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Friday, 26 August 2022

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Good morning!

Dennis here,

Just as Nigeria celebrates the launch of 5G, even though only about 20,000 people have it, for now, there is even more reason to celebrate in this part of the world. Ivory Coast has launched its first locally-made smartphone now available for users in 16 local languages.

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

  • A new report says that eNaira has so far performed underwhelmingly with only ₦4bn transactions in 10 months
  • Ivory Coast has launched its first locally-made smartphone
  • A new report shows that there are four million crypto holders in South Africa
  • Facebook is for the first time building a customer service division
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eNaira's underwhelmingly performance

Technext Round1
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced last week at the grand finale of the eNaira Hackathon, that transactions on its digital fiat, eNaira have hit ₦4 billion since its launch in October 2021.

Technext reports that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele said, “Since the launch of this great initiative, the eNaira has reached 840,000 downloads, with about 270,000 active wallets comprising over 252,000 consumer wallets and 17,000 merchant wallets.

Emefiele disclosed that despite the successes recorded on the initiative, the CBN, in collaboration with private sector operators, has started the second phase.

He said, “Notwithstanding this appreciable progress, the second phase of the project has begun, and it is intended to drive financial inclusion by onboarding unbanked and underserved users leveraging offline channels.

“Hence, greater success is envisioned for the project with phase two expected to deliver more gains with a target of about 8,000,000 active users based on estimations using the diffusion of innovation model.”
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Ivory Coast launch locally-made smartphone

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An entrepreneur in Ivory Coast, Alain Capo-Chichi has created the country’s first locally-made smartphone, which aims to improve accessibility with voice commands in local languages for users who can’t read and write, according to a report by Reuters.

Technext reports that the smartphone, called “Open G”, which can understand commands and respond in 16 of Ivory Coast’s approximately 60 spoken languages, including Dioula, Senoufo and Bété, went on sale last month in the West African country.

Alain said he has created the Open G phone to help people like his parents, who are illiterate, use features like transferring money and sending messages, thus creating a solution for Africa’s uneducated populace who have previously faced a major challenge in accessing key features that comes along with these phones.
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Crypto surge in South Africa

Amazon
According to Finder’s Cryptocurrency Adoption Index report, four million South Africans own cryptocurrencies. The index measures the growth of cryptocurrencies worldwide through an ongoing survey of internet users in 26 countries.

According to TechCabal, the report further states that South African men are 1.9 times more likely than women to own crypto, with a 65% holding, compared to 35% for women. The most owned cryptocurrency in the country is bitcoin, with 52% of the crypto owners holding it, which is more than the global average of 37%.

The crypto ownership rate in South Africa is 10%, which is lower than the global average of 15%, and roughly 5% of those surveyed in the country say they own bitcoin (BTC), with 2% saying they own ethereum, 2% dogecoin, and another 1% cardano.

With regard to age, those aged 18–34 in South Africa lead the way in terms of the crypto split, making up 45% of crypto owners. Those aged 55 and above are the group least likely to own crypto, making up just 23% of crypto owners.
Overall, South Africa ranks 18th out of 26 countries for crypto adoption, according to the report which surveyed 217,947 people in 26 selected countries.
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Facebook's customer service division

Netflix
Meta is trying to make it easier for its users to get support when their accounts or posts are removed, according to a report from Bloomberg. The report quotes Brent Harris, Meta’s vice president of governance, who says that the company is “spending a bunch of time on” customer service. Since Facebook’s inception, people haven’t really had any recourse or way to talk to the company about moderation decisions.

The Verge reports that at this stage, it doesn’t seem clear what Meta’s customer service division will actually do. Last year, the company piloted a live chat support program that gave some English-speaking users a way to actually talk to a human at Meta if they needed help using a new feature or got locked out of their accounts. At the time, the company said it was “the first time Facebook has offered live help for people locked out of their accounts.”

The company didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment on whether its recent efforts were related to that “small test” or if those capabilities have expanded in any way in the months since they were introduced.
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Latest in funding

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Other stories we are following

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Have a great day!
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