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ARTICLE by STEVE MBEGO & KEVIN Namunwa

What’s Trending The Latest News From The Continent

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Why Businesses Are Turning To SDWan For Digital Transformation

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation (dx) in most industries with companies rushing to meet the new demands of customers who opted favoured online experiences over physical ones. In the banking industry, for example, customers embraced mobile banking leading to reduced footprint in physical outlets. Moreover, there was the need to link both digital banking services with traditional physical outlets to provide seamless experience for customers. While customers prefer to do their business digitally, there were still some complex issues that can only be best solved at physical branches. To achieve flexible branch networking operations that are in sync with their digital transformation agenda, business goals and customer expectations, customers are ditching traditional network solutions for the software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN). According to Patrick Ndegwa, SEACOM Business Sales Lead for SEACOM East Africa, “Modern networks must be fast, reliable, secure, and always available. This is what drives digital transformation and underlies ongoing improvements and innovations. Traditional networking technologies are rapidly becoming obsolete and inefficient. The goals of an enterprise’s digital acceleration can be significantly advanced through the implementation of SD-WAN.” Ndegwa opines that by using this smart networking technology, companies can build more agile, responsive, reliable, and secure networks that can scale up as their operations expand. “For both large and small businesses, SD-WAN solutions will ensure that your business remains effective in a rapidly evolving digital world,” he adds.

For example, Absa Bank has settled on Huawei’s SD-WAN solution to meet its service expansion and digital innovation requirements during its digital upgrade. In a use case report published by Huawei, Moses Okundi, CIO of Absa Bank Kenya highlighted some of the benefits of the SD-WAN.

“We strive to offer our customers a seamless digital experience. We want to enable them to bank and transact without any hitch and in a seamless manner at the convenience of whatever they could be. To realize that the bank needed to build a new infrastructure

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to improve the efficiency of various banking services, reduce O&M costs, and enhance user experience at branches,” said Moses Okundi said.

SD-WAN also provides real-time visibility into application traffic and performance to ensure session quality of business-critical applications. “We got to a point where we can manage traffic and distribute traffic evenly across various technology options or connectivity options from various connectivity providers. The value of this is that it gives us robust resilience in managing that connectivity,” added Okundi.

Through the solution, Absa Bank Kenya can visualize application traffic of all branches, and therefore allows the IT team to monitor the dynamic data and adjust the bandwidth of each branch in a timely manner. This brings efficient and intelligent operations. Okundi explained: “For my tech team, we now have a very good level of visibility regarding the usage of the connectivity partners we have engaged. We can see where the usage is and how the traffic is distributed. And in the worst-case scenario where manual intervention is required, our team can pinpoint the challenges, making their intervention very accurate and efficient.”

Absa Bank Kenya’s also revealed its intelligent cloud-based branch network will serve as a critical foundation for the financial giant’s digital transformation.

“I see it as Lego blocks where the bottom layer is a strong technology foundation that gives us a platform to really offer cutting-edge digital solutions to our customers. And right at the bottom layer is strong connectivity,” Okundi expounded. According to Okundi, “In the future, this powerful branch network will further promote the intelligent upgrade of Absa Bank and eventually help them evolve into intelligent customer experience centres.”

Three Firms Secure $6.8M Funding To Train Data Talent In Sub-Saharan Africa

The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia have announced $6.8 million in funding from Wellcome, a global charitable foundation, in support of the data.org-led Capacity Accelerator Network (CAN).

The funding will be split amongst the three partners and aims to foster global data talent for climate and health impact. data.org will work with the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and J-PAL South Asia to establish new accelerators in Sub-Saharan Africa and India.

The accelerators will equip emerging data professionals with the interdisciplinary skills needed to work at the intersection of climate and health to tackle society’s greatest challenges and improve lives across the world.

