Leading digital company, Ukheshe has entered into an agreement to acquire Oltio, a digital payments platform that supports Masterpass – Mastercard’s QR payment service in South Africa with more than 300,000 merchants and billers. The use of QR codes in South Africa provides merchants of all sizes – from large retailers chains to individual shop owners and street vendors – a fast, secure and inexpensive way to accept payments.
Clayton Hayward, CEO of Ukheshe
This deal is expected to strengthen Ukheshe’s partnership with Mastercard – combining its ability to solve local market pain points with Mastercard’s global scale, technology and payment expertise. Ukheshe will continue to provide the same support to the banks and other service providers that currently offer Masterpass, ensuring business continuity with no impact to consumers or merchants.
“Oltio is a natural fit for the company given its proven track record of developing mobile-centred solutions and the fintech’s strong existing partnership with Mastercard. Digital-first solutions for consumers remain a key priority,” says Clayton Hayward, CEO of Ukheshe. He added that by enabling different customer segments as part of our ongoing partnership with Mastercard, Ukheshe is well placed to continue providing fintechs, telcos and banks with payment solutions, and services that will further deepen financial inclusion in South Africa..
Reacting to the development, the Country Manager of Mastercard South Africa, Suzanne Morel said that the deal builds on the momentum of our QR work in South Africa and deepens our collaboration with fintechs. Adding that Mastercard looks forward to combining our global network with Ukheshe’s local understanding of consumer and SME pain points to provide consumers and businesses with safe and seamless payment experiences.” The transaction is anticipated to close by the end of the year.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Africa is on course to add $180 billion or 5.2% of aggregate GDP by 2025 thanks to the rapid growth of its internet economy says a report from the World Bank’s IFC and Google. In 2012, the continent’s internet economy (iGDP) was estimated at just $30 billion, or 1.1% of its GDP. This year iGDP will contribute $115 billion, or 4.5% of a $2.554 trillion GDP, says Accenture. In the US the internet economy contributed around 9% of GDP in 2018.
Software developers
Key to growing an internet economy—which includes everything from banks and fintechs to agritech, e-health, and venture capital—will be growing the developer talent that builds the products and engines on which it run. Last year, the French-born chief executive of Jumia, the pan-African e-commerce company, sparked outrage in African tech circles when he suggested there weren’t enough developers based in Africa to service his company’s needs.
Women currently make up 21% of developers in African countries, compared with just 15% of junior developers in the US. The IFC/Google report says there are nearly 700,000 professional developers across Africa with more than than half in five African markets: Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa. That number is still relatively small against Africa’s 1.3 billion people—California alone has 630,000 developers while Latin America has 2.2 million.
But Africa’s developer talent is younger than those in more advanced economies and the overall numbers on the continent are growing faster. Just a third of them receive their training through universities, instead more than half are either self-taught or pay for online school programs, speaking to the desire and broad ambition to acquire skills for future employment and entrepreneurship in countries with few existing formal jobs, but also a shortage of digital skills.
It’s easy to see why young African undergraduates or recent graduates might choose to be self-taught or pay out of pocket for additional skills. The report notes, for example, computer science courses in Kenyan universities still predominantly teach C++, “even though Java and Scala are the programming languages in the greatest demand in the marketplace.”
To date much of the developer talent falls into the “junior developer” category which presents its own challenges as Lagos-based Andela found when it had to recruit more experienced talent to supply clients in the US and other markets. In African countries with smaller and more nascent developer populations, 43% of developers have only one to three years of experience, compared with 22% in the US.”
The report says coding classes are driving the growth in software development training. Young companies including Decagon (Nigeria), Gebeya (Ethiopia) and Moringa School (Kenya) have picked up where Andela left off in focusing on training young developers with flexible learning and bootcamp-like experiences. Google itself rolled out a program in 2017 to train as many as 100,000 developers over five years to help plug the developer skills gap. Last year Microsoft said it would spend over $100 million on a software development center initiative in Africa with its first development centers in Africa will open in Lagos and Nairobi.
