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Pylon Receives $19 Million To Scale Software Development

Hafiz Akinde
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Pylon Receives $19 Million To Scale Software Development

An Egyptian infrastructure management platform for emerging market water and energy utilities, Pylon has received a seed round of $19 million.

Pylon, which has operations in Egypt and the Philippines, will use a portion of the initial investment to grow into additional emerging regions, such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. This is the company’s first venture round of investment, as Pylon has been bootstrapped since 2017.

According to the CEO, Pylon solves several problems for water and distribution firms.

  • For starters, they have a high percentage of unpaid debts and consequently lose out on money.
  • Second, they pay a lot of money for energy and deal with water theft.
  • Third, technical failures occur on the grid and network, whether due to a lack of maintenance or law enforcement.

These three challenges combine to cause these businesses to lose 40% of their income and prevent them from upgrading their solution or implementing an intelligent infrastructure due to expensive expenses.

Pylon creates solutions for these water, electricity, and power distribution firms to help them become more efficient and stop the bleeding – the company estimates annual losses in the hundreds of billions of dollars across emerging nations. It’s a huge potential to boost those utilities’ total revenues and top line by 50%.

Pylon’s software collects data from the grids, analyzes it, and pinpoints where supply chain theft and losses occur. It then automates the firms’ invoicing procedures, much like telecom providers in these regions have done in the past.

Pylon claims it can assist utility businesses cut losses by 8% while increasing their bottom line with no upfront expenditure. According to the company, customers are not charged an upfront fee for the gear. Its smart metering-as-a-service (SMaaS) approach, on the other hand, makes it simple for cash-strapped utility firms to install its solution on a large scale.

Ride hailing giant, DiDi, Shuts Down Operations in South Africa

Sodiq Ajala
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Ride hailing giant, DiDi, Shuts Down Operations in South Africa

On Monday, DiDi, a Chinese ride-hailing service, announced that it is ceasing operations in South Africa. The ride-hailing behemoth has been in the country for a year, with its ups and downs.

According to TechCrunch, the corporation has provided no explanation for its abrupt pullout from the South African market. On Friday, April 8, 2022, the company’s operations in South Africa came to an end.

“Our aim has been to ensure a smooth transition for all and would like to take this opportunity to thank our employees, drivers, riders, and partners for the kindness and support shown to DiDi,” a Didi South Africa spokesperson said.

According to reports, the e-hailing service provider stated that it is trying to expand into new markets, such as Egypt, where it would open later in 2021. It will also make its debut in Nigeria soon. It is currently active in 16 countries throughout the world.

“We have re-evaluated where we can make the most positive impact in the short-term and are focusing on developing even deeper capabilities in other existing markets,” the SA spokesperson continued.

According to claims, the ride-hailing behemoth expected to compete on the same level as Uber and Bolt, but things didn’t go as planned. These two ride-hailing services are the most popular e-hailing services in South Africa right now.

DiDi’s abrupt departure comes after South African e-hailing service providers demanded that the government regulate the business and secure their safety. The drivers’ complaints included exorbitantly high gasoline prices, which they blamed on Russia’s and Ukraine’s war.

Another source of disagreement was that ride-hailing companies were purportedly charging exorbitant commissions, resulting in drivers receiving little remuneration for their efforts. They also sought to get rid of ride-hailing businesses’ various applications’ marketing and discounts.

Uber Announces New Offerings to Help SA Drivers

Sodiq Ajala
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Uber Announces New Offerings to Help SA Drivers

Uber has announced the launch of Uber Black by the Hour and Reserve in South Africa.

These new services, according to the ride-hailing behemoth, would complement on-demand, point-to-point rides by providing greater convenience.

Uber Hourly and Uber Reserve

The Uber Reserve function is divided into two categories: Premium Reserve, which provides access to Uber Black vehicles with a 15-minute arrival time and a 15-minute wait period.