“Data is crucial for helping us understand and tackle the health effects of climate change. But right now, the field lacks people with the necessary skills and expertise, particularly within the communities that live on the frontlines of the climate crisis. We must train a new generation of data practitioners to address the health impacts of climate change where it matters most. That’s why we’re pleased to support data. org with the accelerators in India and Sub-Saharan Africa — to help bridge gaps in the field and create meaningful solutions that improve lives,” said Tariq Khokhar, Head of Data for Science and Health at Wellcome.

The grant will boost data.org’s ambitious mission to train 1 million purpose-driven data practitioners over the next decade, as it leads global efforts to strengthen data talent in the social impact sector. This initiative builds on its recent partnership with the University of Chicago’s Financial Inclusion Accelerator, made possible by funding from the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.

“At data.org, we believe in democratising data, for good. Creating a network of capacity accelerators around the world puts that concept into action, informing, training, and mobilising the next generation of data professionals,” said Danil Mikhailov, Executive Director of data.org. “Against a backdrop of the climate crisis, pandemics, and rising inequality, the world faces enormous, systemic challenges. Data science and other data-driven technologies can offer part of the solution through their tremendous ability to scale, but only if we ensure these data professionals are equipped with the interdisciplinary skills to ask the right questions and build trust with the communities they serve,” he added.

The first capacity accelerator will be based in Sub-Saharan Africa in collaboration with the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD), followed by the launch of a second accelerator in India in collaboration with Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia.

“To achieve better outcomes for people and the planet, we as the international data community need to collaborate to make technical skills and

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knowledge more accessible to all. The Global Partnership is working to help governments address information gaps in climate, health, and vital statistics. Partnering with data.org, J-PAL South Asia, and a constellation of education providers will help collectively leverage our networks to strengthen local data talent, which in turn will help unlock solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges,” said Claire Melamed, CEO at the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. Each accelerator will produce a cohort of data practitioners with interdisciplinary subject-matter expertise in health and climate data. In surrounding communities, dozens of social impact and public sector organizations will reap the benefits, hosting paid data fellows who graduate from the program. “The fight against poverty and climate change is more data-driven than ever before, and scalable, rigorous technical training is needed to build capacity to use data for evidence-informed decision-making. The accelerator represents a unique opportunity to build talent and impact the future of data use for research and policy, in India and worldwide, through this collaborative partnership between data.org and J-PAL South Asia,” said Iqbal Dhaliwal, global executive director at J-PAL.

Accelerators will partner with universities and other social impact and public sector organisations that will support the research and roll out of curriculum, resources, and experiential learning programs, to engage top talent in social impact—a consistent challenge for the sector.

A recent report from data.org and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, Workforce Wanted: Data Talent for Social Impact, found that there is an opportunity to develop 3.5 million data professionals focused on social impact in low - and middle-income countries over the next 10 years.

What Is Ailing Start-ups In Kenya? Why So Many Shutdowns

Given that it is considered one of the biggest tech and innovation hubs in Africa, Kenya is home to a lot of start-ups with variations from locally founded start-ups and those founded by non-Kenyans. We have seen a stream of success by various Kenyan start-ups, which have managed to raise funds and even widen their operations to cover the rest of the continent and even the rest of the globe. M-Pesa is a great example of an innovative idea that originated from Kenya but is now benefitting a lot of start-ups in Kenya, which all look to solve different problems in the continent and all over the globe. However, despite the numerous success stories about local startups, there has been a recent surge in closure. Several reasons have been put forward. It is seen as a case of greed where most of these start-ups have closed shop a minute after securing a lumpsum in seed funding. At the same time, there are thoughts that this could be a case of an unfavorable environment as some start-ups have only closed shop in Kenya but are operating elsewhere. A classic example of the latter is Wasoko which closed shop in Kenya and relocated to Zanzibar.

We take a look at some of these start-ups and see what circumstances led them to close shop in the East African Country. A notorious example of a startup that closed shop in unclear circumstances is Kune Food. We all know the story of Kune Food. One Robin Reecht claimed he paid a visit to Kenya and realised food is very expensive in the country, hence Kune Foods. Robin started out on the wrong foot with Kenyans who argued that there is a plenty of affordable food in Kenya and he just didn’t look hard enough. Reecht bowed out after securing funds. The startup was doing fine, selling food at an average of $3 per meal with enough orders going around, opening up physical locations for customers to walk in and have a meal.

