Author: Contributor
The management of e-commerce giant, Konga, has underlined its determination to continually take the lead in elevating standards, improving customer satisfaction and deepening the growth of the Nigerian e-commerce sector. Making the assertion was Co-CEO Konga Group, Nick Imudia. Equally important, Imudia was reacting to the recent inclusion of Konga in an exclusive list of top 20 global brands to watch in 2020. ThisDay Newspapers had identified Konga in a list of top 20 brands to watch in 2020 released in January. The rating consisted of both local and international brands across banking, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), telecommunications, media,…
by MJ (Thinus) Booysen South Africa’s energy crisis has many dimensions, from political and economic to technical and environmental. Recently, the country’s power utility, Eskom, has been generating only about 60% of its capacity and has had to restrict usage to prevent a regional blackout. Eskom’s new chief executive officer has affirmed the importance of demand management to handle the crisis. But his approach of merely “subsidising energy-efficient lightbulbs” won’t cut it. The country needs drastic interventions – and the elements of the fourth industrial revolution are available to make this possible. These are: wireless connectivity, the internet of things,…
Despite the significant upheavals in the Nigerian e-commerce sector amid a series of potential investor apathy-inducing developments in 2019; the industry had a shining light in the activities of a local player, Konga. Co-Chief Executive Officer, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh disclosed that Konga went a long way in restoring investor and customer confidence in the Nigerian e-commerce sector. The Harvard alumni affirmed that Konga, which has undergone a remarkable transformation since it was acquired by the Zinox Group, has been a refreshingly positive source of delightful innovations, and sound corporate governance which have dispelled the negative clouds that hovered over the…
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are becoming more than just buzzwords as South African blue-chip companies start to implement these technologies to solve real-world problems. One of South Africa’s largest retail groups recently contracted Xineoh, a Johannesburg-based company which uses AI to predict consumer behaviour, to assist with the optimisation of its inventory. South African retailers increasingly look at ways to use their data to boost sales and operate more efficiently. Xineoh’s AI algorithm utilises retailers’ raw transaction data to predict who will buy which product at what price. It provides retail clients with the ability to optimise their…
“The next years will also be characterised more than ever by the transformation of our industry, but we intend to maintain our market leadership and set the course for long-term competitiveness with investments in new technologies and customer-centricity.”
Not bot, not beast: scientists create first ever living, programmable organism.
CDC Group, the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor, has committed $15 million (R218 million) to TLcom’s TIDE Africa Fund to support early-stage high-growth start-ups across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). With a presence in the key financial hubs of Lagos and Nairobi, TLcom targets businesses that leverage technology to address African business and consumer challenges in key sectors of the economy such as education, agriculture, transportation & logistics, healthcare, and financial services. The firm has backed some of Africa’s most prominent early-stage companies, including Kobo360, Andela and Twiga Foods, which have collectively raised $250 million to date. The CDC investment…
by Richard Holden There has already been a fair number of jobs lost to automation over recent decades – from factory workers to bank tellers. In the coming decade we might see radically larger numbers of jobs lost to automation, thanks to advances in machine learning and other technologies. Two areas are transport and retail. In transport, tech company TuSimple has for months been testing autonomous trucks for UPS (the world’s largest delivery company). The trucks, hauling freight between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, still have a human behind the wheel for safety, but it’s only a matter of time before…
by Christian Borch In 2019, the world fretted that algorithms now know us better than we know ourselves. No concept captures this better than surveillance capitalism, a term coined by American writer Shoshana Zuboff to describe a bleak new era in which the likes of Facebook and Google provide popular services while their algorithms hawk our digital traces. Surprisingly, Zuboff’s concern doesn’t extend to the algorithms in financial markets that have replaced many of the humans on trading floors. Automated algorithmic trading took off around the beginning of the 21st century, first in the US but soon in Europe as…
Most of us spend hours each day glued to some type of screen for work or play. But is that a bad thing? Has anyone got the data to figure it out? Now is the time for ‘The Human Screenome Project.’
Traditional companies need to embrace high-quality data gathering to avoid being left behind by the next industrial revolution.
