DD
MM
YYYY

PAGES

DD
MM
YYYY

spot_img

PAGES

Home Blog Page 7105

Ecobank’s Fintech 11

0
Ecobank fintech

I noted few hours ago that Honeywell Group had unveiled an innovation ecosystem to seed startups in Lagos. Interestingly, the company is joining corporations like Ecobank and Diamond Bank which continue to put money in African startups. This is the new redesign where companies need to invest in local SMEs to build the economy of the future. In China, Alibaba and Tencent are investing in local companies, deepening their capabilities. In U.S., companies like Apple, Google and Intel have corporate investing funds. Africa needs such models. Today, Ecobank announced new 11 companies it is supporting with capital.

Ecobank, the leading independent pan-African banking group, has announced the finalists for the 2nd edition of the annual Ecobank Fintech Challenge, a competition for Africa-focused technology start-ups. The list includes eleven (11) fintech start-ups from across the continent and beyond.

An Innovation Fair & Awards ceremony will honour the start-ups on August 30, 2018 at the global headquarters of Ecobank in Lomé, Togo.

At the ceremony, the start-ups will exhibit and pitch their products to a jury for the Ecobank Africa Fintech Prize, which will be awarded the top innovator and two runners-up. The top three innovators will win cash prizes worth US$10,000, US$7,000, and US$5,000 respectively.

After the Awards ceremony, Ecobank will enroll all eleven finalists into the Ecobank Fintech Fellowship. The Fellowship will run for a period of six months during which Ecobank Fintech Fellows will benefit from an opportunity to further explore partnerships with the Ecobank Group that includes:

  • Multinational product roll-out support: for the start-ups deemed commercially viable to grow their businesses across any of Ecobank’s 33 markets in Africa;
  • Service provider & ecosystem partner deals: for start-ups with deep capabilities to become product partners within Ecobank’s ecosystem;
  • Technical & mentoring support: during the six months fellowship period, fellows will benefit from technical support from Ecobank’s global network of technology leaders, fintech experts, investors and management coaches.

The eleven start-ups are:

Lypa (Kenya), Wallet.ng (Nigeria), Nala (Tanzania), Litee (Benin), SESO Global (South Africa), InvestED (Sierra Leone), Eversend (France), Secapay (Nigeria), Virtual Identity (South Africa), MojiPay (Togo), Awamo (Germany

Ecobank’s Fintech Challenge is a vehicle to seed African startups largely in the financial sector.

Facebook Revamps Digital Marketing After 52% Drop on Failed “Boost” Campaign

0
Facebook Digital Marketing
RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA - FEBRUARY 07: Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg speaks on stage at The 2017 MAKERS Conference at Terranea Resort and Spa on February 7, 2017 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images)

LinkedIn Summary: Facebook became greedy. When people posted on Pages, the algorithm would not share the contents to users. To make people see the contents, Facebook would ask you to “Boost” the post. That is another way of saying “buy advertisement”. The world revolted and Facebook lost 57% of Page’s activity because no one wanted to waste time sharing things no one reads.

But the company is back. In this piece, I explain the difference between “I invite you to my new site event” and “We have launched a new site” within the construct of the new Facebook plan. Yes, digital marketing in the age of Google and Facebook continue to evolve. Get ahead.


It seems like Facebook is experiencing a drop in its Pages – the largely business and celebrity section of Facebook. This is expected as when Facebook cut out free sync of many contents, users were not seeing things posted by companies. Many left Pages, and Facebook is concerned as numbers have dropped.

An unescapable fact of Facebook’s  ubiquity is that as more Pages and people compete for limited News Feed attention, the percentage of a business’ followers who see their posts declines. Reach dropped 52 percent in just the first half of 2016, for example. Some admins consider it a conspiracy to get Pages to pay for ads boosting their posts, exacerbated by poor communication from Facebook and it telling businesses to work or advertise to get more followers that they now can’t reliably access via feed. But in reality, it’s a natural side effect of increased supply paired with plateauing demand.

It was really a trap as Facebook was clearly focusing on asking companies to “boost” their posts for users to see them. Boost is nothing but paying for advertisement. Without that, no one may see your contents. Many tolerated it at the beginning until they gave up. Now, Facebook wants them back.

The company has indeed come out clean, informing the world what it has been doing. And going forward, contents from friends and families would be prioritized more over those from publishers and brands.

Maintaining personal account now is more important than any business account on Facebook and LinkedIn. They have added social before that “digital marketing” and they want you to be engaged to reach customers.  In my opinion, what you share from your personal account is about 5x more valuable than the business one in the Facebook and LinkedIn algorithms. Simply, you cannot hide; your brand is now you.

The company has a plan to get them back by making sure that Pages are not just for marketing but also a vehicle to help companies connect with customers on events and socials. Hopefully, Facebook will let users know of the events without asking for payments to “boost” the contents.

