Richard Branson set to visit space ahead of Jeff Bezos. 2 other things and a trivia

This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today.

1. Richard Branson set to visit space ahead of Jeff Bezos

English business magnate, investor, and author, Richard Branson, is set to visit space on Sunday, July 11, 2021, a report from British-American spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, has confirmed.

According to the spaceflight company, the business investor is scheduled to be conveyed ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos whose date of departure remains Tuesday, July 20, 2021.

Earlier, Jeff Bezos had announced intent to travel to space with his brother Mark and an 82 year old aviator, Wally Funk.

Branson confirmed his trip in a statement made available to journalists, expressing his excitement as he looks forward to opening the space-ways to spacetourism.

Branson said: “After more than 16 years of research, engineering, and testing, Virgin Galactic stands at the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good.

“I’m honoured to help validate the journey our future astronauts will undertake and ensure we deliver the unique customer experience people expect from Virgin.”

The trip, after a successful completion, will be Virgin Galactic’s fourth test spaceflight to date and its first mission with a team of four.

On Saturday, May 22, the Richard Branson company launched its latest spaceflight with only two pilots.

This time, with Branson aboard, Virgin Galactic said it will livestream the flight interestingly across Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Tech Trivia: Which ex-Manchester United player created Axis Stars as a social network for professional sports stars?

A. Ronaldo
B. Ferguson
C. Saha
D. Evra

Answer: See end of post.

READ ALSO: Ghanaian startup Jetstream raises $3m to expand venture. 2 other things and a trivia

2. Nigeria’s Ogelle launches as a go-to platform for African content creators

Ogelle, a Nigerian startup, has launched its venture as an online video-sharing resource and entertainment platform.

Focused on African content, the startup aims to help creators share and monetise their projects.

According to sources familiar with the startup, Ogelle is a user-generated content and subscription video-on-demand platform.

Since its debut in 2019, the startup has become a home to pan-African productions in terms of diversity of content themes, content creation and representation in languages.

Speaking on the prospect and vision of the platform, founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Osita Oparaugo, noted that the bulk of the content on the platform is African in stayle as the startup launched to fill the vacuum observed within Africa.

He said: “Ogelle’s content is 100 per cent African, created by Africans for global consumption. The platform enables every African in Africa and or in the diaspora to create, post, and share Africa-focused video content and monetise the same, by views, no matter their country of origin, cultural heritage or language.

“For established filmmakers and studios, Ogelle offers an avenue to generate revenue from completed projects and commissioning of new projects.”

“As I moved around Africa with my team, we realised that Africa was not telling its story; that Africa is the world’s best kept secret in terms of content creation and distribution.”

3. Nigeria’s Cowrywise receives fund management license from SEC

Cowrywise, a Nigerian fintech startup, has received Fund/Portfolio Management License from the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

This license will enable the Fintech company operate as a fully fledged funding management company.

Cowrywise was founded in 2017 by Razaq Ahmed and Edward Popoola to offer easily accessible, goal-oriented savings and investment products.

According to the founder, the goal for launching was to offer more competitive performance rates than traditional alternatives to signed users.

Today, the startup currently has 21 different mutual funds available through its platform, which allows users to get started saving and investing with as little as NGN100 (US$0.25).

With the new license from SEC, the startup can further its ambition of onboarding 10 million retail investors to the formal investment management industry by 2025.

Emomotimi Agama, head of registration, exchanges, market infrastructure and innovation at the SEC, attributed the approval to SEC’s demonstration to support innovation in Nigeria.

He said: “We are excited to issue the first license in the fund/portfolio management category to a fintech player in Nigeria, Cowrywise. This is a demonstration of our resolve to support technology innovation in the development of the Nigerian capital market while making investor protection a priority.”

Tech Trivia Answer: Louis Saha

The former France international striker and ex-Manchester United star launched the company in 2013, the same year he retired after 23 years in the game. Taking inspiration from his career in sport, Axis Stars provides financial advice for professional athletes, coaches and agents with the aim of preventing bankruptcy – something that has plagued many once-wealthy stars down the years.

Sportsmen who signed up have included Andy Murray, Didier Drogba, Phil Neville and Florent Malouda. The network gives them a place to chat about lifestyle, insurance finance, physios, sponsorship and anything else related to their careers.

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