DD
MM
YYYY

PAGES

DD
MM
YYYY

spot_img

PAGES

Home Blog Page 7729

The New Associated Press for Africa – Africa Interactive. Maybe, You Can Join Them If You Got The Skills

0

Africa Interactive is a fast growing multimedia press- and content agency in Africa, with 2000 local reporters in 50 African countries. Their reporters tell the African story in text, photo or video.

 

Their database contains filmmakers, journalists, photographers, stringers and marketing experts who produce tailor made ‘High-end’ videos and ‘Simple Video Reports’ to showcase activities in Africa.

 

Services include:

 

Content Production:
•    High-end video productions
•    TV formats
•    Simple video reports
•    Text and Photography

 

Building your business in Africa:
•    Market Research
•    Communication solutions e.g. websites.
•    Access to African Business Communities           with more than 80.000 business leaders.
•    Access to >40 African TV Channels

 

Notable Events are

 

  • In May 2011 the Netherlands hosted 200 international knowledgeambassadors from 36 countries, who joined together to create aninternational knowledge network. They are all alumni who studied in the Netherlands.

Nuffic asked Africa Interactive to visit four alumni in Uganda, Colombia and India to see how they’ve benefited from their studies in the Netherlands.

 

  • For the Dutch organization Spark we produced videos to profile different entrepreneurs in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia

 

  • For the recently launched BoP Innovation Center we produced an introduction video. The centre accelerates the impact of market driven innovations in low income markets, by incubating new private sector initiatives, enabling learning and capacity development and influencing policy agendas to improve the enabling environment.

Looking for Seed Capital? Try Lunatech Ventures. Their Research Division is Awesome

0

 

Are you an entrepreneur looking for seed investment or are you looking for a co-investor on this great idea you have? Learn about Lunatech Ventures. This company can be the real deal for someone with the right idea. It is Dutch based but they can go global.

 

We are seed investors, our main focus being Internet and Interactive media technologies. Our preference is for investment as equity (shareholding), this allows the investor and entrepreneur to share a goal – to create value for the company. We invest working capital, human resources, or a combination of both. We are willing to invest in pre-revenue companies – we may provide a company’s first working capital.

 

Their research division is also a cool one. We think that Dutch investors do put money in Africa. If you have got it, try this company, not just for the funds but partnerships and collaborations.

 

Lunatech Research was founded in 1993 as an IT consulting, product research and development team. As a team of adept self-managing architects and programmers, working with a very experienced commercial team, Lunatech has a successful track record of implementing medium-sized to large systems. Our skills are best applied in designing and building back office systems whereby a web interface is just one of many external user- interfaces.

 

We excel at going into your organisation, analyzing the requirements, and then – together with you – designing and building a system to meet your needs.

 

We work to an interactive development process. We build applications in a number of short iterations. This provides great visibility to the customer and it greatly improves the end result because the product and expectations can be adjusted along the way. With a proud record of providing professional IT services, joint ventures and investments in other peoples ideas, you’ll find us highly technical, very creative, and flexible.

Pulse is for Cameroon as Facebook is for World. Maybe, Pulse Could be for African Universities Soon

0

They are building a social network site in Cameroon that will link students of the University of Beau. They hope to extend that to all African schools. The name is Pulse.

Notice this from their site – their site looked like Google + or Google + looked like Pulse. Either way, we have to hold off until they are done.

  • We working 24/7 to revamp our entire platform UI coz of the noticed similarity to Google plus.

The Motivation?

We started Pulse with  the idea to create a social network for the university of Buea, but after realizing a vast majority of African universities had no form of online student services, and how students depended solely on notice boards, in-class announcements and mouth to mouth communication, we decided it was time we did something about it.

Pulse is a social/geolocation platform aimed at connecting African universities, professors to their students. In other words, we trying to make African education look cool, Pulse will provide a platform where any university can own and operate its own high-end online students services at a low cost, without having to deploy any technical infrastructure, it will permit lecturers to communicate faster and cheaper to their students and lastly it will enable students to receive updates from their teachers and classmates through sms, web and email. We are building only for these category of universities and of course we taking into consideration the realities of African users, that means for us, that our platform will be centered around the mobile experience.