Liquid Telecom South Africa, part of the leading pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom, today announced its partnership with Qorus, a sales and marketing enablement platform for cloud channel partners to increase productivity, growth and revenue. With Qorus Hub means they can connect with relevant people, content and data more quickly than ever before. The Qorus software includes all the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) information that organisations need to grow their businesses. It is used to build high-quality marketing assets and market-ready sales proposals by accessing information directly from Office applications. Qorus enables Liquid Telecom’s partners to locate, create, collaborate, and…
MyBroadband Insights has released its Q4 2019 Mobile Network Quality Report, which shows that MTN has the best mobile network in South Africa. The report is based on 310,649 speed tests which were performed by thousands of MyBroadband Android Speed Test App users across South Africa between 1 October and 31 December 2019. The research shows that South Africa had an average mobile download speed of 26.73Mbps and an average upload speed of 9.53Mbps. MTN had the highest average download speed at 40.64Mbps, followed by Vodacom on 32.23Mbps, Telkom on 21.63Mbps, Rain on 16.44Mbps, and Cell C on 16.48Mbps. Best…
by David Richard Walwyn and Rod Crompton South Africa needs to seriously start thinking about shifting its energy focus. This is for two reasons. The first is that the country’s important exports – coal and platinum – face potential collapse with the imminent shift of global energy markets. A number of factors are driving this. The move away from vehicles powered by petrol and diesel to ones powered by electric batteries is gathering pace. Two-thirds of the demand for platinum depends on combustion engines where it is used for the hardening of spark plug tips and in-vehicle exhaust auto-catalysts. The…
Consumers expect an array of beneficial services from connected technology interacting with our senses of sight, sound, taste, smell and touch to be a common reality by 2030. The consumer predictions about the Internet of Senses are among the expectations highlighted in the ninth edition of the Ericsson ConsumerLab Hot Consumer Trends report. The Internet of Senses will be enabled by technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), 5G and automation. Consumers predict that by 2030 screen-based experiences will increasingly compete with multisensory ones that will be almost inseparable from reality. Based on comprehensive research,…
by Jamie Morgan Cast your mind back a decade or so and consider how the future looked then. A public horizon of Obama-imbued “yes we can” and a high tide of hope and tolerance expressed in the London Olympics provides one narrative theme; underlying austerity-induced pressure another. Neither speaks directly to our current world of divisive partisan politics, toxic social media use, competing facts and readily believed fictions. This should be instructive. The future is made, not discovered, and yet we are constantly confounded by the future as it becomes the present. What we believe, say, do, organise and vote…
by Christoffer Heckman In its annual report, the AI Now Institute, an interdisciplinary research centre studying the societal implications of artificial intelligence, called for a ban on technology designed to recognize people’s emotions in certain cases. Specifically, the researchers said affect recognition technology, also called emotion recognition technology, should not be used in decisions that “impact people’s lives and access to opportunities,” such as hiring decisions or pain assessments, because it is not sufficiently accurate and can lead to biased decisions. What is this technology, which is already being used and marketed, and why is it raising concerns? Outgrowth of…
Luno, South Africa’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, expects to see greater adoption of Bitcoin and altcoins in 2020, continuing the momentum gained in 2019. Cryptocurrencies have slowly become more mainstream with increasing numbers of people investing in this alternative asset class. Marius Reitz, Luno GM for Africa, makes some predictions for 2020. Regulation With the crypto space maturing rapidly, regulators around the world are accelerating efforts to either embrace or regulate cryptocurrencies. The pace escalated in 2019, no doubt motivated by Facebook entering the space with its Libra project. In 2020, we expect to see this continue. The South African Reserve Bank…
by Ola Källenius “Where do we take it from here?” I guess that’s the core question of every CES. And this inner unrest for what’s next is also at the core of our purpose at Mercedes-Benz. Today we would like to show what that means. As a film buff, I spent some time catching up with old and new movies. One of the classics, “Back to the Future,” predicted we would be traveling in flying cars by now. Yes, air taxis exist. One example is the shared “Volocopter” from a great team of entrepreneurs that we are supporting. But it’s…
by Mauro Vallati Will artificial intelligence one day surpass human thinking? The rapid progress of AI, coupled with our standard fear of machines, has raised concerns that its abilities will one day start to grow uncontrollably, eventually leading it to take over the world and wipe out humanity if it decides we are an obstacle to its goals. This moment is usually referred to as the “AI singularity”. One argument against the possibility of such a supreme, unstoppable and indefinitely growing intelligence is that it would need, by definition, to be able to accurately predict the future. And quantum theory,…
by William Clark Come January, 40% of Americans will make New Years resolutions, and nearly half of them will aim to lose weight or get in shape. But 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by February, and gyms will experience a decrease in traffic after the first and second months of the year as those who made New Year’s resolutions to get in shape lose steam. As a lecturer at Binghamton and former Olympic weightlifter, world champion powerlifter and strength coach, much of my life has been spent in training halls and gyms around the country. People often ask me,…
by Emma Sheppard-Simms In Australia, interment in a cemetery or a churchyard has been the most common choices for in-ground burial. Over the past 20 years, though, burial has become a less accessible and more costly option for many people. This is because increasing numbers of deaths have created a boom in demand for burial plots and cemeteries are fast running out of space. Since the 1950s, cremation has gained in popularity. But, although a majority of Australians who died last year were cremated, it is far from sustainable. Each cremation releases about 50 kilograms of CO₂ as well as…
by Brian Harman and Janine Bosak We are creatures of habit. Between a third and half of our behaviour is habitual, according to research estimates. Unfortunately, our bad habits compromise our health, wealth and happiness. On average, it takes 66 days to form a habit. But positive behavioural change is harder than self-help books would have us believe. Only 40% of people can sustain their new year’s resolution after six months, while only 20% of dieters maintain long-term weight loss. Education does not effectively promote behaviour change. A review of 47 studies found that it’s relatively easy to change a…
by Sara Jo Nixon It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when holiday parties collide with collegiate and professional athletics events. What do they all have in common? Booze, lots of it, and often free. It’s no wonder the lead reindeer has a red nose. Of course, drinking isn’t limited to a single season, but it holds a prominent place during the holidays. Across a few short weeks, consumption of spiked cider, boozy nog, wine, beer, cocktails and variations thereof may be higher than at any other point in the year. One industry study suggested that drinking doubles at…
by Liang Zhao One of the hottest topics in cryptocurrencies is the prospect of major economies launching state-backed digital coins. China’s central bank recently accelerated plans for what is currently known as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). It could launch within the next 18 months, while the European Central Bank is looking at something similar. Meanwhile, Russia has been working on a state-backed cryptoruble for several years, and Sweden has its e-krona project. Indeed, several countries have got there already: Senegal and the tiny Marshall Islands now have digital coins that sit alongside their existing currencies, while others such…