As well as the fast-growing talent pool one other notable positive is that there has been what the report describes as “real traction” with growing the numbers of female developers in African markets, led by Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa. Women currently make up 21% of developers in African countries, compared with just 15% of junior developers in the US.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Highly innovative Nigerian fintech startup Sparkle, a digital ecosystem providing financial, lifestyle and business support services, has partnered Visa in a collaboration that will enable it to issue Visa cards to its users, benefiting consumers, entrepreneurs and SMEs.
Sparkle which came on-stream in June courtesy of former Diamond Bank CEO turned techpreneur Uzoma Dozie with the aim of providing seamless solutions to Nigerian individuals, SMEs and retailers is raising the bar with this partnership. The startup, which was granted a banking license by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), offers comprehensive support for individuals, including flexible payments, savings and analytics to provide greater freedom, flexibility and control over finances and lifestyle. Its mobile app gives customers full and free access to one account that offers multiple services and different wallets.
Sparkle Founder and former Diamond Bank CEO turned techpreneur Uzoma Dozie
Under the strategic collaboration with Visa, Sparkle customers will have greater freedom and flexibility in how they make payments. For instance, they can make in-app payments with the embedded Visa virtual card, and make e-commerce payments with the virtual card or with Visa-branded companion plastic cards attached to their Sparkle profile.
Sparkle customers will also benefit from a range of other digital payments initiatives from Visa, for example, by scanning the interoperable EMVCo Quick Response (QR) code or just entering an Alias such as phone number or merchant till number to pay for goods at merchant outlets. Sparkle customers can receive cross-border remittances from family and friends who are Visa cardholders into their Sparkle account.
Speaking on this new partnership, Sparkle’s founder, Uzoma Dozie said that “our partnership with Visa will bring a wide range of benefits to Sparkle’s customers, individuals, entrepreneurs and SMEs. We are excited to work with Visa as we strive to re-define e-commerce by removing barriers to business using technology and data. Working with a global partner like Visa allows us to deliver a bespoke and personalised service for our customers by tapping into large networks so they can fulfil their full potential.”
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
The African Union through the Africa Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP) has entered into a partnership with global pharmaceutical giant, Norvatis for an integrated vetted medical supplier to ensure rapid access to affordable COVID-19 related supplies. The collaboration aims to help alleviate supply and logistical constraints in the African Union member states; Portfolio of 15 generic and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines from Sandoz division will be sold at zero-profit to governments through Africa Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP) to 55 African and 15 Caricom eligible countries; the African Union through the AMSP has integrated vetted medical suppliers to ensure rapid access to affordable COVID-19 related supplies. This collaboration will equally facilitate the supply of medicines from the Novartis Pandemic Response Portfolio to the AU member states and Caricom countries.
AU Special Envoy, Strive Masiyiwa
The AMSP portal is an online marketplace that enables the supply of covid-19 related critical medical equipment in Africa. It was developed under the leadership of the AU Special Envoy, Strive Masiyiwa and powered by Janngo, on behalf of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). The platform was also developed in partnership with African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
This collaboration aims to help alleviate supply and logistical constraints by ensuring efficient and rapid access to the Pandemic Portfolio medicines to African and Caricom governments. The AU comprises 55 Member States, representing all the countries on the African continent, while 15 Caricom countries are eligible for the Pandemic Portfolio.
“Our collaboration with AMSP is a continuation of our efforts at Novartis to combat COVID-19 across the world,” said Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis. “Together, we are aiming to accelerate and expand access to affordable essential medicines in Africa to meet the very urgent patient needs across the continent as it continues battling this pandemic.”
AMSP was developed to ease the difficulties and open up the medical supplies market to Africa, and as part of the Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT) of Africa CDC. It integrates African and globally vetted medical suppliers to ensure cost-effectiveness and transparency in the procurement and distribution of COVID-19 related supplies.
“Following the successful listing of test kits, personal protective equipment, and clinical management devices, the African Union Chairperson has expanded our mandate to include groundbreaking medicines to treat COVID-19 patients in Africa,” said African Union Special Envoy, Strive Masiyiwa. “As a global pharmaceutical leader, Novartis is a strategic partner for AMSP to unlock access to the latest and best-performing medicines for Africans in an affordable way.”
Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its spread worldwide, there was a shortage of diagnostics, medical supplies and essential medical equipment such as personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, face masks, ventilators, and many others. Many African governments had severe challenges with the procurement of essential supplies to support their response activities and face stiff competition with the more industrialized countries for the limited available supplies.
Dr John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC
“As a continental body, we are working with several partners to ensure smooth and predictable access to essential medical supplies,” said Dr John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC. “We found that during the Ebola outbreak in 2014, many people died because of Ebola but not due to Ebola. This is because they did not have access to essential medicines needed for treatment. With AMSP, countries don’t have to search the market for supplies. The prices are negotiated and fixed to unlock the supply space.”
The Novartis Pandemic Response Portfolio from Sandoz, the generics and biosimilar division of Novartis, comprises 15 medicines: Amoxicillin, Ceftriaxone, Clarithromycin, Colchicine, Dexamethasone, Dobutamine, Fluconazole, Heparin, Levofloxacin, Loperamide, Pantoprazole, Prednisone, Prednisolone, Salbutamol, Vancomycin. The portfolio was launched in July 2020 and sells medicines at zero-profit to governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other institutional customers in up to 79 eligible countries to address the urgent unmet needs of low-and lower-middle-income countries for medicines to be used for symptomatic treatment at various stages of COVID-19. Eligible countries must be included on the World Bank’s list of LICs & LMICs .
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
As part of efforts aimed to bringing down the curve and hastening the opening up of its economy, the Moroccan government through the Rabat-based startup, Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation, and Research (MAScIR) has launched large-scale production of its 100% Moroccan-made COVID-19 PCR test kits. The launch comes four months after the foundation received national and international validations for its Sars-CoV2 diagnostic kit. After obtaining the validations, the foundation faced the challenge of launching an industrial production unit urgently to meet the country’s needs for testkits. Government sources say that the Moroccan Ministry of Health has ordered 100,000 units from MAScIR.
Nawal Chraibi, the director-general of the MAScIR Foundation
MAScIR set a goal of producing 10,000 kits before the end of June as a means of testing its production capacity. After reaching the goal on June 30, the foundation distributed the kits to public authorities and tasked its start-up subsidiary Moldiag with the large-scale production.“Moldiag has accelerated its equipment in materials and instrumentation necessary for large-scale production,” according to the press release.
The startup can produce and market the Moroccan COVID-19 test kits under the product registration certificate that the Ministry of Health issued on July 21. MAScIR said the startup’s production capacity is 1 million tests per month. The statement added that Moldiag benefited from the “precious confidence of the Ministry of Health,” evidenced in the ministry placing the first order of 100,000 tests.
Discussions are underway with potential local distributors to make the Moroccan-made COVID-19 test kits available at the national market. “The national innovation will make it possible to provide Moroccan laboratories with a diagnostic kit at a competitive price, which will increase the screening capacity since the upsurge in coronavirus cases in Morocco,” the press release underlined.
MAScIR explained that the 100% Moroccan COVID-19 test underwent a series of validation processes in biological and virological centers at the national and international levels.The validation made it possible to certify the effectiveness of the test, the press release added. The statement said that the test received the validation of national and foreign-approved laboratories, including Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces and the Royal Gendarmerie, as well as the Pasteur Institute of Paris.
“Our medical biotechnology center has been hosting research for ten years around two phases, namely the development of molecular diagnostic kits for certain infectious and cancerous diseases in Morocco and Africa and the development of a dedicated platform biosimilar medicines,” Nawal Chraibi, the director-general of the MAScIR Foundation explained.
She said MAScIR’s decade of experience helped the foundation rapidly design and produce the COVID-19 screening kits. The Moroccan-made test kits will help the country achieve mass screening tests to fight the spread of COVID-19. The country has recorded 65,453 COVID-19 cases, 1,216 related deaths, and 50,357 recoveries to date. Hospitalized cases total 13,880.Morocco has conducted more than 1.8 million tests for COVID-19 as of September 2.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
A new crowdfunding platform designed specifically to support black-owned businesses and projects, Rise Fund N’Go, has been launched. Two sisters and second-generation Nigerian immigrants Anita Egbune and Marian Arafiena are the masterminds behind the new platform.
