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Bolt Launches Car Financing Aid for Drivers in Nigeria

Sopuruchukwu Elizabeth Mba
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Bolt Launches Car Financing Aid for Drivers in Nigeria

Bolt, one of Africa’s leading ride-hailing company has launched a car financing aid for Nigerian drivers.

The company announced a partnership with Metro Africa Express (MAX) – a platform holding one of the highest car subscriptions of low to zero-emission cars in Africa – to finance ride-hailing drivers.

The collaboration aims to increase the output of Nigerian drivers by providing access to valuable services such as low-to-zero emission cars, licenses and permits, affordable health coverage, insurance, and other value-added financial services.

The initiative by Bolt will support and increase earnings for ride-hailing drivers, who will be able to own cars with a low equity repayment offer. It will also give the drivers the freedom to maintain flexibility as car owners.

The Bolt partnership with MAX will model the hire-purchase or the rental process using leased cars. A lease-to-own structure will be available, allowing ride-hailing drivers to rent a car and pay for it in installments. When the payment is complete, the driver takes full ownership of the vehicle.

“We launched our vehicle financing scheme early this year to enable drivers to own a car or motorbike with low equity repayment and have decided to expand the scheme to create opportunities for more prospective drivers. In partnership with Max, we are looking to expand our commitment to helping drivers on the Bolt platform to earn more and at their own pace, either driving full-time or part-time. Drivers are fundamental to our business operations, and it is important to provide solutions that ensure that driving on Bolt is flexible and profitable because improving partner earnings is fundamental to sustaining the trust and loyalty that we have earned over time,” explained Femi Akin-Laguda, the Country Manager at the event of the collaboration.

“Our vision for African mobility is for shared modes of transportation to become the norm. We strive for a world where people and goods can move in a predictable, safe, and efficient way with zero impact on our climate. Our partnership with Bolt is perfectly aligned with this goal. We are enthusiastic about transforming the transport sector together, enabled by our innovative and industry-leading mobility and financial services infrastructure,” said Adetayo Bamiduro CEO and co-founder of MAX.

“At MAX, we are constantly developing solutions to make travel easier, safer, and more pleasing. This is what powers our focus on innovation and strategic partnerships. We are excited about this opportunity to extend these solutions with Bolt further,” commented Chinedu Azodoh, co-founder of MAX.

After successfully incorporating the first batch of drivers into the program, Bolt in collaboration with MAX is committed to empowering drivers by offering inexpensive, and reliable transportation options.

E-Health Africa Appoints Juliet Odogwu as New Executive Director

Boluwatife Aponmade
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E-Health Africa Appoints Juliet Odogwu as New Executive Director

E-Health Africa has announced Juliet Odogwu as the incumbent Executive Director of the organization. The organization is a non-profit organization that envisions building stronger healthcare systems through the implementation and design of data-driven ideas and solutions.

Juliet Odogwu’s position as Executive Director of eHealth Africa will begin on the 1st of January, 2022. She is the current Director of Program and Impact and will carry on in this current position.

Juliet has more than 13 years of experience in Project and programs implementation and many years of experience in strategic planning and development of new programs, and very recently, Director of Programs at Impact at eHealth Africa.

She has held several positions at eHA, including Senior Program Manager and Director at Program and Impact before being appointed as Executive Director, where she has been since 2018. She received a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Information Systems and Analysis from Howard University, Washington DC.

Juliet has also served as Portfolio Manager in the DFID-funded Growth and Employment in States (GEMS3) Program, where she provided oversight on several projects that were targeted at improving the legal and regulatory environment for small and medium scales enterprises in Nigeria. She was the New Technology Lead and Senior Analyst on HIV Laboratory Access at the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Nigeria.

Co-founders and co-Executive Directors, Adam Thompson and Evelyn Castle, led the organization by working closely together with a strong network of organizations, foundations, and institutions across both public and private sectors in erecting new standards of health delivery and emergency response by way of integrating information, technology, and resources.

Africa Blockchain University and YIELD App Collaborate on NFT Education Program

Abdulquadri Ayilara
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Africa Blockchain University and YIELD App Collaborate on NFT Education Program

Africa Blockchain University and YIELD App, a digital wealth management platform, have entered into a partnership to teach and enable African artists to realize their value on the open market through Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs), while also securing their intellectual property and improving their financial future through blockchain technology.

