IT is morally unacceptable and bad public policy to have children that cannot read at the age of 10. This was the consensus of panellists at a seminar titled, “Learning Poverty: Building the foundation of human capital”, at the just concluded IMF/World Bank annual meetings.
The panellists frowned at the situation where a terribly high percentage of children in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot read at age of 10. This, they contend, is at the root of global poverty. Investing in human capital is therefore pivotal to eliminating the scourge of poverty globally.
Kelvin Watkins, Chief Executive of ‘Save the Children
Kelvin Watkins, Chief Executive of ‘Save the Children’, identified the incidence of malnutrition, shortage of qualified teachers and inequality in the society, as possible causes of this anomaly that must be addressed. He said that investing in human capital and learning is pivotal to eliminating the scourge of poverty globally.
Ivo Ferreira Gomes, Mayor of Sobral, Brazil, believes that specially trained, adequate, loving and happy teachers constitute a major fundamental to breaking this yoke of learning poverty.
Annette Dixon, Vice President, Human Development, World Bank Group, summed up the discussion. She said that “beyond fiscal reforms, children must first survive and thrive, families must have access to quality services, girls must have the same opportunities as boys, parents must have economic opportunities, and countries must have policy approaches that allow all of this to flourish.”
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 South African Ph.D. student Takunda Chitaka has received the 2019 Excellence in Academia PETCO Award for her engineering approach towards tackling plastic marine pollution. This recognition highlights the need for peer-reviewed research that supports strategic interventions in the areas of recycling, waste minimization, and sustainability.
The PET Recycling Company (PETCO) annual awards are given to people and organizations making strides in sustainability at the grassroots level across South Africa. The company states that in 2018, 98,649 tonnes of PET plastic bottles were recycled through their collective dedication and efforts, enabling PETCO to expand its collection network, build relationships with recyclers, and seek new opportunities to develop and support entrepreneurs.
Takunda Chitaka
PETCO chief executive officer Cheri Scholtz said the organization’s greatest asset was “the remarkable network of partners we work with every day.”
“We are therefore delighted to be able to recognize and celebrate the significant efforts made by our 14 worthy Winners towards the recycling of post-consumer PET in South Africa.”
One of the 2019 recipients is a Ph.D. student at the University of Cape Town (UCT) Department of Chemical Engineering. Takunda Chitaka received the Excellence in Academia PETCO Award for her engineering approach towards tackling plastic marine pollution.
According to UCT’s Faculty of Engineering and The Built Environment website, Chitaka has analyzed empirical evidence since 2016 based on beaches in Cape Town to estimate the litter flows into the marine environment.
“On day one, you clean the beach of all the litter. The next day you return and pick up all the litter again, which gives you 24 hours of litter that has washed up onto the beach. Academically this is generally acknowledged to be a good proxy of what is flowing into the ocean,” Chitaka explained.
She analyzed five beaches and found one beach had approx. 36 items per 100 meter per day, where the other beach had 3000 items. She also noticed how the composition of the litter has changed.
“Ten years ago, everyone was concerned about plastic bags,” she said. “In my litter collection, I found very few plastic bags across all the beaches. Lots of polystyrene packaging, snack packets and straws were found. A mitigation approach focused on items associated with food consumed on the go may address a third to a half of marine litter sources in Cape Town.”
Chitaka hopes for her research is, “that it helps to inform the way forward for the plastics economy in South Africa.”
In their support of her and other using academic research to identify solutions, the PETCO annual award recognizes the importance of having peer-reviewed research underpinning strategic interventions into the broad areas of recycling, waste minimization, and sustainability.
Another notable award winner is nine-year-old ‘Waste Reduction Youth Warrior’ Rocco Antonio, Da Silva. He started the Future Kids Club in the Western Cape to create awareness and get the youth in his area to commit to participating in monthly beach and community clean-ups. Reports indicate that over the last 14 months, members of his club have collected in excess of 950kg of rubbish off a local 400m stretch of beach.
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.
Benjamin Onuoha, Africa’s Regional Consultant for Paxful (Paxful.com), addressed delegates at a Johannesburg event recently to share insights on the bitcoin and cryptocurrency economy as well as present use cases observed from Africa’s consumers.
He commented: “The people of Africa have been the most ingenious and resourceful of our users – they are redefining our understanding of the uses of bitcoin. The world has much to learn from Africa about the future of crypto-economy.”
BITCOIN USE CASES ON THE CONTINENT
Reflecting on Paxful’s experience in Africa and further afield, Onuoha added: “Three developments made the crypto-economy possible. First, the emergence of peer-to-peer electronic currency, bitcoin, that is powered by the blockchain technology. The second and arguably the most important miracle is the human layer, that connects everyone in the world making this peer-to-peer revolution powered by the people. And lastly, the third miracle is the sharing economy.”
Onuoha listed the following as true use cases for bitcoin: grey markets, speculation, payments, e-commerce, remittance, wealth preservation, and social good.
“Historically, much of the news coverage about bitcoin has tracked speculative activity, where 90% of trading volume is currently centered. This toxic phase is in line with expected adoption trends as the crypto economy, still in its infancy, matures. The next focus point of the evolution is the end-user and their opportunity-laden journey in peer-to-peer finance. It’s about wealth generation – and giving people the means to do it.”
