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LATEST TECH NEWS: Nigeria’s Airsmat secures $100,000 funding from UK. 2 other things and a trivia you need to know today, October 14, 2020

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4 years ago

October 14, 2020

Ripples Nigeria

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

1. Nigeria’s Airsmat secures $100,000 funding from UK

Airsmat, a Nigerian based drone software and tech startup, has announced securing funding from a company based in the UK. According to the startup, its fund raising team received $100, 000 (+/-R1655150.00) in pre-seed round funding from Zetagon, a UK based venture capital firm. With interest in Africa, Airsmat was founded with the aim of using drones to provide modern solutions to fast-growing industries in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
According to the company’s managing board of directors, the startup aims to encourage the use of drones in various industries as drone technology has the abiltiy to assist and positively change the way in which companies conduct their business.

In achieving its goal, the new raiser is expected to assist the startup in achieving its goals for Africa and is aimed at their division, SmatCrows. Adeoluwa Ibikunle, chief technoogy officer of Airsmat, explained that the investement will assist the startup in upscaling their business model. According to Ibikunle, the company aims to begin with creating food security within Africa through their AI-based platform by allowing small farmers to have more control over their harvested crop and their other farming activities. In addition, the Airsmat platform will prove crucial to small farming activities in Nigeria as farmers will be able to use this information to make better-informed decisions regarding their farmland.

2. Kenya’s Eneza Education partners Mastercard to launch in Rwanda

Kenyan ed-tech startup Eneza Education has launched in Rwanda, following a partnership deal with the Mastercard Foundation. The new launch is expected to see the deployment of its SMS-based learning platform Shupavu in Rwanda.
According to reports, the offering will enable students remain engaged in their studies while they wait for schools to reopen. Earlier launched in 2013, Eneza Education provides learning and revision materials via any phone. For seven years now, the edutech initiative has been active in Kenya, Ghana, and Ivory Coast.

Speaking on the development, reviewers familiar with the operations of the startup noted that the company launched its Shupavu platform in Rwanda as part of the Mastercard Foundation’s COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Programme, which aims to deliver emergency support for health workers, first responders and students, and to strengthen the diverse institutions that are the first line of defense against the social and economic aftermath of the pandemic. In ensuring the enhancement of education in those regions, the SMS platform will provide access to the “Ask a Teacher” feature where students can ask questions to a pool of teachers and receive responses via SMS shortcode 2910 on the MTN network, meaning it can be used as a revision tool.

Tech Trivia:

What was the first computer virus released in the wild?

A. Brain
B. WinVir
C. Creeper
D. Melissa

Answer: See end of post.

3. Nigeria’s MDaaS Global, 9 others, emerge Africa Netpreneur Prize finalists

Jack Ma-sponsored initiative, Africa Netprenuer Prize, has listed 10 startups as finalists for its US$1.5 million prize pool. Recall that the Jack Ma Foundation launched the second edition of ANPI earlier this year. According to press, the Alibaba-creation aims to support the next generation of African entrepreneurs. In its first edition, a Nigerian startup LifeBank, won the highly coveted prize November last year. This year, the 10 entrepreneurs represented eight African countries, selected from over 22,000 applications across all 54 African nations.

Commenting on their portfolio, businesses of the finalists span key industries including agriculture, fashion, education, healthcare, renewable energy, financial services, and retail. Press further revealed that two of the finalists are Nigeria’s MDaaS Global, which builds and operates modern, tech-enabled diagnostic centres in clinically-underserved communities; and Ghana’s Amaati, which produces an extinct and neglected crop called Fonio. The rest of the list is made up of startup from Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, and Senegal’s Diarrablu, a fashion tech company.

Tech Trivia Answer: Brain

While the first computer virus (Creeper) was released on the ARPANET as a harmless experiment, the first computer virus to be released in the wild didn’t have malicious intent either.
Called “Brain,” the program was created in 1986 by the Farooq Alvi brothers of Pakistan as a method to deter copying the medical software they wrote. It targeted IBM PCs and would replace a floppy disk’s boot sector with a copy of the virus and flag the real boot sector as bad.

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