Rise Fund N’Go co-founders Anita Egbune and Marian Arafiena
“Between us, we have 35 years accumulated experience across the financial services and engineering sectors and we have experienced first-hand just how difficult it can be to succeed as a black person — let alone a black woman — in white-dominated professional spaces,” Anita Egbune, co-founder and Rise Fund N’Go, said. “The businesses that have applied so far leave no doubt that there are brilliant black businesses out there and we can’t wait to help them grow”
Spurred on by the Black Lives Matter protests, the two businesswomen say they want to empower black communities across the UK through helping them secure funding for their companies and projects.
According to a report from Diversity VC and RateMyInvestor, only one per cent of venture capital is invested in black businesses in the UK.
“This is a moment from which there are two paths. Either the pandemic compounds issues for black communities around the world for hundreds of years to come,” Marian Arafiena, fellow co-founder of Rise Fund N’Go, said:
“Or we take what the Black Lives Matter movement is teaching people and we confront these systemic issues and tackle them head-on. That is what we hope to do with Rise Fund N’Go.”
To be eligible to crowdfund on the new platform businesses must be majority black-owned or for the benefit of black people.
Businesses on Rise Fund N’Go’s platform can be commercial or charitable and the platform has already attracted five live projects.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning writer
If the African Guarantee Fund (AGF) fails in its role of vital access to loans for SMEs which is the backbone of most economies, especially against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, then it should cease to exist. This was the submission of the former CEO of the Fund, Felix Bipko who until June 2020 was the CEO of the African Guarantee Fund (AGF). Shortly before relinquishing his role as CEO , he pointed out how the AGF is mitigating the economic fallout of Covid-19. To paraphrase the ‘godfather of investing’, Warren Buffett, it is only when the tide goes out that you can find out who’s been swimming naked. Covid has unleashed the equivalent of a Tsunami, taking both good and bad businesses in its wake.
Felix Bipko former CEO of the African Guarantee Fund
It is in times of such crises that organisations such as his need to step up and prove their worth, says Felix Bikpo, the outgoing CEO of the African Guarantee Fund (AGF).Although Bikpo accepts that the fallout from Covid-19 will have far reaching impact, he is confident that with the right actions, the impact can be mitigated.
His team, he tells us, has been in overdrive – it has had more discussions with banks than at any previous period. “This is a positive sign,” he says. “it shows that banks understand the critical role that they need to play in the economic recovery plan and in supporting the real economy – that is the SME sector.”
This is the second severe exogenous shock in the space of ten years that African banks have had to deal with – the first being the financial crisis that led to a severe global economic contraction and threatened to bring down the global financial system.Nevertheless, Bikpo is convinced that the financial system, like it did 10 years ago, will prove resilient although it will require concerted action from multiple stakeholders – the banks themselves, development finance institutions such as his, the regulators and to some extent governments, “to make sure they don’t crowd out the private sector” he adds.
The larger companies, he explains, which can draw down on credit lines and will have deeper cash reserves, should be able to weather the storm. “As is often the case, it is the smaller companies, on which our economies depend, that will suffer the brunt of this shock,” he says.
“Lockdowns go against the very essence of economies that depend on markets, street vendors and where the informal sector is still a large component of the economy.” SME lending today represents, on average, 20% of a bank’s portfolio, he says. Without intervention and support to the banks, he’s worried that this figure could down to as low as 2-3%, “which would be catastrophic”. Felix Bikpo joined the African Guarantee Fund as its founding CEO nine years ago. He says he took the job under one condition: that the Fund’s approach to SMEs would have to be completely different from accepted practice.
The founding shareholders, the African Development Bank and the development agencies from Denmark and Spain, supported his approach. “By challenging the whole SME lending model, we have so far unlocked around $2bn worth of lending to the SME sector,” he says. This was done by helping de-risk lending to SMEs and also by working with banks to better manage their SME risk assessment and also to modernise their own internal systems in terms of technology.
With guarantees from the Fund, banks no longer need to layer several provisions when lending to SMEs – making margins in this vital sector financially viable. Banks can leverage the Fund’s AA- Fitch rating whilst sharing the risk. The circle has effectively been squared. Bikpo says that his organisation’s response to the crisis has been a two-pronged approach. “The first is stabilisation – protecting the existing loan portfolio, giving companies the time to build resilience and not default,” he says.
