TECNO Mobile Wants to Make Ethiopia A Mobile Hub For Africa
Capital’s Newspaper had a interesting talk with Henry Yu, Genral Manager of Transsion Manufacturing PLC, Tecno mobile manufacturer. Henry Yu says, “We have a long-term plan for our development in Ethiopia, which would make Ethiopia a mobile hub of Africa in a couple of years. Our company built its ICT Park mega factory in consideration of that plan. Read the full interview here.
54 Capital Partners with MiNT
54 Capital Group, the African-focused asset management company,which has invested in 5 companies in Ethiopia, has donated six million birr to facilitate innovation and technology startups and development. Read more here.
Gebeya Announces First Class of Blockchain Academy Graduates
Gebeya in partnership with Stellar.org provided a maiden training program. A fellowship of 11 current and former Gebeya graduates have now acquired the necessary skills to kick-start Africa’s advancement into the blockchain technology scene. Read more here.
The New Electronic Transaction Proclamation
A public discussion has been held on the draft proclamation for electronic Transaction at Ministry of Innovation and Technology. Governmental representatives from MinT, NBE, MoTI,INSA and private Banks, FinTech startups, eComm Startups has participated were part of it. You can find the draft proclamation here.
Awtar Music App: The Spotify of Ethiopian music Is Launched
Awtar Multimedia in partnership with Ethio Telecom, launch a Spotify-like music streaming app for Android phone users in Ethiopia. Users can purchase songs and albums for 4.50 birr ($0.16) and 15 birr ($0.52), respectively. Read more here.
Ethiopia Innovate Week
Bringing together ICT Expo with startup Ethiopia, Innovation Africa Digital Summit (IAD), STEM Award, and Paperless day initiative, Ethiopia Innovate week is taking place from June 6 until June 12 , 2019. Read more here
BlueMoon Incubatees Dominated Total Startup Challenge 2019
After months of process, the winners of Total startup Challenge 2019 has been announced. It turns out that three of of the winners are being incubated and supported by blueMoon. The winners are Egzieryalew Ayele from Green Bean (Manufactures coffee drying machine), Anasimos Gelan from GreenKetema Landscaping (provides an integrated landscaping service) and Selam Wondim from Grohydro Manufacturing (produces hydroponic-growing system).
Gebeya: Ethiopian Startup Expands to Francophone Africa via Senegal
Ethiopian Edutech startup Gebeya announced it’s expansion plan to Senegal as it continues to strive to achieve it’s PanAfrican vision. Read the details here.
Cardano Founder Talks About State-Backed Cryptocurrency For Ethiopia
IOHK CEO, Charles Hoskinson sais that he had signed an MOU with representatives from the Ethiopian government, including the Ministry of Innovation and Technology, to develop the new digital payments system. Read more here.
RENEW & the IAN Commit Capital to an All-Women Fund
RENEW and the Impact Angel Network , one of the active investment group in Ethiopia, have committed capital to a fund dedicated to investing in women-owned and led companies in Ethiopia and Uganda. The fund is said to focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), designed the fund to address a pressing need to close the financing gap for women-owned companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Read the press release here.
ATA Rolled Out a National Market Information System
The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade & Industry, has rolled out a new National Market Information System (NMIS) that collects, processes and disseminates timely, accurate and relevant market information on agricultural commodities via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Short Message Service (SMS) on 6077 hotline, as well as through website, email subscription and other mediums such as radio across the country. Read more here.
EIC Launches Online Services Platform, Chinese Web-Portal
The Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) has launched an online services platform where investors can apply for new investment permit and its renewal. The platform also enables online administration of investment incentives. The Commission has also launched a Chinese web-portal that is intended to provide up-to-date information to Chinese investors.
Kamrhan Elhan Wants to Create 500,000 Tech Jobs in Ethiopia
Global Innovation Catalyst aims to provide over 10 million innovative job drives in the world by providing the resources needed to stimulate job creation, high-tech entrepreneurship, and innovation-focused economic growth. Frmo these, five million of the job will be created from Africa which half a million goes to Ethiopia’s innovation efforts, which means about 10 percent of Africa’s allocation. Kamrhan Elhan, founder and CEO of Silicon Valley based Global Innovation Catalyst, met with Getahun Mekria, Ministry of Mint and other Stakehonders in Ethiopia on May. Read more here. As well you can find Kamrhan Interview with Capital Newspaper here.
RENEW’s IAN Exits Two Investments that Financed Ethiopian SME
RENEW’s Impact Angel Network (IAN), one of the most active equity investors in Ethiopia with an expanding presence in East Africa, have successfully exited two investments to a regional private equity fund and a family office. Find more about here.