The second category, Economy Reserve, provides access to lower-cost vehicles on Uber Comfort, UberX, and Uber Go, as well as a 5-minute early arrival and 5-minute wait time. Riders also have the option of receiving a trip 30 days ahead of time.

“The opportunities provided by the new Uber Hourly, Black by the Hour; and Reserve products give riders the freedom to use and plan their time as they wish whether they are running multiple errands or attending business meetings, appointments as well as sightseeing and shopping,” explains Kagiso Khaole, Head of Mobility Operations at Uber Sub-Saharan Africa.

These new options, according to Uber SA, will allow drivers earn more money in addition to the trip chances for which they are now qualified. Riders will no longer have to navigate to several locations with multiple ride requests thanks to expert drivers.

In March, e-hailing drivers across South Africa began a series of strikes, claiming that they are struggling to make ends meet as a result of rising gasoline prices, their safety in the business, and increased rivalry. According to reports, the drivers also want to get rid of promotions and discounts on the various applications because it reduces their commissions.

“We will continue to leverage our technology to stay on the cutting edge of innovation to allow us to quickly adapt and meet the changing needs of drivers and riders,” concludes Khaole.

Uber Reserve is available in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, and Cape Town. Uber Hourly, Black by the Hour, is available in Cape Town only.

AI-powered social commerce startup, Elloe, exceeds $1M funding target, closes 7-figure pre-Seed round

TWA Admin
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AI-powered social commerce startup, Elloe, exceeds $1M funding target, closes 7-figure pre-Seed round 
7 April 2022, Philippines, Kenya

– Elloe, a US-based social e-commerce startup focused on Kenya and emerging markets, announced today that they have raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Seed funding.

The new funds will give Elloe sufficient runway to grow its local Kenyan operations and fuel expansion into the Philippine and Southeast Asian markets well into 2023 and beyond.

Investors for the round were led by Philippines’ Mad Ventures, Inc.

Co-founded by Owen Sakawa, Abhijay Rao, and Aaron Madolora, Elloe is a first-of-its-kind AI-powered, social commerce platform which allows merchants to buy and sell products online across any messaging platform.

Elloe’s technology increases the sales and profitability of businesses by simplifying operations, logistics, payments, and marketing within a centralized merchant portal.

The subscription service is especially helpful for micro-SMEs who wish to sell their products and services online without having to pay high commissions to non-essential 3rd parties.

“We are very excited and humbled by the opportunity to partner with Mad Ventures, Inc and join its growing livelihood ecosystem as digital ambassadors to local Kenyan entrepreneurs and netizens,” said Elloe, Founder and CEO, Owen Sakawa.

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About Elloe

At Elloe, we bring together the powers of world-class e-сommerce technologies and make them easy and accessible to the masses. We allow retailers to provide a personalized experience on their consumers’ preferred apps. Through the Elloe platform, businesses get an artificial intelligence-powered tool that allows them to handle sales and build personal relationships, at scale, on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Elloe’s mission is to reduce a major logistical carbon footprint by developing new methods of e-commerce practices, starting by growing the local economy, utilizing renewable energies, and automated supply chains.

For more information, visit elloe.ai.

About Mad Ventures

Mad Ventures is a group of companies dedicated to providing digital livelihood as a service to entrepreneurs and micro, small, and medium enterprise businesses in the Philippines and throughout Southeast Asia.

Powered by the Mad Underground, our innovative products empower communities and promote digital and financial inclusion with humanity and compassion at our core.  From e-commerce to payments to logistics to marketing to building communities, we innovate and curate services to enable new and rewarding experiences for both consumers and merchants.

For more information, visit madventures.group.

How Edge Computing Can Benefit African EdTech StartUps

Sodiq Ajala
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How Edge Computing Can Benefit African EdTech StartUps

Smart organizations rely on data to provide significant insight and real-time processes and operations management. 

They routinely mine these data from sensors and IoT devices running in real-time from anywhere in the world.

With the ever-increasing 2.5 quintillion bytes (2.5 e+9 GB) of data created every day, the way organizations handle computation becomes extremely important. 