He noted that many young Africans see bitcoin as an opportunity to develop entrepreneurship ventures; users set up side-hustles and their own businesses – which include remittance, as well as import and export enterprises, amongst others.
Demonstrating how the cryptocurrency community can contribute to social good, Paxful recently completed the building of the second school in Rwanda, as part of the group’s strategic commitment to education. Through its #BuiltWithBitcoin initiative, the group is in pursuit to build 100 schools across the continent.
EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION
With over 2,5 million users globally and Africa is the fastest-growing region, in 2018, Paxful disclosed it had seen a 200%+ increase in users in Africa over the previous 12 months. Paxful is observing a new generation of young African graduates and professionals making use of peer-to-peer finance as a way to better engage the global financial system.
Co-Founded by Egyptian entrepreneur Ray Youseff, who is passionate about empowering fellow African youth, Paxful is committed to reaching as many young people as possible to help them better understand the opportunities presented by the cryptocurrency economy. To this end, Paxful launched its first university education drive to expose youth to the true use cases of bitcoin, highlight how to avoid falling prey to bad actors in the crypto-space, and counter the over-emphasis on bitcoin speculation.
Launched at universities in South Africa and Kenya, the Paxful workshops provide key, practical insights, with each attendee also receiving free bitcoin to start them on their journey. Over 1000 youths have attended the events across SA/Kenya.
CHARITIES COULD BENEFIT FROM THE CRYPTO-ECONOMY
To date, Paxful’s #BuiltWithBitcoin initiative has raised over R3 million for charities across Africa and the Middle East. Paxful – has donated over 13,000 Rands worth of bitcoin to GROW with Educare Centres. The donation forms part of Paxful’s #BuiltWithBitcoin initiative and is its first South African charitable contribution.
As a non-profit organization, GROW with Educare Centres empowers qualified, passionate women to own and run successful high-quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) centers, such as daycares and pre-schools, in low-income communities using the principles of social enterprise and micro franchising. With reading being an integral part of the Educare programme, the donation from Paxful will be used to purchase books for their various centers’ mini-libraries.
The GROW with Educare Centres project was incubated by a partnership between The Clothing Bank and Grow Learning Company and currently has 31 ECD centers running across Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
“This donation opens new opportunities for our organization to engage the crypto-community in charitable giving. An investment in Early Learning is one of the greatest investments you can make since one teacher influences a generation of learners. We hope that Paxful will inspire others to do the same,” says Helene Brand, Marketing and Fundraising Manager for GROW Educare Centres.
Paxful launched #BuiltWithBitcoin in 2017 to encourage the cryptocurrency sector to contribute funds for humanitarian projects.
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.
This is a big shot from Naspers, Africa’s biggest company, which in terms of GDP, would be richer than the West African country of Liberia. Naspers is invading the US disruption market, leading a $30 million investment round in Brainly, a U.S. startup that allows learners to help each other with homework problems in different parts of the world.
Here Is What You Need To Know
The Cape Town-based Naspers has led the latest $30 million investment round in Brainly, a U.S. startup that allows learners to help each other with homework problems in different parts of the world.
The students earn points for the quality of their answers and can enter leadership-boards in different subjects such as history, mathematics, and others.
Naspers Ltd., Africa’s biggest company by market value and soon to be one of Europe’s largest listed technology companies, is investing more of its $10-billion cash-pile in educational platforms.
“At Naspers, we back companies seeking to address big societal needs like education, helping them to achieve global scale,” said Naspers Ventures Chief Executive Officer Larry Illg. “Brainly has the potential to serve the needs of hundreds of millions of students around the world, and has shown strong growth in the U.S. and high growth markets such as India, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil.”
The cash from the current funding round will be used to update the platform and expand its base in the U.S., where it has already managed to make money from the service.
Brainly is also expanding into India, where Naspers also led a $540 million funding round into another educational tech company Byju in December last year. The Brainly platform is growing at around 200% a year. Before the Byju investment, Naspers’s education investments have all been in the U.S. and includes other online learning platforms such as Udemy.
Naspers also led $540 million funding round in India’s Byju
Naspers’ brands
Naspers first invested in Brainly in 2016. Runa Capital and Manta Ray have also invested in the latest funding round.
A $32 million initial investment in Tencent Holdings Ltd. back in 2001 transformed the South African newspaper and Pay TV business into one of the largest technology investors globally.
Its 31% stake in the Chinese game-maker is worth $140 billion, compared with its total market value of $110 billion in Johannesburg.
The valuation gap motivated a decision for Naspers to list its internet businesses on the Euronext in September to close that discount.
A look at the financial results for the 6 months ending in September 2018, as revealed by Naspers in its financial statement shows:
Operating Revenue: $3.34billion
Cost of providing services and sale of goods :$1.981billion
Selling, general and administration expenses: $1.284billion
Operating profit: $49million
Share of equity accounted investment (basically Naspers’ share of Tencent profits as rest of equity-accounted results are negligible compared to Tencent’s contribution): $2.098 billion
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.
