Code Clubs launch👨🏻‍💻 | Good Nature Agro $8.5m raise💰 | Samsung joins the AI Party🤖

Code Clubs launch👨🏻‍💻 | Good Nature Agro $8.5m raise💰 | Samsung joins the AI Party🤖

DIGITAL LITERACY

Nigerian Government partners with Raspberry Pi Foundation to launch Code Clubs across the country

The Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy of Nigeria has taken a pioneering step towards the future of digital literacy and innovation by announcing a partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The collaboration aims to launch a series of Code Clubs across Nigeria, targeting young students between the ages of 7 to 17. This initiative is a strategic move to foster a new generation of tech-savvy youths in the country.

Code Clubs are designed to be an extracurricular gathering point where young minds can learn the basics and complexities of coding. The clubs serve as a springboard for students to delve into the realms of digital technology and coding, enhancing their creative problem-solving skills and applying them to everyday scenarios.

The initiative will kick off with 17 knowledge exchange centers and is planned to broaden its reach throughout the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The goal is to weave a network of digitally literate individuals who will be instrumental in positioning Nigeria as a leading market for technical expertise……Continue reading

SOCIAL MEDIA

Here’s everything you can’t do anymore since Twitter rebranded to X

Have you been on Twitter lately? If you haven’t logged into your Twitter account recently, you’re in for quite a few surprises. Elon Musk has been taking drastic decisions ever since he bought Twitter and one of his revolutionary business plans involved renaming the social media app to X.

Gone are the days we used to sign into Twitter and share tweets. It’s now November 2023, more than a year since Musk acquired the popular social media platform, and the cheery, avian blue-and-white icon got replaced with a dark insignia that simply says “X.”

Here is a catalogue of changes that have changed since Twitter rebranded to “X”….Continue reading

YouTube tests AI-generated comment summaries and a chatbot for videos

On Monday, YouTube announced two new experimental generative AI features. YouTube Premium subscribers can soon try AI-generated comment summaries and a chatbot that answers your questions about what you’re watching. The features will be opt-in, so you won’t see them unless you’re a paid member who signs up for the experiments during their test periods….Continue reading

Meta bars political advertisers from using generative AI-based ads tools

In a notable move, Meta, the parent company of popular social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, has decided to prohibit political advertisers from utilising its generative AI-based advertising tools. This decision is aimed at enhancing the oversight and security of advertisements related to sensitive subjects……Continue reading

Google is rolling out tools that let advertisers create AI-generated content

Following Amazon’s adoption of generative AI for advertisers last week, Google is rolling out a new feature that allow advertisers to create AI generated content using the same technology as the Bard chatbot. The feature is now available in beta on Google’s Performance Max advertising product, allowing US advertisers to create and scale text and image assets for campaigns using AI…….Continue reading

INVESTMENTS

EAIF and Ninety One Pledge $31 Million to Paratus Group to Enhance Connectivity Across Africa

The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), together with its fund manager, Ninety One, has pledged a significant investment to revolutionize Africa’s digital landscape. A US$31 million debt facility has been committed to Paratus Group Holdings Limited (Paratus) to drive the expansion of its pivotal fibre and data centre business across the continent over the coming three years.

The EAIF investment is particularly notable for financing Angola’s first Tier IV data centre, augmenting Paratus’s southern African footprint, which includes two other Tier III data centres in Luanda. The upcoming 10MW facility will establish Paratus’s Angolan network as a central regional hub, capitalizing on the opportunities sprouting from the Equiano subsea internet cable that forges a connection from Europe to the western coast of Africa…..Continue reading

Zambia’s Good Nature Agro raises $8.5 million in a Series B round led by Goodwell Investments

Good Nature Agro (GNA), a Zambian tech-enabled for-profit social enterprise, has secured $8.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Goodwell Investments. Other participants in the round include social impact investing cooperative Oikocredit and Global Partnerships/Eleos Social Venture Fund (GP SVF). Goodwell Investments also led a $2.1 million Series A funding round in 2020.

Founded in 2014, Good Nature Agro is a tech-enabled for-profit social enterprise that believes in farmer-centric impact and values personal, face-to-face relationships. GNA intends to use this new capital to expand its customer base to 50,000 farmers by the year 2027.……Continue reading

OTHER STORIES

Sony’s PlayStation Shuts Down Sharing With Twitter/X

Sony has announced that it is terminating PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4’s X integrations this month. The removal of this feature will mean that PS4 and PS5 gamers will no longer be able to publish video game clips and other content directly from their consoles...……..Continue reading

Samsung unveils ChatGPT alternative Samsung Gauss that can generate text, code and images

Just a few days after OpenAI’s developer event, Samsung unveiled its own generative AI model, Samsung Gauss, at the Samsung AI Forum 2023.

Samsung Gauss, developed by the tech giant’s research unit Samsung Research, consists of three tools: Samsung Gauss Language, Samsung Gauss Code and Samsung Gauss Image.

Samsung Gauss Language is a large language model that can understand human language and answer questions like ChatGPT. It can be used to increase productivity in several ways. For instance, it can help you write and edit emails, summarize documents and translate languages. Samsung plans to incorporate the large language model into its devices like phones, laptops and tablets to make the company’s smart devices a bit smarter…..Continue reading