This is because the traditional computer architecture, which is based on a centralized data center and the internet, can not transfer the continuously flowing real-world data. 

So, edge computing surfaced to close this gap.

Edge computing is a distributed information technology (IT) architecture in which client data is processed as close to the original source as possible at the network’s perimeter. 

This relocates some storage and computes resources away from the central data center and closer to the data source.

In simpler terms, what this means is that, earlier, devices connect, receive instructions, and download updates from the cloud or data centers that are centrally located somewhere far away. 

However, with edge computing, the processors are placed local to the end devices so they do communicate without little or no transportation at all. The data collection, sorting, and preliminary analysis can be done on-premise, then being sent to a centralized database at a later time.

This results in reduced roundtrip and faster communication. And saves resources and efforts in critical cases.

Also, it will solve problems associated with bandwidth constraints, latency concerns, and unpredictably disrupted networks. 

Edge computing and the African edTech startups

Research by the University of Virginia: On the systematic review of Educational Technology in Developing Countries showed that the emergence of educational technology (“EdTech”) in developing countries is a promising avenue to address some of the most challenging policy questions within educational systems. 

The report classified EdTech interventions into access to technology, technology-enabled behavioral interventions, improvements to instruction, and self-led learning. 

As much as self-directed learning and instructional improvements are highly important for edtech interventions, making the associated data possible for real-time analysis would provide immeasurable insights for African edtech startups. 

This would not only create leverage of comparative advantage to address deficiencies within educational systems in developing countries, but will also fast track access to technology, and make data interact quicker. 

How edge computing can benefit African edTech startups

In augmented and virtual reality

Augmented reality (AR) uses a device camera to overlay digital elements to a live scene while Virtual reality (VR) involves a completely immersive experience that isolates the user from the outside world.

In both cases, users are transported into a variety of real-world and imagined situations using certain devices. Examples of some VR devices are HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Google Cardboard.

As this happens, the device communicates with a cloud system or data center to incorporate that experience into your reality.

When using AR and VR for learning, your interaction with a particular device communicates or sends instructions to a decentralized system, which then responds with what you initiated. 

However, when you try to have these humanlike exchanges and there exists a significant drag in the communication, it makes cognitive processing difficult. This is when you introduce edge computing to improve the smoothness in the realism of augmented reality. 

As an edtech startup leveraging AR and VR to enhance teaching and learning, introducing edge devices for local computing and storage will make your process faster.

The inclusion in virtual classrooms will help students and teachers to engage rapidly and smoothly, and Learning won’t be hampered by choppy connections. 

In Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of interconnected, internet-connected objects that can gather and transmit data without the need for human interaction across a wireless network.

In learning environments, it improves security, tracks important resources, and increases information availability in the classroom. Also, teachers can leverage the data and information to create “smart lesson plans.”

As much as all these takeaways are important, a prolonged round trip between devices and data centers would slow down getting information. 

Edge computing allows school districts with limited bandwidth to process data locally rather than sending it to the cloud. 

For instance, If your startup incorporates sensors into educational toys or classroom facilities to track learning behaviors and social dynamics, or sets up a low-power processing device on the playground to collect safety data.

You want the immediate stakeholder: teachers and school administration to make informed decisions (i.e to track attendance)  from the surface insights before you provide more details from your headquarters. 

When IoT device data is processed via edge computing infrastructure, information is processed faster allowing for optimum productivity and efficiency.

In student outcomes

The ultimate learning outcome is to cause a positive reaction, achieve learning, spur a positive reaction, and shift behavior.

In edtech, these can’t happen without real-time feedback capabilities that could power performance-enhancing learning systems. 

Edtech startups can employ machine learning and artificial intelligence to tailor the prompts and lessons to the learner’s learning style based on what the student enters into the learning management system.

Edge computing makes this faster and increasingly achievable at scale, it allows you to improve student experience and engagement while also driving learning growth. It would also lower operating expenses, and ease obtaining insights from collected data.

