Tuesday, 09 August 2022

Partner(s)

Good morning!

Dennis here,

If you won't instinctively describe your debit card as a "product," or describe a company as an "API infrastructure," then you probably will not have known that of the many ride-hailing companies that have appeared in recent times, the big ones at least, Uber, Lyft, Bolt, after years of massive global expansion are still not exactly making profits.

But it looks like running adverts on their platforms might be the key to profitability. Lyft has announced its media division.

Below are the tech stories and news you need to know to start your day, carefully curated by Technext.

Summary of the news

Internet service provider, Tizeti, said it has generated over N11 billion in revenue in 10 years
Kenya's president said that coding will now be taught as a subject in schools
Hackers invade Twitter again, compromising private data including secret Twitter accounts
Lyft has rolled out a media division to cash in on in-car ads

Tizeti says it has generated N11 billion in revenue

Tizeti, the Internet service provider with operations strictly in Ghana and Nigeria, said it has generated 11 billion in revenue in the last 10 years of its operation.

The company’s revenue was driven largely by its 2.8 million Nigerian customers, even as it said it has deployed over 3,884 hotspot locations in the country.

Nairametrics reports that the founder and chief executive officer of Tizeti, Mr. Kendall Ananyi, at the second edition of Tizeti’s annual event, tagged ‘NeXTGEN 2.0: The Next Frontier’, said the company is leveraging solar power to deliver efficient services, which bolstered its revenue. With its successes in Nigeria and Ghana, the company, he said, is now targeting expansion into Cote d’Ivoire and Togo.

See an excerpt from what the founder and chief executive officer of Tizeti, Kendall Ananyi said below:

In the last 10 years of our operation, we have been able to generate N11 billion as revenue and this we achieved without any debt as of today.”

We have grown significantly within the last few years, being profitable in three out of the last four years and paid our first dividend this year. We currently have over 3884 hotspot locations and built 1 tower every month since we started, with 2.8 million users in Nigeria.

Today, Tizeti delivers over 190TBPS of data a day, which is about 20% of what Airtel, the second largest telco with coverage in 36 states delivers.

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Kenya announce coding as a subject in schools

Last week at the State House in Nairobi, the president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, announced the addition of coding as a subject into its primary and secondary schools curricula. TechCabal reports that this new development makes Kenya the first country in Africa to approve coding as a subject of study in the 2 early schools.

See an excerpt from what he said below:

I applaud the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development for leading our nation to this landmark achievement, by implementing coding as a critical skill within our new Competency Based Curriculum.

This, no doubt, will enhance employment creation, enable and scale up ICT innovation and the development of a dynamic and robust ICT sector that will enhance the growth of all sectors of our economy. The master plan also guides investors while planning their investment priorities.

Hackers invade Twitter again

A security vulnerability on Twitter allowed a bad actor to find out the account names associated with certain email addresses and phone numbers (and yes, that could include your secret celebrity stan accounts), Twitter confirmed on Friday. Twitter initially patched the issue in January after receiving a report through its bug bounty program, but a hacker managed to exploit the flaw before Twitter even knew about it.

According to The Verge, the vulnerability, which stemmed from an update the platform made to its code in June 2021, went unnoticed until earlier this year. This gave hackers several months to exploit the flaw, although Twitter said it “had no evidence to suggest someone had taken advantage of the vulnerability” at the time of its discovery.

Last month’s report from Bleeping Computer suggested otherwise, and revealed that a hacker managed to exploit the vulnerability while it flew under Twitter’s radar.

The hacker reportedly amassed a database of over 5.4 million accounts by taking advantage of the flaw, and then tried to sell the information on a hacker forum for $30,000. After analyzing the data posted to the forum, Twitter confirmed that its user data had been compromised.

Lyft creates media division

Lyft has created a new business unit to beef up its digital advertising business across its tablets, mobile app, rooftops and bicycles, producing the potential to add billions of dollars to its bottom line.

The ride-hailing company announced on its blog Monday that Lyft Media will help cash in on the growing market for in-vehicle digital ads, as cars become more connected and begin to feature multiple, larger infotainment screens. The announcement comes days after Lyft and its biggest competitor, Uber, announced robust second-quarter financial results, TechCrunch reports.

Both face increasing competition for location-based advertising. Uber, which entered the ad business in 2019 via its UberEats app before rolling out ads across its rooftops and ride-hailing app, said its advertising business could reach $1 billion in revenue by 2024.

See an excerpt below:

Our vision is to build the world’s largest transportation media network, delivering value to advertisers while also elevating the platform experience for riders and drivers.