Recharging for Entrepreneurship – The African Network, Founded Right In Silicon Valley

0

The African Network, TAN, is a global non-profit organization with the sole mandate of fostering entrepreneurship and technology among people of African descent. TAN was founded in Silicon Valley, California in 2004 to provide a support structure and network for entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, and community leaders worldwide. The objective of TAN is to leverage all available resources through networking, education, training, and mentoring to develop entrepreneurship and enable community development among all people of African descent.

 

TAN accomplishes these aspects of fostering entrepreneurship and community development through two of its programs: TAN Conference (TANCon) and TAN Empowerment program (TEP). TANCon is now organized annually on two continents – Africa and the United States of America (USA). Its main purpose is to create an ecosystem where entrepreneurs, would-be entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors, business leaders, community leaders and policy makers network and discuss investments, business opportunities and other issues of relevance to all people of African Descent on a global level.

 

With this purpose of fostering entrepreneurship comes the giving-back to the community aspect of the organization known as the TAN Empowerment Program (TEP). The main aim of the TEP program is to mentor, train, educate and equip future entrepreneurs, especially the youth, with resources needed to take that leap of faith. In addition, TEP tends to focus on low-income, needy, under-served and less privileged communities with a view to mobilizing resources that could be used to uplift them. These resources could come in the form of mentoring, training, coaching and affordable physical resources that can make a difference in their lives.

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Approves LFR Communications’s VTNetwork To Roll Out Mobile Payment

0

LFR Communications is a financial services company operating in emerging economies and mainly serving the unbanked. LFR runs two businesses: Graphcard and Virtual Terminal Network (VTN), a mobile/web transaction network.  The Central Bank of Nigeria just approved the VTN to roll out mobile payment to Nigerian public. Below is the press release.

VTNETWORK Limited of Abuja, has received regulatory approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to permit mobile access to its platform, previously limited to online access.

 

Through a suite of mobile apps suited for nearly every phone, even very basic handsets, VTNetwork’s new mobile money initiative will both provide much-needed service and develop much-needed volume, explained CEO Peter Ojo. Efficiently serving the needs of the unbanked requires volume unattainable exclusively online. Though Nigeria’s 90 million (some say 100 million) mobile phones this volume – and the means to reach the unbanked – can be harnessed. It is like adding thousands of smaller branches to a tree trunk with just a handful of large branches.

 

VTNetwork will start with a controlled pilot in urban and rural centers in Nigeria immediately following an analysis of the nearly 400,000 Nigerians already registered with VTN. In a sense the geo-targeting required by the regulators will be crowdsourced based on existing registrant demand.

 

Mobile payments are alternative payment methods that have been proven very effective and popular in cash-based developing countries. Due to the lack of alternative methods of transferring money or paying for goods and services. Instead of carrying cash, participants can use their mobile phone to pay for a wide range of services and digital or hard goods or simply send money for other purposes.

 

The mobile payment model adopted by VTNETWORK is Non-Bank Led (VTNETWORK is the lead initiator), while the method of operation is stored value (e-Money) account based. This method makes sense for the unbanked,  and the prepaid nature of each transaction makes the model even more secure.

 

VTNETWORK has been at the forefront of payment innovation in Nigeria since 2007, with over 5 million ecommerce transactions processed pre-launch and rapid adoption by local and international merchants who have found Nigeria to be an untapped market with over 43 million internet users with limited access to buying goods and services. VTN was selected to power USA-Africa trade mission submit in Maryland, USA in 2008. Following a recent effort to recruit agents, over 1300 agents have signed up and there are over 4900 registered merchants on VTN many of which will find value in becoming an agent.

 

About 28 million Nigerians are banked in a country of about 150 million and following the CBN’s cashless policy that was announced to take effect from June 2012coupled with the World Bank’s support of same, it is believed that the policy will fast track the nation’s financial sector.

 

Mobile payment has been well adopted in many parts of Africa, Europe and Asia. Combined market for all types of mobile payments is expected to reach more than $600B globally by 2013.