In saving costs

Without compromising quality and teaching time allocation, education management should be less expensive. Edge devices can help learning organizations save money over time. 

Edge computing is a less expensive choice for education organizations wishing to expand their computer capacity. It is expensive to send data to the cloud. Data sent to the edge has the potential to save you a lot of money. 

Though, investing in edge all at once could be a major financial risk. But the return on investment is always far better.

Summary

African edtech startups should understand that edge computing services, with their particular efficiency and reliability, can help them, and educational institutions with research centers, think tanks, and other entities.

As 5G gradually becomes evident in Africa, looking into edge dependency and utility will be a smart move for startups targeting the unicorn status.

During school hours, when many people are trying to use the internet at the same time, overloaded networks are more likely to occur. These overburdened networks can benefit from edge computing, so if you’re an edtech company that deploys IoT in schools, this is profitable leverage for you. It will assist your company in dealing with this problem.

And in the stance where educational institutions have been targeted by hackers, edge computing can help as it stores data locally rather than centrally, so a single security breach will not always result in system-wide consequences. 

Edge, in other words, comes with a layer of cyber security.

Kena Health Launches New App To Consult Doctors from Your Smartphone

Sodiq Ajala
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Kena Health Launches New App To Consult Doctors from Your Smartphone

Kena Health is a new health app located in South Africa that allows users to interact with a nurse, doctor, or mental health expert directly from their phone.

Kena Health is an app that connects users to a team of certified healthcare practitioners for guidance, diagnosis, prescriptions, sick notes, and, if necessary, referrals to a specialized pathologist or other locations of care. All of this is accomplished with their smartphone at a reasonable cost.

Everyone becomes sick at some point. But what happens when they can’t afford appropriate care and advice on a regular basis? What happens to people who don’t have the time or money to wait in a clinic line or to pay a doctor’s bill?

The all-too-common response is that people put off seeking medical help or rely on ineffective home remedies or “Doctor Google” for guidance. What if there was a better, more inclusive approach to providing quick and affordable access to high-quality healthcare?

Despite the fact that the country is gradually achieving the Constitutional right to healthcare, just 16% of the South African population has access to private medical services.

“Therein lies our burden and our opportunity.” according to Kena Health.

Providing high-quality healthcare for everyone

Based on a shared data perspective of that patient, Kena Health uses a team-based approach to assign the most appropriate healthcare practitioners to each patient’s specific needs. An experienced and qualified nurse can help with family planning, gastritis, anemia, allergies, UTIs, and common colds. A doctor’s prescription may be required for an infection, hypertension, or other chronic diseases.

In less than two minutes, users can download the app and register. They next have a brief conversation with Linda, Kena’s digital assistant, who gathers general information about their condition for the secure patient record. This eliminates the need for patients to repeat their medical history and details at every stage of the process.

Kena Health’s Costs and Benefits

Kena then links the user with a nurse or mental health professional, allowing them to receive medical care or guidance at a fraction of the expense of visiting a doctor — and for free at first. Within the app, consultations can be conducted by text, audio, or video, all of which are geared to keep data costs low. In cases where a doctor is needed, the nurses can transfer the call to the Kena team for a seamless connection.

The app lowers the cost of care while improving the patient’s health outcomes by combining technology and a team-based approach.

The app also uses technology to provide a human answer by generating scripts, sick notes, and referral letters, all of which are conveniently available within the app.

Users’ first three visits will be free as they get used to this new type of healthcare, with the following consultations costing as little as R160 each. Kena Health’s services are originally offered Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Our goal is to improve access to quality care by lowering cost,” says Kena Health Founder and CEO Saul Kornik.

“By creating an app that focuses on team-based healthcare, we’re able to do this, while actually improving the quality of health outcomes for each patient. Imagine, a whole team of nurses, doctors, and mental health professionals looking after you! This means that no matter your income level or where you live, with Kena Health you are invited in to receive services that provide the care you need, all while making you feel cared for and reassured that you’re going to be OK,” he concludes.