Sebastian Savolainen, YIELD App’s regional director for Africa, said in a statement that “bridging the gap through education and providing access to digital assets is at the heart of everything we do at YIELD App and inspired us to help with this initiative… we hope to teach these inspiring and talented artists how to earn and invest their earnings from NFTs safely and profitably.”

Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) offer a global opportunity for artists to promote their careers and protect their intellectual property. He added that while many people see NFTs as a passing trend, they have enormous potential to help people in poor nations get access to the global economy.

Africa Blockchain University is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting blockchain technology across Africa through project incubation, education, research, and policy advocacy.

Meanwhile, according to Collins Dictionary, the term NFT has been making headlines and gaining popularity this year. Collins experts claim that they chose NFT as the word of the year because of its “meteoric rise in usage” in 2021, which increased by 11,273 percent.

NFTs are blockchain-based digital assets whose worth is tied to their uniqueness due to the fact that they are non-divisible and must be purchased in their entirety. As a result of their scarcity, these characteristics provide NFTs with inherent worth.

Given that these tokens differ from coins like Bitcoin (BTC) due to fungibility, the NFT sector has seen an increase in its activities. For example, secondary sales of NFTs recently surpassed $10 billion, with ETH accounting for more than $6 billion of that total.

Analog TV Switch-Off Completed in South Africa First Province

Boluwatife Aponmade
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Analog TV Switch-Off Completed in South Africa First Province

Khumbudzo Ntshaveni, Communications minister has said the Free State has become the first South African province to completely switch off its analog television transmitters. The residents of the province now require a digital set-top box (digital decoder) or a TV with a Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) tuner before getting free-to-air broadcasting.

“We have managed to conclude analog switch-off in the Free State province at the end of October, following the plan.”, the Communication minister said. Ntshaveni added that no viewer has complained that they do not have access to TV broadcasts after the analog TV switch-off, meaning that everybody in that province could access digital broadcasts.

“I am very happy there are no blackouts of any household”, Khumbudzo stated. “We are also on track to conclude the North West switch-off in line with the program that we shared with you”. Ntshaveni said the present plan was to switch off all SABC transmitter sites by the 31st of January, 2022.

Minister of Communications, Khumbudzo Ntshaveni said a total analog switch-off dates would be given at a later stage, but the department still targets 31st March 2022 as announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa at his SONA speech in February 2021. Khumbudzo also added that the government has ramped up DTT installer capacity in the past months.

“Sentech’s installer capacity for the remaining provinces has been created, and this will intensify installations in the coming months”, she said. “In Limpopo and Mpumalanga, we are fully ramped up, and we are on track with the plan as well”.

“We are commencing with Gauteng, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Western Cape in terms of the installations”, the Communications minister added.

Khumbudzo has also addressed concerns that some viewers without digital decoders of televisions without digital tuners would be left without access to free-to-air broadcasts, due to the slow uptake in sign-ups for minimized set-top boxes (STB). By the end of October, the government has registered 1,228,879 indigent households qualified for the set-top boxes. Of over one million households that had registered, 572,255 of them have been migrated.

Ntshaveni said the reason the numbers were not going up as expected is that 11 million South Africans are already watching TV through satellite while others watch through DTT-compliant TV sets. The minister also said the department found out that most indigent households who qualified for STBs already have DTT-compliant TVs, this would only require an aerial to access digital television.

Khumbudzo further emphasized that the government has received assurances from set-top boxes manufacturers that they have sufficient capacity to satisfy the digital decoder in South Africa.

The minister emphasized the call to non-indigent households that do not qualify for a free STB to buy a television with a digital tuner or an STB that can receive digital or satellite signals. An Openview or DStv decoder is another alternative.

LongBridge Technologies Limited Job Opening: Product Research Manager

Hassan Barakat
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LongBridge Technologies Limited Job Opening: Product Research Manager

LongBridge Technologies Limited, an IT organization in Lagos has a job opening for a Product Research Manager.

LongBridge Technologies Limited is driven by a core objective that is focused on creating and sustaining growth for individuals and enterprises through innovation.

Product Research Manager Role

  • Location: Lagos (Remote)
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Job Title: Product Research & Development
  • Experience Level: Senior
  • Hours: FullTime
  • Salary: Competitive

Job Description

We are looking for a product research manager who will ensure R&D activities to achieve strategic objectives, improve market position, and optimize profitability. Through close partnership with the marketing, sales, product development, and engineering teams, he/she will lead the development of new core products, optimization of current offerings, and identification and execution of cost savings initiatives.