“The second is stimulus – to assist banks increase lending to SMEs to help kick-start economic growth. Banks will inevitably be more cautious and risk averse, so we’ll bear some of that risk burden to encourage them to lend, spur entrepreneurship and help SMEs be an engine of growth.”
To do this, the Fund is going to market to raise an additional $300m which, Bikpo estimates, will help unlock an additional $1.2bn of lending over the course of the next 18-24 months. The stabilisation aspect of the Fund has even extended guarantees to include loans disbursed by banks pre-Covid, thus helping banks restructure the loans and providing the necessary support for the SME sector.
Will he lose money from this? Yes, he says, “but that is how the business model should work.” Will that impact the Fund’s rating? “No. We have sufficient buffers and liquidity.” This new funding will only solidify AGF’s position and will enable it to extend its services even wider. “The only source of finance for SMEs is financial services. If either collapse, African economies will collapse,” he says, highlighting the urgency of the matter. “If the AGF cannot support the SME sector now,” he argues, “then it shouldn’t exist.”
He says Central Banks across the continent have, on the whole, acted decisively and have done the right thing by, for example, providing flexibility in capital requirement and extending the period before which a loan becomes non-performing – thus providing more time for banks and businesses to restructure these loans and enable a revival of the economy.
What business needs to bounce back, he says, is time on their side, but how much time is the unknown factor. African economies are varied – one-size-fits-all generalisations cannot be made. A great deal will depend on factors such as when travel restrictions are lifted to kick start tourism and hospitality or the speed of global economic recovery for commodity exporters.
It is estimated that two thirds of growth on the continent is from domestic consumption so the “attitude of the consumer will also be critical and it’s hard to predict how quickly this will come back,” he says. Public investment and the role of banks will therefore be key to kick-start growth. What sectors are most affected by the crisis? Tourism, he responds, especially in terms of the loan portfolios his banking clients are involved in. “Followed by transport and logistics – and also energy, especially off-grid providers, will be particularly adversely hit.”
Although the current situation has tempered some of its ambitions, the organisation’s remit will continue to increase. For example, AGF has been chosen by the AfDB and its partners to manage a $300m initiative to increase lending to women-led businesses. It is expected to unlock $3bn worth of financing – the financing gap for women is estimated at $42bn. How does he look back on the last nine years? He says that his biggest achievement was “to show that with a little ingenuity, it is possible to unlock problems and overcome what at first may appear to be deadlocked”.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the long-anticipated surge in telemedicine services worldwide. Consulting a health care provider over phone, video or text has become the new normal for many non-urgent medical needs, while the crisis has sparked renewed interest in digital tools that can test and monitor at-risk patients safely in their homes.
Monique Mrazek is the Senior Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation (IFC)
Generally defined as an exchange of medical information using telecommunications, the industry has evolved to encompass technologies that link health providers with home-based tools to track patient biometrics, such as digital stethoscopes and otoscopes. Many conditions can now be monitored remotely — ranging from chronic diseases to mental health — with app-based solutions that connect patients to their providers.
Before the pandemic, the global telemedicine industry was already expected to grow at an estimated 15% a year by mid-decade, but some analysts believe it will now accelerate to 19.3% and forecast a projected value of $175.5 billion over the same period. Much of that growth is linked to emerging markets, which are quickly adopting telemedicine to provide health care to underserved populations. The private diabetes health care chain Clinicas del Azucar, for example, is expanding into remote areas of Mexico with an app that will allow patients to test their glucose levels at home and transmit the results to the clinic’s providers.
Until now, telemedicine has faced considerable barriers from policy makers, payers and professional organizations concerned about patient safety, with some policies designed to protect incumbent businesses as well. Those restrictions were easing before the COVID-19 crisis, and now they are being lifted further in many parts of the world, as the pandemic sheds light on the benefits of safe, remote testing and monitoring.
IFC’s venture capital team has invested in several health tech companies that can help answer key questions on the viability of expanding telemedicine in emerging markets.
Is telemedicine right for every health care business?