In Kenya, Visa opens its first African Innovation Studio.

Sodiq Ajala
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In Kenya, Visa opens its first African Innovation Studio.

Visa, a global leader in digital payments, announced the opening of a new Innovation Studio in Nairobi, Kenya, today. Its first dedicated innovation site in Sub-Saharan Africa is the studio (SSA).

This facility will service the Sub-Saharan Africa area, according to a news release, and will join Visa’s network of innovation centers, which have been operating since 2016, in locations such as Dubai, Singapore, and San Francisco.

The facility is intended to build on the success of Visa’s flagship innovation center in San Francisco, One Market, by giving Visa’s partners access to tools that will help them improve their capabilities in generating innovative solutions.

“Sub-Saharan Africa is a fast-growing region with a tech-savvy population. As we continue to grow digital payments adoption in the region, our aspiration is to deepen our collaboration with clients and partners in developing solutions that are designed around the unique needs of Africa,” said Aida Diarra, SVP & Head of Visa in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“We are confident that the innovation studio will continue that legacy and cement Sub-Saharan Africa’s position as a leader in creating out-of-the-box solutions to deal with our most pressing challenges as a region,” added Diarra.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s Payments Revolution

According to Visa, businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa have been at the forefront of introducing new ways to pay and be paid by leveraging innovative technology. The Innovation Studio will look into ways to expand the growth of emerging payment areas like Tap to Phone and Pay on Delivery, as well as the continued development of cutting-edge smarter payment solutions that use blockchain, the Internet of Things, Virtual Reality, and biometrics.

The studio will work with Visa clients and partners all around Africa to expand its service offerings. The studio’s immersive environment will also equip customers and partners with tools to address some of their largest business difficulties while revealing new commercial avenues of potential, thanks to a human-centered approach.

Paga, which collaborated with Visa to co-create a platform that offers tools to small businesses, and Safaricom on a solution to enable 24 million M-PESA users to transact at Visa merchant locations and 150,000 M-PESA merchants to accept Visa card payments, are two companies from Sub-Saharan Africa that have already taken advantage of Visa’s innovation center capabilities.

At an event attended by leading banks, financial technology companies, and innovation specialists from across Sub-Saharan Africa, the studio was officially launched by Dr. Patrick Njoroge, Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya.

Rwanda establishes Africa’s first Fourth Industrial Revolution center.

Sodiq Ajala
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Rwanda establishes Africa’s first Fourth Industrial Revolution center.

According to Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum (WEF), who spoke at the center’s debut, Rwanda’s government has announced the launch of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), the first of its kind to be formally inaugurated in Africa. The World Economic Forum worked with the Rwandan government to launch C4IR in Kigali.

C4IR’s launch, according to Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication Technology, and Innovation, Paula Ingabire, was prompted by the rapid innovation seen in Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, as well as the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a movement that has swept the continent.

“…there is an increased urgency to develop digital and technological capacities to build more resilient systems for a healthier society and more sustainable economy,” Ingabire said, quoted by Media24.

According to the WEF’s website, Rwanda will “engage with stakeholders around the world to build and pilot new approaches to technology governance that stimulate innovation in an inclusive and responsible manner.”

Formulating and examining the country’s laws and policies around artificial intelligence, as well as the protection of personal data and privacy, are among the new initiatives to be undertaken at the C4IR.

“The launch of this center is enabled by investments that we, as a country, have been making in science and technology. I hope the center will build on this by making the Fourth Industrial Revolution an equalizing force, and contributing solutions to some of today’s most pressing challenges. We are very happy to have the World Economic Forum as a partner in this crucial and other endeavors,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame during the launch of C4IR last week.

He went on to say that the center’s opening demonstrated how far the country has progressed in science and technology nearly 30 years after the country’s infamous ethnically driven genocide in the 1990s.