Job Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Marketing, Sales, Product Managers, and Engineering to develop innovation plans

• Leverage consumer insights to guide product innovation and renovation plans

• Leverage internal and external resources to identify emerging problems (people, process, and culture) and translate these into new product ideas that are aligned with the business strategy

• Lead product development, process development, and ingredient technology efforts to develop and test new and improved products, cost optimization, and quality improvement

• Manage a complex and dynamic project portfolio to ensure the attainment of business goals, including prioritization and execution strategy

• Ensure robust experimentation/design principles and processes to achieve project objectives and commercial requirements (development efficiency, stability, shelf life)

• Manage R&D personnel, including priority setting, coaching, and skill development

• Develop and lead annual cost optimization plans

• Develop and manage R&D Department budget, ensuring efficient utilization of resources and achievement of the annual business plan

• Collaborate with key customers as required to drive customer-specific innovation

• Ensure ongoing evaluation of the competitive landscape and competitive innovation

• Meeting with business management, product managers, marketing, and the R&D team to discuss product ideas

• Conducting market research and evaluating similar products and their functions

• Collaborating with the engineering and marketing department on product feasibility

• Redesigning existing products to enhance functionality or reduce costs

• Creating design projects and specification sheets

• Presenting product designs to management and stakeholders

• Overseeing the engineering of product prototypes

• Testing prototype products for functionality, ease of use, longevity, and users’ acceptance

• Overseeing the production process

• Handover designed products to Product Managers for commercialization and business management.

Requirements

Skills/Proficiency:

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with a strong customer focus

• Excellent organizational and follow-up skills with strong attention to detail

• Ability to adapt to a changing environment

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills

• Highly motivated with the ability to work independently

• Strong business acumen and ability to translate technology to potential business impacts

• Exhibits a curious mind

• Demonstrated ability to get to the essence of a new concept quickly

• Knowledge of front end of innovation tools and processes

• Demonstrates success with creating a technology platform or new business development

• Demonstrated success in more than one industry

• Coaching and developing others

• Ability to meet time-sensitive deadlines

• Strong innovation and/or networking skills

• Demonstrated success in more than one industry

• Negotiation and persuasion skills

• Demonstrated success with creating a technology platform or new business development

• Knowledge of front end of innovation tools and processes

• Strong business and technical acumen

• Would prefer the candidate to be multilingual—not a must

• Demonstrated ability to make things happen—this is an important characteristic.

  • Has a passion and interest in information technology.

Education/Experience:

  •  10+ years in technology and business experience
  •  BSc in business or science and engineering. Advanced business degree or PhD
  • Excellent understanding of the product development process and innovation stage gate principle
  • Demonstrates ability to develop and execute technology strategy that delivers on business need
  • Strong project management skills and excellent communication, both oral and written
  • People leadership skills and the ability to manage, mentor, and develop others.

Apply for this job HERE

 

Concept Group Job Opening: Chief Technology Officer

Hassan Barakat
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Concept Group Job Opening: Chief Technology Officer

The Concept Group was initially borne from a functional and structural approach, simply delivering better effectiveness through shared services of back-office functions for its more market-facing organizations. As the organization grew, the Group along with its member subsidiaries have evolved to embody much more.

As a tested guiding light, our core values which we passionately uphold give us a sense of purpose and direction not only in our professional but in our private lives also. These values summarized are based on three pillars; (Great) People, (Continuous) Innovation, and the (Ideal) Culture.

Chief Technology Officer Role

  • Job Type: Full Time
  • Qualification: BA/BSc/HND
  • Experience: 10 years
  • Location: Lagos
  • Job Field: ICT/Computer 

Responsibilities

Overall Strategic Leadership:

• Set the firm’s technical vision, develop and implement strategies to achieve business objectives
• Ensure that the firm’s technology and systems evolve at a pace that continues to exceed client and business expectations
• Lead the strategy for application delivery, technology platforms, partnerships, and external relationships
• Foster an agile and continuous improvement culture within the firm
• Demonstrate fidelity to the organization’s culture in words and deeds.

Strategic Management:

• Develop technical policies, processes, and procedures to achieve operational needs, and ensure adherence
• Oversee and scale the firm’s technology in terms of people, systems, and processes
• Make decisions that impact the current and future operations of the company.

