LATEST TECH NEWS: Andela’s Aboyeji seeks co-investors on Future Africa fund project. 4 other things and a trivia you need to know today, April 15, 2020

These 5 latest stories from the tech space will keep you updated with trends today.

1. Healthtech startup Ingress raises R6m for facility business.

Ingress Healthcare has announced raising R6m for its facility business, an Airbnb-like platform for doctors to utilise spare capacity. The Cape Town based healthtech startup made the announcement today, Wednesday, April 15, while revealing the essence of the fund. According to the firm, the fund (which is about USD 321,395) will be instrumental to help scale its platform as it aims to distribute spare consulting rooms in hospitals and clinics to general practitioners and specialists.

Commenting on the source of the investment, Ingress disclosed that the new invested capital came from 11 investors under a group called Pegasus, which invested alongside Enso Equity, a Cape Town based investor founded by Anton Newbury. For Ingress Healthcare, its business functions like a kind of Airbnb for those in the medical profession who are struggling to meet the high costs of setting up and running their own practice.

2. Andela’s Iyinoluwa Aboyeji seeks co-investors on Future Africa fund project

Andela and Flutterwave co-founder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji has again revealed intent to accommodate potential investors into his one year old Future Africa fund project, an investment plan co-founded with Olabinjo Adeniran, Adenike Sheriff and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. According to a recent publication from the serial investor, the fund is also looking to support entrepreneurs with solutions that tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

Explaining the modus, following his call, Aboyeji noted that the fund had been set up as a Future Africa Collective, which, according to him, is called a “people-powered innovation fund that allows you (to) co-invest with us”. Urging people to consider to investment opportunity, he assured that “the Future Africa Collective will offer qualified investors who apply and are admitted an opportunity to co-invest with the fund on a deal-by-deal basis through investment syndicates.”

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Tech Trivia:

What was eBay.com originally called?

A. BuyNet
B. AuctionWeb
C. DigiMart
D. CloudMarket

Answer: See end of post.

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3. MTN to commit R250-million as Covid-19 ‘relief package’

MTN Group has, on Wednesday, April 15, announced a R250-million “relief package” in response to the Covid-19 pandemic across the 21 markets in which it operates. While this is partly in response to the South African government’s call for support, MTN Group is taking it a step further by including other countries in its plans. CEO Rob Shuter, in fact, has joined the list of directors that will take a 30% pay cut for three months to contribute to a staff emergency fund.

According to MTN, the package comprises five interventions to include contributions to government’s Solidarity Fund. The group’s spokesman, Mcebisi Jonas, while commenting on the development noted: “We believe it is the responsibility of all organisations to assist where they can during the pandemic. MTN plays a vital role in the mobile and telecommunications industry across Africa and the Middle East and it is vital that we assist our employees, customers and stakeholders during this difficult time.”

4. Google sets up a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund for local newsrooms

Tech giant Google has announced setting up a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund targeting local newsrooms. This Google initiative will offer financial support to local newsrooms hit by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recall that earlier in April, Facebook launched a similar initiative to support journalism across the globe, committing $100 million ($25 million in grant funding for local coverage.

According to Google, however, this is coming as part of its Google News Initiative with an underlining goal to fund “thousands of small, medium and local news publishers globally,” through awards ranging from “low thousands of dollars for small hyper-local newsrooms to low tens of thousands for larger newsrooms, with variations per region.”

5. Developers expose TikTok’s insecurity vulnerability

A group of web developers has exposed security challenges of using video content development platform TikTok, accusing it of running basic unencrypted HTTP connections in some regions to distribute media through its content delivery networks. Reacting to this, TikTok has, however, vowed to roll out more secure connections for all of its users.

While videoconferencing platform Zoom is still battling to get out of the insecurity mess it got into, this might be another giant crashing should efforts are not taken to address the situation. We hope TikTok will deliver as promised when queried by industry critics. Its spokesperson had said: “TikTok prioritizes user data security and already uses HTTPS across several regions, as we work to phase it in across all of the markets where we operate.”

Tech Trivia Answer: AuctionWeb

In 1995, after spending Labor Day weekend at home writing code on his personal computer, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched AuctionWeb, a site “dedicated to bringing together buyers and sellers in an honest and open marketplace.” The website is free to use for buyers, but sellers are charged fees for listing items after a limited number of free listings, and again when those items are sold. One of the first items sold on AuctionWeb was a broken laser pointer for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar contacted the winning bidder to ask if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding email, the buyer explained: “I’m a collector of broken laser pointers.” AuctionWeb soon became the first online auction site allowing person-to-person transactions, which led to a mass volume of online transactions.

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