Entrepreneur Nina Mohanty raised $2 million for Bloom Money, an app designed to help immigrant communities save money. The app, which was founded in 2021, allows immigrants based in the UK to save money collectively, a practice also known as “money circles.” Helping immigrants save money Mohanty worked with banks like Starling Bank, Klarna, and Mastercard and realized they don’t really understand how immigrant communities manage their money. “At a certain point, I just realized I got very frustrated wondering who was building for immigrant communities because I was building
Amazon has become a staple of modern life, with millions relying on it for everyday purchases. But few of us stop to consider how our packages magically reach our homes. What if I told you that a robot helped make it happen? On May 7th, Amazon invited POCIT on a sponsored trip to its “Delivering the Future” event in Dortmund, Germany. This is the first in a series of events that will give the media exclusive access to an Amazon innovation center. We were given a sneak peek into Amazon,
The South African government will alter its Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) regulations to allow Starlink to operate in the country. Bloomberg reported that the offer came at a last-minute meeting on Tuesday, 21 June. Foreign investors in South Africa’s telecom sector are required to allocate 30% of a project’s equity to Black-owned businesses to obtain a license. However, Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider will be allowed to meet BEE requirements through equity-equivalent investments instead. South Africa’s Workaround for Starlink South Africa created the BEE laws to address racial inequalities stemming from
The Future African Space Explorer’s STEM Academy (FASESA) and Boeing have announced the launch of the second edition of the “Pathways to Space” program in Africa. The program returned to Ethiopia and Nigeria and was launched for the first time in Kenya on May 6, reaching up to 300 state school students aged 13-18. It works with local educational and government institutions in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria. “We are proud to continue our partnership with Boeing. This program reflects our shared dedication to building Africa’s future workforce in space and other
Three Nigerian students from Caleb University have built an app to detect ripe Fruit. Harmony Abayomi, Frida Efod, and Chibuzor Nwachukwu have developed Valor, an AI-powered app designed to detect fruit ripeness, as BBC Africa stated. The Hackathon Abayomi, Efod, and Nwachukwu recently represented the Computer Science, Cybersecurity, and Software Engineering departments and took first place at Bell’s University Hackathon with their app, Valor. Writing on LinkedIn, Abayomi said, “My team from Caleb University took home the top prize with our web and mobile app, Valor. Our app uses the
Samuel George, Ghana’s minister for communication, digital technology, and innovations, has given Starlink one month to comply with national regulations. The satellite internet service has been operating in Ghana since August 2024. However, it does not have a physical office or customer support system, and the government wants that to change, as stated by Connecting Africa. Starlink in Ghana “Starlink must establish a local office in Ghana to ensure effective communication and decision-making,” George said. “Starlink must comply with Ghana’s regulatory framework, including licensing and tax requirements,” he added. The
Wave Ventures, Europe’s largest Gen Z-run VC fund, has announced its third fund, which is €7 million ($7.8 million), tripling the size of its previous fund. The fund is supported by a diverse group of investors, such as Slack, Bolt, Skype, Supercell, Wolt, Silo AI, and Smartly.io, as well as European early-stage VCs, and family offices, according to a press release. The fund comes at a crucial time for early-stage investing across the Nordics and Baltics. The quick advancement of generative AI, no-code tools, and open-source technologies makes entrepreneurship more
On Wednesday, May 12, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok repeatedly made references to “white genocide” in South Africa in unrelated posts on X, often bringing up the topic without any prompt from users. While it’s unclear what caused the apparent glitch, Musk, who grew up in South Africa, has a long history of promoting the debunked conspiracy theory of a “white genocide” in the country. Grok tells X users about white genocide The posts originated from Grok’s official X account, which replies with AI-generated responses when tagged by users. The AI
Meta is facing backlash in Nigeria after a user found an in-app notification that was described as discriminatory. Techpoint reported that Nigerian Instagram user Daniel Adebowale shared a screenshot of his conversation partner on social media, telling him that the user “appeared to be in Nigeria” and urged the user to avoid sharing personal information unless they knew the person. The post caused an uproar on social media, as several Nigerian users accused Meta of unfairly targeting the country. Meta, however, denied the allegation, explaining that the alert was part
A new dataset in the form of maps highlighted how many African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector. These employees tend to do content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, as well as other jobs. Tech firms that provide outsourced digital labor for big tech companies tend to be discreet about their staff. This allows tech companies to distance themselves legally and ethically from their employees, experts explained to Rest of World. African workforces building AI The map shows the flow of data and knowledge