People and Operations Management:

• Manage, mentor, and provide sound technical leadership to a high-performing, world-class and collaborative engineering team
• Lead the engineering team in the design, development, deployment, and maintenance of high-quality products/features and business tools.
• Work with cross-functional teams to understand and translate the business needs to sought after products by our clients
• Define the product road map in collaboration with the product management team
• Create and maintain excellent documentation of all specifications, systems, and procedures Automate operational delivery and management processes from build/test/deploy to monitoring, alerting, and capacity management
• Ensure all technological practices comply with regulatory standards.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related fields
• At least 10 years working in a technological role
• At least 4 years of managerial experience leading diverse teams of engineers
• Experience building financial products is a plus
• Strong working knowledge of PHP, Python, Nodejs, React, JavaScript
• Demonstrated experience in using SQL, MySQL,
• Demonstrated experience with CI/CD deployment process
• Experience in server management, vulnerability assessment, security, etc

Application Deadline

December 24, 2021

Method of Application

Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV to;

careers@conceptgroup-ng.com using the Job Title as the subject of the email.

or simply apply HERE

The Art of Technology 3.0

Ahmadu Sulaiman
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The Art of Technology 3.0

The Art of Technology 3.0 (AOT) is the most impactful technology conference in Africa every year, hosted in Lagos State, the investment capital of the continent.

It’s a gathering of top government executives, policymakers, investors, founders, business executives, and technology enthusiasts that shakes up what it means to come together as an industry to participate in conversations and make collective decisions that will make our dominance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution a reality.

Art Of Technology 3.0
Art of Technology 3.0

The Art of Technology 3.0 is slated to be held as follows:

Theme: ‘Funding and A Connected Lagos’

Date: 3rd and 4th of December

Time: 9:00am to 12:00pm

Location: Lagos Oriental Hotel, 3 Lekki – Epe Expressway Lagos, LA 106104

Over the past two globally held editions, we have had over 10,000 attendees, 150 speakers, and have made decisions that have impacted Lagos State in irreversible ways. Key among these decisions was the creation of a Lagos State Innovation Master Plan, a 3,000 KM Internet Fiber laying project, the Eko Open Source program, and StartupLagos.

This year, AOT 3.0 will be focusing on the theme ‘Funding and A Connected Lagos’, and it will spotlight investment readiness, investment case studies, regulations, and policy formulations for the tech ecosystem. It will feature keynote, plenary, and breakout sessions, and will be a hybrid event, broadcasted globally.

For more information and registration, click on the link: https://aotlagos.com/register.

Egyptian Fintech Startup Hollydesk Receives $325,000 in Pre-seed Funding

Abdulquadri Ayilara
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Egyptian Fintech Startup Hollydesk Receives $325,000 in Pre-seed Funding

Hollydesk, a Cairo-based fintech, has launched a $325,000 pre-seed funding round led by angel investor Faisal Abdel Salam, who was joined by additional investors.

Hollydesk manages and follows up on corporate costs and Egyptian accounts seeking funding as a fintech company. Hollydesk’s expansion goals to other nations will be aided by the new cash received.

Hollydesk was formed in June 2021 by Mahmoud Moussa, the CEO, to provide technical solutions that enable SMEs to track and control their everyday spending. Employees can then seek payments and reimbursements via the Hollydesk app, which connects company members.

This program demonstrates that accountants can communicate instantly, and budget approvals can be obtained faster than traditional ways. There is also a simpler way to link the system’s suppliers, vendors, and purchasers.

Mahmoud Moussa, CEO of Hollydesk, expressed his delight at the company’s new investment, stating that it will allow for growth and horizontal expansion of the company’s services.

“We intend to use the new funding to design technologies for our solutions, implement other services that will be announced soon with other Egyptian banks, and assign new competencies within the team to achieve financial inclusion, particularly for workers in small and medium businesses,” says the company CEO.

He also indicated that there are plans to provide other solutions, such as funding and solutions, to assist these businesses in achieving greater growth in this industry.


Hollydesk has been the first financial technology business in Egypt to be sponsored in the field of managing SMEs costs and accounts as a result of this funding.

“The company is providing digital solutions that bridge the gap that many small and medium-sized businesses in the Middle East and North Africa suffer from,” said lead investor Faisal Abdul Salam.

One of the most significant factors in a startup’s success is the team’s level of harmony and integration, which we witness in the Hollydesk team.

Their belief, particularly in the concept of their initiative, is strong, and we were encouraged to invest and help them, he continued.

