Africa

A new irrigation technology incorporating AI sensors reduces water use by 30 percent and methane emissions by 47 percent compared to continuous irrigation methods.

Proposed changes to Kenya’s competition regime will hinder, not help its digital economy. Rather than impose substantial changes based on the false premise that digital markets require special treatment, Kenya should use existing enforcement tools to police its growing digital markets.

When attempting to evaluate the effect that a policy intervention can have on development or innovation, researchers and policymakers routinely look to short-term impacts, both out of urgency and because of the difficulty in maintaining contact with participants over several years.

Over the last decade, mobile money services have brought banking to populations that have lacked formal financial services by allowing users to manage money on their mobile phones. First launched in Kenya in 2007, 96 percent of Kenyan households now use mobile money and can withdraw funds in physical currency from 110,000 agents across the country.

Meet Arthur Zang, a 29 year-old Cameroonian engineer who invented the handheld Cardio-Pad, the world’s first medical tablet facilitating heart examinations and remote diagnosis. The Cardio-Pad is a touch-screen tablet device for conducting cardiac tests such as electrocardiograms in remote locations, and then sending the results to cardiologists in city centers often hundreds of miles away.

Rwanda’s government, which has declared a vision of making the country a technology and innovation hub for Africa, has partnered with the startup Zipline to facilitate the real-time delivery of urgent medical supplies, such as blood or vaccines, to patients in remote locations via drones.

Providing universities in developing countries greater access to scientific journals increases publications by 43 percent, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.

If the Sub-Saharan African mobile penetration rate could be brought up to 75 phones per 100 people, it would be possible for living standards to increase an average of 30 percent, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) annual Global Innovation Index, which ranks nations’ innovation ecosystems according to 82 indicators, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda distinguish themselves as low-income Sub-Saharan nations that have shown the most progress since 2012 in developing better innovation ecosystems, writes John Wu in Innovation Files.

Nigel Cory explains in IT News Africa how Nigeria's policies to protect its IT and e-commerce sectors are counterproductive.