Science & Tech
Digital Africa Reinvents Business Model to Support 200 Tech Entrepreneurs
Digital Africa, a €130 million pan-African, European and French public-funded organisation, has reinvented its business model to support the growth of about 200 African tech entrepreneurs.
Ms Stéphan-Eloise Gras, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Digital Africa, said at a virtual media roundtable on Tuesday that the organisation was committed to boosting African start-ups.
She said that the organisation had published a white paper entitled ‘Supporting Made-in-Africa Digital Innovations’.
Gras said that, as part of the white paper, Digital Africa released an updated roadmap for 2022-2025 together with a refreshed set of objectives, with the ambition to support 200 high-impact African start-ups.
She said that to achieve the objective, the white paper clearly outlined a set of renewed objectives and 12 programmes organised in three focus areas.
According to her, the focus areas are equipping high-impact and digitally-enabled start-ups, sourcing African and global finance to scale up projects, and developing research and policy recommendations in support of made-in-Africa digital innovations.
She said that building on recent successes including its Bridge Fund, Digital Africa was looking to move away from its initial non-profit model with a refreshed governance structure, a new business model and the ambition to get closer to the private sector.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that as part of its white paper, Digital Africa also released an updated roadmap for 2022-2025 New Business Model and Governance Structure.
Gras said that after three years of existence, Digital Africa was reinventing its model to support the growth of its activities and serve the needs of African tech entrepreneurs better.
According to her, Digital Africa is looking at joining forces with Proparco (investment arm of the Agence Française de Développement – AFD), to bring additional expertise to its existing investment programmes.
‘’Digital Africa would be positioned as the continuum to Proparco, focusing on early stage start-ups.
‘’After three years of existence, we are more than ever convinced that made-in-Africa technology is key for a more inclusive and sustainable growth.
‘’This is exactly why our goal is to boost African start-ups and tech ecosystems.
”The best way to do so is to reinvent our model, become a public-private entity guided by strategic committee, with a diversified business model and extended capabilities,’’ she said.
She added that the objective would be for Digital Africa to be able to deploy direct seed financing capabilities for high potential start-ups across the continent.
Gras said that with the unique model, Digital Africa would have the potential to become a one-stop shop for the African tech scene, acting like a super-aggregator of data, policy, knowledge, capabilities and funding opportunities.
She said that as part of the partnership model, a strategic committee would be deployed, bringing together ‘doers’ from key African tech ecosystems to guide Digital Africa’s actions.
Gras said that a call for candidates would be launched on March 1 with the objective to better reflect the diversity of African tech ecosystems from geographical and skill perspectives.
She said that it would bring together entrepreneurs, investors, training and research organisations, incubators and innovation policy experts from key tech ecosystems across African.
She said the desire to address African pressing issues led to the launch of Bridge Fund, a €5 million fund, deployed by Proparco to address both short-term and long-term financing challenges for African start-ups.
Gras said that it aimed to support African start-ups impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and those in their seed phase or between two fundraising rounds, by giving them access to venture debt, a form of financing currently lacking across Africa.
She said that 87 per cent of African start-ups did not have access to any financing, and only 20 per cent of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) had access to bank loans.
According to her, this is in contrast to the fact that Africa is the continent with the highest number of investors, and where SMEs generate 90 per cent of formal jobs.
She said that in few months, over 230 start-ups applied from across 40 countries in Africa, and €3.4 million out of the fund’s €5 million budget had already been allocated.
Gras said that Bridge Fund was designed to provide responsiveness to African start-ups’ needs in the time of a global pandemic and beyond.
” Our intuition is that more can be done to address the funding gap, especially with debt mechanisms.”
She said that there was an opportunity for Digital Africa and its European partners to scale up and accelerate made-in-African technology.
Grégory Clemente, Chief Executive Officer of Proparco, said: “Nearly a year and a half after its launch, the success of the Bridge Fund confirms that it concretely meets the needs of entrepreneurs on the African continent.”
Clemete said that Bridge Fund was tool for accelerating the growth of start-ups and responding to the increased financing difficulties linked to the COVID-19 crisis.
He said that funding of a large number of start-ups in a short time was made possible by effective processing by Digital Africa and Proparco, targeting high-potential start-ups.
He said that the start-ups were at least 18 months’ old and had already received funding from an investor or a recognised structure.
NAN reports that Digital Africa was launched in 2018 with the mission to equip African tech entrepreneurs with capabilities to design and scale-up ground-breaking innovations for the real economy. (NAN)
Dr Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, on Friday visited the inmates of Nigerian Correctional Service, Kuje to commemorate 72nd birthday of President Bola Tinubu.
The minister, who was represented by his aide, Nafisa Bello, said the visit was to celebrate President’s birthday with inmates by providing them packs of food to put smile on their faces.
Tijani, who wished the President a happy birthday, said the gesture was a way of commending the President’s resilience, pragmatic leadership and commitment to service.
He said even though the president had instructed that no one should organise a birthday party or place any birthday goodwill advertorial messages in newspapers, it was a special day.
“We are here to celebrate President Bola Tinubu’s 72nd birthday and share love with the inmates. We have distributed food packs, we have met and had good conversations with some of them.
“We wish the president a happy birthday, long life and property,” minister said.
One of the inmate, Chiwendu Hart, who spoke on behalf of all the inmates described the gesture as an act of love, adding that they were not in the correctional service for punishment but correction.
He thanked the Federal Government and the correctional officers for rehabilitating and integrating the inmates to come out and live a crime free life.
