TechNigeria: A weekly digest of what went down in Nigeria’s tech space

Innov8 Group, Chrome, IBM, Meta, Dell, SAP, Twitter, NITDA, Facebook, AFEX were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

After two years, Meta has considered reinstating former president Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Also, a Nigerian commodity exchange company, AFEX, has expanded its footprint into Uganda.

Let’s get into details.

A South African private equity firm, Innov8 Group Holdings, during the week, announced its partnership with an Irish-based fund company.

Abdul Malick Salie, the co-founder of Innov8 Group Holdings, confirmed the partnership in a media release on Friday.

Innov8 Group Holdings claims it’s focused on bringing innovative technologies to the African medical industry through its investments.

Google Chrome, a cross-platform web browser developed by Google, has announced a new feature that allows users to lock incognito sessions.

The tech company disclosed the update on its page seen by Ripples Nigeria on Friday.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the feature would allow Android users to lock their incognito sessions with a password code or biometric info when they exit the app.

The IBM Corporation has joined the “layoff drive” after laying out plans to layoff 3,900 workers, or 1.5% of its global workforce.

CFO James Kavanaugh confirmed the development in a statement on Friday.

The company claimed the move would save the company about $300 million.

“… we are leveraging digitization, AI automation, that drives efficiency, but we are committed to hiring for client-facing research and development,” Kavanaugh said.

After two years, Meta has considered reinstating former president Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Facebook Global Affairs president, Nick Clegg, confirmed the decision on Meta’s blog, seen by Ripples Nigeria on Thursday.

Trump’s two-year suspension expired this month after his controversial ban in January 2021.

American-based technology company, Dell, has acquired Cloudify, a cloud orchestration startup, in a deal of around $100M.

A Dell spokesperson confirmed the deal on Thursday but did not disclose the terms of the acquisition.

Cloudify, which is an Israeli startup, claims to have built a platform for cloud orchestration and infrastructure automation.

European multinational software company, SAP, on Thursday announced plans to reduce 2.5% or 3,000 of its global workforce.

Chief Financial Officer, Luka Mucic, confirmed the decision in a statement.

The German-based tech company is the latest to cut jobs joining companies including Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

READ ALSO:TechNigeria: A weekly digest of what went down in Nigeria’s tech space

A British real estate company, The Crown Estate, has reportedly launched legal action at the High Court for rental arrears on an office space occupied by Twitter.

Twitter, which has been in the news for many reasons lately after its acquisition by Elon Musk, began using the office in 2014.

After cutting down on its workforce, Twitter had also closed off some of its offices globally, citing need to raise funds after committing to a debt to buy the company.

A group of digital skills trainers under the National Information Technology Development Agency (NiTDA) has organized a skill development session for corps members in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

This was contained in a press statement seen by Ripples Nigeria on Tuesday.

Tagged: NiTDA DEEP PROJECT, the program is the agency’s commitment to implementing the National Digital economy policy.

Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced the introduction of new features in its Messenger app for end-to-end encrypted chats.

Zuckerberg disclosed this on his official Facebook page, seen by Ripples Nigeria on Tuesday.

Facebook also disclosed that it is gradually expanding the testing of default end-to-end encryption for Messenger.

A Nigerian commodity exchange company, AFEX, has expanded its footprint into Uganda.

The company disclosed the development on its official Twitter handle, seen by Ripples Nigeria on Tuesday.

Launched in 2014, AFEX bills itself as the leading African commodities exchange and commodities market player.

Amazon is launching a new product, RxPass, to expand its reach in the space.

John Love, vice president of Amazon Pharmacy, confirmed the development in a statement on Tuesday.

With RxPass, Gupta Prime explained that Prime members in the US could purchase as many generic versions of drugs as they require for a fixed monthly charge of $5.

African e-commerce platform, JumiaPay, and the consumer financing arm of Contact Financial Holding, Contact Creditech, have announced their collaboration to launch a new group of financial services in Egypt.

This was contained in a joint press statement from the companies.

Ripples Nigeria earlier reported that the Egyptian non-banking financial services company had partnered with Trella.

Automation and energy management company, Schneider Electric, has acquired an industrial software company, AVEVA.

Peter Herweck, CEO of AVEVA, disclosed the acquisition in a media release on Monday.

AVEVA claims its software drives efficiency and reduces costs for over 20K customers worldwide

An Israeli-founded startup, GoodOnes, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by TLV Partners.

Israel Shalom, GoodOnes’ CEO, confirmed the funding in a media release seen by Ripples Nigeria on Monday.

Ollie is a personal photo assistant created by GoodOnes that uses machine learning.

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