LATEST TECH NEWS: Maxula Seed Fund invests in two Tunisian tech startups. 1 other thing and a trivia you need to know today, January 21, 2021

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

1. Maxula Seed Fund invests in two Tunisian tech startups

Newly-launched Maxula Seed Fund has invested in two Tunisian tech startups, NewGen and MooMe.

The funding venture, which supports innovative startups, seeks for early-stage Tunisian startups with high growth potential across a range of impactful sectors.

The funding institute, before the investment, had earlier raised capital from insurance company MAE and the Arab Tunisian Bank (ATB).

According to reports, the Maxula Seed Fund was created by asset management company, Maxula Gestion, with the vision to back companies with innovation at the heart of their business models.

Speaking on the founding values of the initiative, the Chief Executive of Maxula Seed Fund, Raouf Aouadi, described the creation of the initiative as a synergy of the company’s investments.

He said: “The Maxula Seed Fund was created by Maxula Gestion as part of a synergy with our portfolio of investments.

“Our objective is to offer both financing to startups to develop their activity and new ideas to the companies which constitute our portfolio of participations in order to try to allow them to create new markets.”

NewGen is a gaming startup founded in May 2019 by Seifeddine Ben Hamouda, while MooMe, an agri-tech startup is a decision-making system for farmers.

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Tech Trivia:

Which of these is the most efficient keyboard layout?

A. QWERTY

B. Dvorak

C. Colemak

D. AZERTY

Answer: See end of post.

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2. South Africa to launch first fully digital bank

South Africa is set to launch its first fully digital API-enabled bank feed, a development sought to enhance financial operations of small businesses within the country.

The new digital bank was developed by Xero, the global accounting platform in partnership with Nedbank, another South African bank.

Read also: LATEST TECH NEWS: Egypt’s VRapeutic to join Canadian accelerator. 2 other things and a trivia you need to know today, January 20, 2021

According to reports, the new and innovative feature will be available to Nedbank small business clients with a Xero account at zero charges.

Speaking on the product, Xero’s Country Manager in South Africa, Colin Timmis, noted that the decision to invest in the development of the digital bank product was to support small businesses thrive in South Africa.

He said: “Now more than ever we need to work together to support the small-business community, which forms the backbone of our economy.

Describing bank feeds as great innovations in the accounting market space, the country manager acknowledged their impacts on small businesses.

“Bank feeds are one of the greatest innovations in accounting, and their impact on small businesses in other markets has been incredible – reducing the amount of data entry and giving them better visibility and control over finances.”

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Tech Trivia Answer: Colemak

Designed by Shai Coleman, Colemak is an alternate QWERTY layout that changes the position of 17 keys to reduce the movement of your fingers by over 50% (the ZXCV keys are the same on the bright side, so undo, cut, copy and paste should be the same).

As shown in tests run by Carpalx, Colemak uses the home row 74 percent of the time versus 34 percent for QWERTY, not to mention that the latter requires a 193% increase in base effort.

Dvorak also beats QWERTY in efficiency but its layout isn’t as intelligent as Colemak, which distributes loads more evenly between your left and right hands, places a greater burden on your strongest fingers (index and middle) while simultaneously putting your pinkies to greater use. Additionally, Dvorak changes more keys on a QWERTY board than Colemak does, making it harder to learn with less potential results.

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