The short answer: at this point, telemedicine is not an absolute game changer for everyone. While technology is expanding virtual diagnoses and delivery, health providers still need to see many patients in person. For example, the Mexican ophthalmology chain Salauno responded to the COVID-19 quarantine by offering tele-consultations, but co-founder Carlos Orellana says while these are a great way to facilitate initial contact with patients, they cannot substitute for the chain’s core business of in-person eye examinations and surgeries. However, India’s integrated health platform 1mg has a much different business model and is experiencing a surge of business linked to the pandemic. The company provides an online pharmacy, at-home sample collection for lab tests and online doctor consultations.
What services can telemedicine provide, now and in the future?
During the pandemic, telemedicine has helped health workers triage some patients through virtual consultations, using new technologies to protect patient privacy. Screening patients before they arrive at a clinic or emergency room improves efficiency and safety, since pre-screened patients generally spend less time waiting for care and providers have a better idea of what services will be needed.
Telemedicine can also offer at-risk patients timely guidance. For example, “In Brazil, one of our portfolio companies, TNH Health, is now freely rolling out AI chatbots to facilitate COVID-19 education,” Michael Nicklas, managing partner of the country’s Valor Capitol Group, told IFC.
In the future, it’s likely that tele-screenings will continue to grow in popularity. Rajat Goel, co-founder of Eye-Q, which operates 37 private care eye clinics throughout India, says that moving forward his company wants to screen patients remotely before consultations and procedures. “It will make our hospitals more efficient,” he says.
The use of remote diagnostic tools is also expected to increase, especially in remote and underserved communities. Emerging technologies, such as portable cardiac and lung monitors, will be able to record patient data in real time, allowing physicians to assess and treat more patients across much wider areas.
How will policy shifts impact telemedicine technologies?
Before the pandemic, few insurance companies would reimburse for teleconsultations or for home-based medical tests and diagnostics. Governments also imposed regulatory restrictions, due to concerns about patient safety and privacy, as well as the potential for fraud.
Those concerns are still valid, but as restrictions temporarily ease for the pandemic — and the benefits of telemedicine are more readily apparent — there is a fresh call for collaboration and policy reform.
Valor Capital’s Nicklas is confident that a temporary easing of telemedicine regulations in Brazil will become permanent. “What’s out of the box will be hard to put back in again,” he says.
“There were a lot of skeptics around telemedicine,” says Tandon of 1mg. Now, he says, policy makers are seeing that telemedicine reduces risk while improving efficiency and that it’s perhaps the most appropriate medium to connect the underserved (typically in the countryside) with access to quality care (typically in urban centers). He believes the industry has a significant opportunity to bring about change.
Of course, there are more questions about the viability of telemedicine that still need answers. There are issues of privacy, liability and access that need to be addressed before telemedicine becomes a reliable and universal service.
But COVID-19 is challenging the industry to explore new ways of improving care and saving lives. It has thrown a spotlight on the need for disruptive technologies that take advantage of the widening access to telecommunications and internet connectivity across the globe.
The world’s emerging economies have consistently proven they are open to radical change in how they deliver products and services. The rise of telemedicine may help shape global economic recovery in a post-pandemic world, with the potential to provide safe, efficient and cost-saving health care to remote and underserved populations.
Ruchira Shukla is the South Asia Regional Lead for Disruptive Technology Investments, International Finance Corporation (IFC) while Monique Mrazek is the Senior Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning writer.
Tunisian startup, “InstaDeep”, which is in the top 100 of the best companies in Artificial Intelligence, co-organizes with the organization “INDABA”, a big challenge called “#IndabaGrandChallenge”, for the identification of a treatment for Leishmaniasis.
Karim Beguir, co-founder InstaDeep
“Leishmaniasis is a neglected disease. As a disease of poverty, it has historically received limited funding for discovery, development and delivery of new tools. Current treatment is costly, lengthy, painful and sometimes toxic. At the same time, new drug candidates are being developed and old ones are being tested every day. Today, millions of drug activity assays are available at the press of a button. In this Indaba Grand Challenge, we dare to ask you to help identify amongst the already known, tested and (often) approved drugs, potential cures for different forms of leishmaniasis,” the startup said in a press release.