According to him, the Nigerian Correctional Service has set up degree courses, ran by the National Open University (NOUN) and some skills to keep the inmates busy while undergoing trials.
He said that he had graduated and had a Masters in theology and waiting to enroll for his PhD.
“I am a beneficiary of NOUN, I came here with secondary school certificate but today, I am a graduate and have my Masters in theology.
“Even if after you leave the correctional centre, you can still come back and finish up the courses or the skills you started with.
“Once we leave here, we will go out there and explore what we have learnt in order to live a good life.”
He urged the Federal Government to equip some of the vocational programmes with study materials, tailoring machines, carpentry and shoe making tools.
He wished the President a happy birthday. (NAN)
The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) says it will sustain the engagement of journalists for continuous propagation of data privacy and protection message.
The National Commissioner of NDPC, Dr Vincent Olatunji, communicated this when he received officials of the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) on Monday in Abuja.
Olatunji recognised that times were changing; hence journalists needed to be abreast with the dynamism in the data privacy and protection ecosystem.
He said the media had remained a great asset towards nation building and continuous engagement would ensure that they played their role maximally.
“We are aware of the freedom of expression granted to you the press by the constitution, but we felt that it is important to train you to understand that part.
“I see this collaboration as a continuous thing, more importantly, now everything is changing, we need to deepen your knowledge on data privacy.
“We cannot do awareness under this building; we need media to assist us to disseminate this information so that people can comply with the data protection policies.’’
He said that the commission was collaborating with relevant institutions in ensuring that data privacy and protection policies were adhered to.
Olatunji said that the commission was working with Committee of Vice Chancellors to further deepen knowledge about data protection.
“We are also working with National Board for Technology Education for Polytechnics and others.
“All these efforts are geared towards ensuring that the message of data protection is spread and there is virtually nothing we can do without you.’’
The national commissioner encouraged NITRA members to pursue training as certified Data Protection Officers, adding that it was a lucrative area with readily available jobs.
According to him, when the training is combined it with knowledge of journalism, there is more advantage more than other data processing officers.
“It is a huge ecosystem that has something for everybody to benefit; so, we need to collaborate and ensure you catch up with the changes in data privacy ecosystem,’’ he said.
Mr Babatunde Bamigboye, Head, Legal, Enforcement and Regulations, NDPC, said many data controllers continuously breached data rights of citizens unknowingly.
Bamigboye, however, said that in spite the need for freedom of speech, there was the place of privacy and rights of the people, which the commission was committed to.
He told the journalists that it was important to learn some emerging ethics that would aid balancing the rights and privacy of individuals while reporting.
President of NITRA, Mr Blessing Olaifa, congratulated Olatunji on the adoption of Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, adding that it had empowered the commission to enforce data protection in Nigeria.
“We congratulate you on your appointment by the President Bola Tinubu; it is a measure of your hard work and tenacity for the industry growth.
‘We also congratulate you on the passage of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023; that has given you the impetus to operate in a way that people are now aware of data.
‘Before now, people were not much familiar and interested in data, some thought it was only data in their phones, but they are aware about information they give about themselves to institutions,’’ she said.
Olaifa, while commending the NDPC on its drive towards engaging the media in its activities, said it was necessary consolidating on the collaboration for more results.
“This is in view of the fact that the sector is dynamic and we need more capacity building to fine-tune our knowledge and upscale our skills while reporting,’’ he said. (NAN
The African Union, Scientific, Technical and Research Commission (AU-STRC), African Scientific Research and Innovation Council (AU-ASRIC) have partnered with African Liver Patient Association (ALPA) to offer free hepatitis treatment to Nasarawa State indigenes.
The Senior Scientific Officer of AU-STRC, Dr Mohammed Kyari, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday in Model Comprehensive Health Centre, Shabu, Lafia.
Kyari said that the project targeted a total of 3000 persons to benefit from the free hepatitis care, tests and treatment in Shabu, Lafia.
He said the project followed a sensitization and education of communities at all levels including testing which was targeted at the age group 12-80 years old.
Kyari added that the project was a build up from the research conducted by the AU- STRC and ASRIC from 2018 to date with a priority area on “prevention and control of diseases”.
“ The hepatitis testing using the serological rapid diagnostic tests with results in 15 minutes and treatment will commence immediately for positive cases,” he said.
According to him, vaccination will be administered on those that are negative, then further testing will be administered on those tested positive through a viral load confirmation.
Kyari also said that the treatment would focus more on the elimination of mother to child transmission and timely administration of birth dose vaccines for newborns and also by raising awareness.
He added that the project was a pilot phase on the implementation of the ASRIC Flagship Project on Village free of Hepatitis in Nasarawa State, which will hold from the 6th -20th December, 2023.
“ The project is also in line with the implementation of the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA 2024) pillar on building technical and professional competencies.” Kyari said.
NAN monitored events at the Model comprehensive health centre, Shabu, which is the location of the hepatitis free village in Lafia, Nasarawa State and the theme is “ Hepatitis Free Village”..
NAN also reports that there are a total of seven Egyptian doctors on site attending to the residents of Shabu community and about 2500 persons have since benefited from free treatment by receiving free drugs and vaccination.
Among the medical personnel from the Egyptian Liver Research Institute and Hospital (ELRIAH) working on hepatitis eradication in Lafia are Dr. Ahmed Salem, Dr. Ayman Abdelfattah and Prof. Ahmed Farahat (NAN)
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