Last night, something unusual happened on Wall Street. When SpaceX announced it had secured low-band 800 MHz spectrum for Starlink Mobile in the United States (official announcement), shares of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile dropped sharply, falling between 6 and 8 percent in after-hours trading. Investors suddenly realised that a satellite company capable of reaching phones indoors, not just in open fields, could become a serious mobile player.For those of us watching Kenya’s digital journey, the news lands differently. It is not just an American story. It is a reminder of what becomes possible when spectrum, satellites and smart policy meet. In my earlier article, Safaricom vs Starlink: What’s the Fuss All About?, I discussed the first battle between Safaricom and Starlink and how it affected ordinary broadband users in Kenya. This is a continuation of that story.Starlink has been establishing a presence in Kenya, and by mid-2026, it had more than 27,000 fixed broadband customers. That represented only about 1 percent of the overall fixed broadband market, but almost the entire satellite segment. Many Kenyans living in areas where fibre has yet to arrive, or where mobile signals fade as soon as they step inside a stone house, already know the difference a clear sky and a small dish can make.Starlink’s mobile ambitions in Kenya are also taking shape through Airtel. Under the direct-to-cell partnership announced by Airtel Africa and SpaceX in December 2025, Airtel Kenya tested Starlink Mobile data and messaging services in March 2026 and has since applied for a licence to offer the service commercially. The same partnership is already live in East Africa, having launched in the Democratic Republic of Congo in August 2026 and Uganda in September. It allows ordinary smartphones to connect directly to satellites in areas with a clear view of the sky. The question now is: What if Starlink added the same kind of low-band spectrum it has just secured in America?Until recently, Starlink’s direct-to-phone service relied mainly on mid-band spectrum and partnerships. It worked well outdoors and in open areas but struggled indoors and in dense environments because higher frequencies do not penetrate walls and buildings as effectively.The new 800 MHz low-band spectrum changes that. SpaceX now describes a hybrid architecture in which global 2 GHz mid-band spectrum supplies high-bandwidth capacity, while the newly acquired 800 MHz spectrum provides a dedicated “coverage layer”. That layer is designed to push signals through walls, trees and other obstacles, helping ordinary phones stay connected even inside buildings. Combined with the next-generation satellite constellation, Starlink aims to offer a network that works outdoors, indoors, in dead zones and everywhere in between. This would make it one of the first operators to deploy satellite and terrestrial spectrum in this way.That shift is what rattled the big US carriers, or at least the traders of their publicly listed shares. It also moves Starlink from being a useful outdoor or emergency service towards something closer to everyday mobile coverage.The route runs through spectrum. Kenya’s 800 MHz band is already fully allocated, so there is no fresh block for Starlink to apply for. Telkom Kenya, however, holds 2×10 MHz of 800 MHz spectrum (Band 20) nationwide and has struggled for years to compete in the mobile market. A deal to lease or buy that block and refarm it as a Starlink coverage layer, subject to approval by the Communications Authority of Kenya, is not unthinkable.That would change Starlink’s position in Kenya. Today, its path to Kenyan phones runs through a partnership with Airtel. With its own low-band spectrum, Starlink could follow the American playbook and move from partner to competitor, offering mobile coverage in its own right. It would take political will and careful regulatory handling, but for a Telkom that has long searched for a way forward in mobile, it is a conversation worth having.David is a Kenya Wildlife Service ranger in Mount Kenya National Park. He carries a basic feature phone, and once he steps under the forest canopy or into the staff quarters, his calls drop. An 800 MHz coverage layer working with satellites could keep that phone connected more reliably, indoors and out. The 2 GHz mid-band direct-to-cell service is a different matter. To use it on the mountain, David would need a compatible phone. For rangers, teachers, nurses and farmers in similar places, reliable coverage matters more than peak speed.Maina runs a small online business from his apartment in Kiambu, and he relies on M-PESA more than anything else. It is how his customers pay him. His slightly battered Samsung already supports Kenya’s 800 MHz band, so a Starlink coverage layer could strengthen his signal and reduce the dead spots that interrupt payments. Faster 2 GHz speeds could follow as newer handsets arrive, but Maina normally upgrades his phone every two to three years, or sooner if it gets stolen.