Here Is What You Need To Know
The organizers of this initiative are seeking, in collaboration with Deep Learning “INDABA”, to propose a new treatment, comprising a Leishmania protein (either of a defined species, or a protein present in the proteome of one or more Leishmania species) and a small molecule (or set of small molecules).
The initiative targets experts passionate about data science or Machine Learning, people active in “bioinformatics and pathformatics”, researchers, practitioners and clinicians of kinetoplastids as well as Universities, institutes and research organizations.
Leishmaniasis is a chronic disease with cutaneous and / or visceral manifestation, kills each year more than 50 thousand people in Africa, Middle East and Latin America. It affects 12 million people in nearly 90 countries on our planet. Each year more than 2 million new cases appear.
The #IndabaGrandChallenge thus brings together civil society, the community of doctors, chemical epidemiologists but also datascientists, for a single mission: to find a medicine to cure this disease.
To know more about #IndabaGrandChallenge, including how to apply, click here.
About InstaDeep
Founded in 2014 in Tunis, Tunisia, by Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim, InstaDeep is now based in London and has offices in Paris, Tunis, Nairobi and Lagos.
The start-up applies deep reinforcement learning and other advanced machine learning techniques to create AI (Artificial Intelligence) systems that can help companies make better business decisions in the industrial environment, according to the same source.
The start-up InstaDeep has managed to establish an excellent reputation by providing “solid and unique” AI solutions.
It is one of the first African startups to publish original AI research at the conference on machine learning and computer neuroscience Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2018).
The startup was also one of eight companies selected from the 84th international selection jury of Endeavor.
The Tunisian company has been ranked by the famous analysis firm CB Insights, which lists startups from 13 countries, in its top 100 of the best companies.
About INDABA
The Deep Learning organization “INDABA”, has the mission to strengthen machine learning and artificial intelligence in Africa.
The word INDABA indicates in the Zolo language, a gathering or a meeting to share and listen to the news of the community in Southern Africa and to consult on questions of common interest.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning writer
Suguba, in partnership with Mercy Corps and the French Development Agency (AFD) and Mercy Corps – is organizing its second 6-month investment preparation program in West Africa (tagged Afrikhaliss Program) to support the 8 most promising startups in the digital sector in French-speaking West Africa.
L’Afrique Excelle, the French-language adaptation of the World Bank’s XL Africa technology accelerator, was Suguba’s first acceleration program. This program, which ended in 2018/2919, aimed to connect French-speaking startups on the continent with mentors and investors. Afrique Excelle had enabled 18 of the top 20 startups in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa to raise funds for a total of around $ 10 million, which made it a total success.
Afrikhaliss is aimed at digital startups that offer impactful solutions for local and regional value chains. The program targets companies that already have a product or service on the market and are generating revenue. However, requests from businesses that are not yet generating revenue will also be considered.
Eligible companies are based or generate at least 75% of their turnover in one or more of the following markets in French-speaking West Africa: Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Guinea Conakry, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger and Senegal. We are agnostics in the sector and are looking for digital solutions at a later stage with services or products available on the market now.
The entrepreneurs will be supervised by international and local experts, will be trained as part of a tailor-made program, will increase the visibility of their brand and will have access to potential partners and investors. Thanks to its collaboration with leading investors, particularly in French-speaking Africa, Afrikhaliss will help selected young companies to attract capital.
This year’s program will take place in two virtual or physical residences, in Senegal, depending on the evolution of the health situation, and in Côte d’Ivoire.
Flagship activities include two one-week residential training sessions in Dakar (Senegal) and another in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire), offering entrepreneurs the opportunity to develop their professional network and learn from mentors, peers and local and international partners. The residential training in Dakar will end with a Pitch which will take place during the second edition of the Francophone Africa Investment Summit where entrepreneurs will present their start-ups to a large audience of experts in new technologies, investors, large companies, experts and media.
Interested companies can apply online at www.Suguba.org, no later than June 19, 2020.
The Afrikhaliss program was initiated by Suguba and Mercy Corps, with financial support from the French Development Agency and is implemented by Suguba in partnership with Village Capital, Impact Hub Dakar and Impact Hub Abidjan.
For more information on the program or if you wish to become a partner in this initiative, please contact us at the following address: contact@suguba.org
Source: Suguba
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning writer.