Tek Experts Powers Tech Support in Nigeria with Over 1800 Employees

Hassan Barakat
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Tek Experts Powers Tech Support in Nigeria with Over 1800 Employees

Tek Experts, a leading global provider of technical support services has powered tech support in Nigeria with over 1800 Employees.

The company has reached a milestone of over 1,800 employees in Nigeria, making it the company’s largest market worldwide. This achievement was highlighted during a media visit to the company as part of an endeavor to express the core of the industry’s relatively new tech support specialty.

Tech Experts is a company that turns cases into experiences for deeper customer connection to drive loyalty, renewals, and growth.

Tek Experts Powers Tech Support in Nigeria with Over 1800 Employees
Tek Experts Powers Tech Support in Nigeria with Over 1800 Employees

Lars Johannisson, the Managing Director for Africa, Tek Experts, and Elev8, spoke about the achievement, saying that having Nigeria as the company’s largest market of operations globally demonstrates the company’s commitment to developing the tech support sector in Nigeria and Africa, as well as nurturing talent in the country through its sister company, Elev8.

“We appreciate the importance of tech support in driving our customers’ brand and overall customer experience,” he says. “We’re in a unique position to help companies make the most of their existing customer support efforts by driving product adoption, increasing renewal rates, and ultimately increasing top-line revenue growth.

We invest heavily in digital skills and employee development, growing a skilled workforce for the ICT industry. Many of the services we offer to our customers require technical expertise. We offer both a place to build IT skills and a place to leverage those skills with work possibilities supporting some of the most cutting-edge technology for some of the world’s most well-known firms at Tek Experts.”

“We want to be acknowledged as the employer of choice in every market in which we operate. We want the investments we make in our workers’ professional development to provide them with opportunities for advancement and allow them to establish a career they are proud of at a company that they feel fully supported by,” Lars said.

Over the past two years, Tek Experts has worked with Microsoft to provide technology skills training and on-the-job apprenticeship for real-time engineering projects and deliverables to Nigerian youngsters.

Ten female Software Engineers were the inaugural batch of trainees, who began and completed their program in September 2019. In 2020, another set of 10 Nigerian women benefited from the partnership between the two tech companies.

Asilimia Raises $2M in a Pre-Seed Round, Plans to Expand in East Africa

Boluwatife Aponmade
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Asilimia Raises $2M in a Pre-Seed Round, Plans to Expand in East Africa

Asilimia, a Kenyan fintech company has raised $2 million in a pre-seed round with aspirations to lend to MSMEs and grow across East Africa.

The economy of Kenya is powered by informal businesses, these contribute 33.8% to the country’s GDP, it also provide 83.4% of the total employment outside small-scale agriculture. This data was gotten from the country’s bureau of statistics. The contribution of these businesses is very important to the economy of the country, yet, they remain under-served by traditional financial institutions making it difficult for them to access the financing needed to grow.

The financing gap left by the conventional banking institutions has given an opportunity for leading to the birth of financial technology startups like Asilimia and for innovation. Asilimia has been giving a lifeline to traders in Kenya for over three years by allowing them to make mobile money transactions devoid of transfer charges, through its app known as Leja app.
Having now secured $2 million pre-seed funding ($1 million equity and $1 million debt), the fintech company is headed for its next stage of growth, it is a stage that will involve giving loans to traders, extending relief to the subgroup that is often left out and referred to as high risk by the traditional banking sector.

Funding for equity came from various investors like Fredrik Jung Abbou (a two-time unicorn founder and Norrsken Impact Accelerator, while the one for the debt round had investors like French Public Investment Bank (Bpifrance) and Green Tec Capital Partners come through. Asilimia is set to use the funding to hire talents, as it looks forward to fine-tuning its technology and also expanding another market in East Africa. Asilimia also has plans of granting loans to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), according to the data from Leja app.

The co-founder and CEO of Asilimia told TechCrunch, “We have entered a phase where we are exploring ways in which we can extend the much-needed credit enabling traders to buy equipment or products to sustain their enterprises”.

Morgane Kablan is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and co-founder of Asilimia.

Asilimia is exploring growth opportunities in other regions beyond East Africa because it seeks to continue bridging the financing gap that is presently being experienced by traders across the continent.

Funda Sezgi, Norrsken Impact Accelerator co-founder and managing Director said MSMEs play important roles across Africa, and making it easier for them to succeed will be good for the continent as a whole.

“Tekwane and the team have built a solution that works and we are delighted to be supporting them as they drive prosperity in a key sector for the African economy”, Sezgi said.

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