“This is the first center to be formally launched in Africa. It says a lot about the leadership in the country when it comes to leapfrogging and being visionary when it comes to new technologies,” WEF president Brende chimed.

“I think that this Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Rwanda will play an important role to meet the ratio of Rwanda becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2035. The center, I hope, will be a key enabler of Rwanda’s goal of becoming an even more prosperous society,” he said.

“The time has come for Africa to put itself at the very center of a new technological revolution. Our continent has a unique competitive advantage that stems from an undeniably entrepreneurial spirit that is built into our young generations – that is an ability to innovate out of necessity,” added Ingabire.

Telecommunication Companies Bar 75-Million Unlinked SIMs in Nigeria

TWA Admin
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Telecommunication Companies Bar 75-Million Unlinked SIMs in Nigeria

Telecommunication providers in Nigeria obeyed the Federal Government’s order on Monday to block any unlinked Subscriber Identification Module – SIM card without a National Identification Number (NIN) from being used on their networks, in an effort to reduce insecurity, extortion, and kidnappings.

Reports from The Guardian Newspaper present that the Federal Government had ordered the carriers to block all current calls to unlinked SIM cards in the country through the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

President Muhammadu Buhari issued an order in December 2020 to link all phone lines to an identification number in order to better manage abductions in the country.

Officials from various telecom companies verified that they received letters from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and have subsequently begun blocking outgoing calls from all unlinked SIMs on their networks.

Despite Buhari’s plan to link phone lines, there has been a spike in terrorist assaults and kidnappers in the West African country who want ransom money from families.

Kidnappers use unregistered SIM cards to contact the victims’ families and demand a ransom. 75 million Sims that are not registered with NIN will be unable to make calls as a result of the new order.

Isa Pantami, Minister of Communication and Digital Economy stated that since the government began sanitizing its database, no individual or official with the legal authority to request bio-data and other information about NIN-SIM for a rescue mission has approached the ministry.

“President Buhari has approved for them to do it without even our intervention as a ministry. So, with that approval, NCC has conveyed that through my office to all relevant institutions that Mr. President has granted approval for such. So, with it, they can get databases even without our permission,” Pantami said.

“But since then, they (security agents) have never complained or come to me even once to demand information from the database. The only person that wrote a letter to me was the Minister of Defence, saying that we should try to finish the NIN-SIM exercise on time,” he said.

After Buying Nigerian Data Centre Firm for $320M, Equinix Expands to Africa

TWA Admin
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After Buying Nigerian Data Centre Firm for $320M, Equinix Expands to Africa

Equinix, an American digital infrastructure company, announced on Monday that it had completed the $320 million acquisition of MainOne, a West African data center, and connectivity solutions provider.

This new acquisition, according to Equinix, marks the start of the company’s expansion into Africa.

Equinix’s efforts to deliver a comprehensive range of technologies and connectivity to Nigeria, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire have been boosted by the completion of this transaction.

Platform Equinix will expand into West Africa as a result of this acquisition, enabling enterprises based both inside and outside of Africa access to global and regional markets. With around 142 million active internet connections, Nigeria has the greatest population and economy of any African country.

It has a great opportunity for the expansion of digital services because it is home to new innovative digital ecosystems in fintech, content, and digital media.

MainOne’s assets comprise four active data centers and 570,000 square feet of land for potential expansions, totaling more than 64,000 gross square feet of space for Platform Equinix.

A 7,000-kilometer submarine network connecting Portugal to Lagos, Accra, and the West African coast, with landing points in Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. The company will now be known as “MainOne, an Equinix company.”

Equinix has completed the latest in a series of strategic acquisitions with the closing of the MainOne deal. Equinix has announced growth in South America with the anticipated acquisition of three Entel data centers to accelerate digital transformation prospects for local businesses and global organizations, following the news of its plans to acquire MainOne in December 2021.

Both deals came after GPX India announced plans to buy 13 Bell data centers in Canada and two highly linked data centers in Mumbai in October 2020 and September 2021, respectively.

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