About a year before it closed shop, the start-up had secured funding amounting to $1 million. Kune Food was shut completely and did not have a chance to spread its wings. “Since the beginning of the year, we sold more than 55,000 meals, acquired more than 6,000 individual customers and 100 corporate customers. But at $3 per meal, it just wasn’t enough to sustain our growth … Coupled with rising food costs deteriorating our margins, we just couldn’t keep going,” Reecht later wrote on his Linkedin when announcing the closure of the start-up. It is also safe to say that Wasoko were lured to Zanzibar by the friendly in the island in partnership with the Zanzibar government. The Wasoko

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Innovation Hub is the first private-public partnership between an African tech start-up and the Zanzibar government for Silicon Zanzibar, a new government initiative to attract and relocate tech companies from across Africa to the island. As part of the launch, Wasoko becomes Silicon Zanzibar’s first anchor company and official private sector ambassador.

Kenya lost this great start-up that secured most of its funding while operating from Kenya. Perhaps if the environment would have been more favourable for the start-up in the country, it would have been harder for the Zanzibar Government to lure them to moving their base to the island. A classic case of start-ups that failed to the ground as a result of an unfavourable environment for growth is Notify Logistics and WeFarm. Notify Logistics closed its business following a reported high cost of operations. When Notify started back in 2018, its business model was quite attractive. It would basically rent shelves to vendors to run their operations. According to one of the start-up’s directors, it became extremely challenging to maintain the company because even the businesses run by their partners were unsustainable. It was also revealed that Notify was paying up to approximately $7,000 per month for three floors it had acquired in a mall which was a financial constraint for the company. For WeFarm, the Agritech start-up closed down one of its services, WeFarm shop, barely a year after setting it up. It was an app that was developed by the company to help farmers acquire agricultural products online as well as share reviews and advice among each other. In a statement to CIO Africa, WeFarm’s Director of Growth, Sofie Mala confirmed that WeFarm shop has been forced to close down after current market conditions had made it difficult for the business to scale.

Greytrix Africa: A Journey of Providing ERP Solutions to East African SMEs

East African start-ups have been keen to rev up their technology adoption for innovations. This has been evident with the recent Fintech Global Report noting that fintech from East Africa, particularly Kenya, has received the most funding in the continent in 2022 so far.

The technology helping start-ups reap big is now trickling down to the SMEs and SMBs in the region, is ERP. Nitin Chandure, the Global Vice President for Greytrix Solutions, agrees that East African has shown that SMEs and SMBs are ready for ERP solutions. “We started our journey in 2015 here in East Africa, with an intent to serve the SMBs and SMEs in the region,” Nitin notes, adding that SMES and SMBs are embracing ERP solutions more today than when the Sage’s partner entered the East African market seven years ago. “When we started Greytrix Africa here in Kenya, people initially doubted our commitment to the region and considered us a briefcase company. So, cracking that first deal was a major challenge. But then we stayed in sight. Initially, we took few projects at very low margins just to cover our costs and first invested in proof of concept just to gain the clients confidence.”

The solution provider is even thinking of widening its borders to other parts of the continent.

“In the coming years, we plan to expand geographically and are also planning to diversify our product portfolio. Recently, we signed up with Sage to become business partners for West Africa, SADC and the Middle East,” Nitin says. “We are now looking beyond East Africa, which now means we have a bigger landscape to cover. This is going to keep us busy marking our presence for next couple of years.” Greytrix chose to partner with Sage owing to their shared vision - helping medium-sized businesses and enterprises run their businesses better. The association opens doors for Greytrix as Sage has a range of products catering to different sizes of business and types of industries like distribution, professional services, manufacturing chemical, non-profit etc. The pair deliver their solutions globally, as per the need of the businesses and on different platforms like on-premises or hosted in cloud.