That’s why Facebook is trying to redefine business Pages not as just a mouthpiece for marketing through News Feed, but a destination for customers. Today, Facebook is redesigning the Pages of the 80 million small businesses on its platform and the 1.6 billion people connected to them.

It is something to consider. If telling users that you are inviting them to test your website in an event is different from we are launching a website, PR experts will just have to adjust strategy to deal with Facebook AIs. When the company made its earlier AI update, many companies went under as they lost traffic. Now, they are back, it is time to revisit the models on bringing traffic and users via Facebook ecosystem.

 

Blossom That Career – Create a Separation at Personal and Business Levels

1

A major secret in careers and business is accumulating capabilities. From Dangote Group to professors in universities, there are always seasons to accumulate capabilities and skills. Your career will not blossom if your capabilities and skills are ordinary. The same applies to companies. In these videos, I explain.

Companies must develop and accumulate capabilities in order to compete in the market place. In this video, I explain how any firm can do that and why accumulating capability is very strategic. From Google to Dangote Group, when companies accumulate capabilities, they see themselves operating in the segments of markets with higher value (usually upstream) compared with where their competitors operate (usually downstream). Dangote Group can deploy massive assets and technical know-how in cement production, making it harder for new entrants and rivals

 

 

Honeywell Group Lagos Launches An Accelerator Itanna, Investing $25,000 Per Startup

0
Itanna Team, First Cohort and Partners_LR

Nigerian companies are now looking for innovations anywhere they can find them. And that is a good thing. I do think that other companies should copy them, and invest in our startups. Just as Google, Apple and Amazon have funds they deploy in startups, Nigerian corporations need to do same.

Honeywell Group, a Nigerian corporation, has  launched its new accelerator and investment vehicle, Itanna. Led by Tomi Otudeko, Head, Innovation and Sustainability for Honeywell Group and Director of the new venture, Itanna will roll out four-month innovation programmes for tech-enabled Nigerian startups from its newly built Enterprise Factory in Lagos; with its pilot cohort of startups receiving USD $25,000 each in investment from Honeywell Group.

Through acceleration, investment and mentorship, Itanna is igniting enterprise. Led by Honeywell Group, we champion entrepreneurial talent & disruptive technology.

At Itanna we invest in early stage and growth stage technology-enabled businesses across Sub-Saharan Africa.

We provide strategic capital to help exceptional entrepreneurial management teams with innovative and scalable business models, disruptive technologies, deep market and domain knowledge, and strong executional skills, while working closely with them every step of the way to help scale their business.

Itanna launches with four cohort companies – Accounteer – providers of online accounting services for SMEs across Africa; KoloPay  – a cashless target savings mobile and web application, Tradebuza – an online platform for managing and brokering commodities sourcing and outgrower scheme, and PowerCube – providers of affordable power supply using renewable energy. Chosen from over 200 applications, each startup will receive training and mentoring from leading industry experts, as well as the opportunity to pitch to Honeywell Group’s network of local and international investors at the company’s inaugural Demo Day, which will take place towards the end of 2018.

On the launch of Itanna, Obafemi Otudeko, Honeywell Group’s Executive Director, says, “Honeywell Group is entrepreneurial to its core – we have almost 50 years’ experience in building Nigerian businesses, across diverse sectors. As part of our wider portfolio, Itanna allows us to collaborate with the Nigerian tech ecosystem; we will invest patient capital into the startups we work with, and we will also provide world-class mentorship to enrich the business strategy  of each cohort. As a corporate, we wanted to transform our approach and add dynamism to how we build our sector play. Itanna is the platform through which we can fulfil our mission to use enterprise to make our world better.”

Through the programme, Itanna will support and invest in tech-enabled for-profit startups with an existing Minimum Viable Product. Startups accepted into the accelerator will need to demonstrate traction through customer growth or partnerships with customer acquisition enablers, have a clear vision as well as technical capability, sector knowledge and the desire to scale.

The launch of Itanna comes as part of Honeywell Group’s mission to connect technology and innovation by transferring knowledge in business-building and entrepreneurship, as the company looks to cement its position as a facilitator and impactor of growth in key sectors, including tech within Nigeria and across Africa.

Itanna will also be investing in more developed tech startups looking for growth capital. Through the direct investment scheme, the Itanna team will support investee companies to scale by leveraging on Honeywell Group’s network and industry expertise.

* Some contents from Itanna copyright-press release shared with Tekedia

Skype Training for Medcera Partners – Tomorrow, 2pm Lagos Time

0
Snapshot of Medcera site

Greetings to our Medcera partners! We would have Skype training for partners at 2pm Lagos time tomorrow.

If you are a partner or intending one, please contact zenvus@fasmicro.com or support@medcera.com for instructions on how to join.

This training will cover technology and business development.

Thank you.