities and events below!
Digital Transformation Congress 2019 announces event speakers
The upcoming Digital Transformation Congress 2019 announced its speakers list. The speakers will explore the strategic trends and technologies that are driving digital transformation and shaping the future of IT and business in South Africa. Speakers include senior business leaders, CIOs, and digital visionaries such as Mayur Patel, chief executive of Kwesé iflix; Joseph Ndaba, chief executive of the Mafikeng Innovation Hub and Fourth Industrial Revolution Commissioner; and Lizelle Vaughan, Master of Digital Transformation at Liberty Group South Africa, to name, but a few.
The event will take place on the July 30, at the Sandton Convention Centre, and aims to bring together a plethora of local and international visionaries across a spectrum of industries — all sharing their first-hand knowledge of real-world digital transformation journeys.
5 African startups selected for Dubai mentorship program
The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry has selected five startups from Africa and five from the UAE to participate in its Global Business Forum (GBF) Mentorship Programme which was launched as part of Africa Tech Summit Kigali, earlier this year.
The five African startups are FarmGate Africa, a startup using advanced technologies to connect international buyers and farming clusters; quip.link, an online marketplace for renting and selling construction equipment; Complete Farmer, a crowd-farming platform focused on building sustainable farms; Rwanda’s Engineering Hub Ltd, which provides IT services and solutions for mobile and banking integration platforms; and RideSafe, a mobile application offering real-time health solutions.
MetroFibre provides Fibre through micro-trenching in South Africa
South Africa’s Summerstrand town , in the Nelson Mandela Bay, has become one of the first areas in the Eastern Cape province to get fibre internet infrastructure installed using an innovative process called “Micro-trenching”. The Nelson Mandela Bay council provided permission to MetroFibre Networx on a proof-of-concept basis in May 2019.
“Micro-trenching is both less invasive and much quicker. Deployment time is reduced by 60% to 80% in comparison with traditional hand trenching methods. There is also much less chance of consequential damage to any surrounding infrastructure, which can prove problematic for local councils and residents,” explains Henry Wilkens from MetroFibre Networx.
Competition Commission published its Data Services Market Inquiry
South Africa’s Competition Commission has recently produced a roadmap to bring down the costs of data. The Competition Commission set up the inquiry to understand factors or features of the market(s) and value chain that may cause or lead to high prices for data services, and to make recommendations that would result in lower prices for data services.