Read briefing Sun King has expanded its PowerHub solar inverter range in Kenya, adding higher-capacity systems aimed at households, businesses, schools, healthcare facilities and light industrial users.The new systems were unveiled in Nairobi as demand for alternative power sources continues among consumers and businesses seeking to reduce their reliance on the electricity grid and generators. The expanded PowerHub range now covers inverter capacities from 2.2 kW to 30 kW. The systems can also be connected in parallel, allowing multiple units to operate together and increase total power output.This allows customers to run higher-power equipment such as water pumps, washing machines and microwaves, while also expanding their solar systems over time by adding battery storage or solar panels without replacing the existing inverter equipment.“The latest additions to our PowerHub range take us into new territory. We can now serve homes, shops, businesses, schools, hospitals, and offices of virtually any size. PowerHub systems are already powering offices and entire schools. This expansion is another step forward to deliver more energy across Kenya. Simply put, it is more power,” says Atta Arome, Product Head, Solar Inverter Systems at Sun King.The expanded range comes as solar power continues to play a role in addressing power reliability and energy costs for Kenyan households and businesses. Higher-capacity systems can provide backup power for larger premises and equipment, reducing dependence on generators when grid power is unavailable. The systems are available across Kenya through Sun King’s agent network. The company said customers can also access installation and after-sales support through its network.“Millions of customers across Africa know they can trust Sun King to help them make the move to solar. With quality products, professional installation, after-sales care and flexible financing all under one roof. As we expand PowerHub, we’re giving even more customers the confidence to access the reliable energy they need to power their homes and businesses,” said Catherine Mudachi, Vice President of Marketing at Sun King.Sun King said the PowerHub systems are available through a pay-as-you-go model. The company has operated in Kenya since 2007, initially focusing on smaller solar products and pay-as-you-go financing. Its expansion into higher-capacity inverter systems reflects the growing range of applications for solar power beyond household lighting and basic appliances.With the PowerHub expansion, the company is targeting customers requiring larger amounts of electricity, including businesses, schools, healthcare facilities and other organisations looking for alternative or backup power solutions.
Read briefing Safaricom has launched a managed software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) service for businesses with multiple branches, with monthly packages starting at $73 (KES 9,500) per branch on a 36-month contract.The service bundles equipment, software, maintenance and round-the-clock support into a monthly fee, allowing businesses to manage connectivity across multiple sites without paying for hardware upfront.The offering targets businesses operating across branches, depots and clinics, where network outages can disrupt payments, customer service, inventory management and dispatch operations.SD-WAN combines a business’s existing connections, including fibre, 4G, 5G, broadband, dedicated internet access and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), into one centrally managed network.When a connection fails, traffic can switch automatically to a backup link, helping keep payment terminals, stock systems and online ordering operational. The service also balances traffic across available connections, allowing secondary links to carry traffic instead of remaining idle.It prioritises business-critical applications, such as video calls and customer payments, over less essential browsing. Security filters and threat protection are included at each site, reducing the need to purchase separate firewall hardware for every branch.“For a business with several branches, a single connection failure can stop sales, leave staff unable to reach the systems they need and keep customers waiting. Our SD-WAN service brings those connections under one managed network for a predictable monthly fee, so businesses can expand without a large upfront investment in hardware, with Safaricom providing the support,” said Peter Ndegwa, CEO of Safaricom.Safaricom offers three plans with 12-, 24- or 36-month contracts. The Basic Plus plan, designed for standard branches and regional offices requiring reliable connectivity with automatic 5G backup, costs $73 (KES 9,500) per branch per month and $227 (KES 29,500) per month for headquarters equipment on a 36-month contract.The Standard Plus plan, aimed at high-volume sites and headquarters requiring advanced threat protection, costs $109 (KES 14,100) per branch per month and $234 (KES 30,400) per month for headquarters equipment on the same term. The Advanced Plus plan for headquarters starts at $517 (KES 67,100) per month.Longer contracts significantly reduce monthly costs. A Basic Plus branch costs $152 (KES 19,800) per month on a 12-month contract, compared with $73 (KES 9,500) on a 36-month term.The service targets medium-sized businesses with distributed operations. Banks can use it to connect ATMs, teller systems and mobile banking services, while retailers and distributors can link point-of-sale terminals, inventory databases and dispatch teams. Manufacturers can connect production plants to head-office enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, while clinic chains can link patient records, prescription data and laboratory systems across locations.Through its Ready Mobility offering, businesses can establish new branches using 4G or 5G where suitable coverage is available, without waiting for fibre installation. They can add fibre later as their needs grow. Equipment is configured remotely, subject to an assessment of coverage and network requirements.Businesses can retain existing connections, including those supplied by other providers. A central dashboard displays the health and speed of each site, allowing IT teams to manage the network from one interface, while Safaricom engineers in Kenya monitor and support the service around the clock.The SD-WAN fee is separate from connectivity charges. Final pricing and network design depend on each customer’s requirements.
Read briefing Frehiwot Tamru, who has led Ethiopia’s national telecom operator Ethio Telecom since 2018, has been appointed Minister of Innovation and Technology as the country reshuffles its cabinet for the next five-year government term.The House of Peoples’ Representatives approved her appointment on Thursday, October 8, alongside Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s new cabinet. Frehiwot brings more than eight years of experience leading Ethio Telecom, during which the operator expanded beyond traditional telecommunications into digital financial services, e-commerce, cloud, enterprise solutions and other technology services.Her tenure has coincided with significant growth in the operator’s customer base and digital services. In the 2025/26 financial year, Ethio Telecom reported revenue of 215.8 billion birr, a 33.2% increase from the previous year, while its customer base reached 90.1 million. Its telebirr digital financial services platform had 60.59 million customers and processed 4.19 trillion birr in transactions during the year. The operator also reported 10,613 mobile sites, 82.2% national 4G coverage and 5G services in 33 towns.Frehiwot has also overseen Ethio Telecom’s expansion into areas that have become increasingly important to Ethiopia’s digital economy, including cloud computing, enterprise technology and digital platforms. The operator is currently implementing its three-year “Next Horizon: Digital & Beyond 2028” strategy, which includes further expansion in digital finance, cloud services, enterprise technologies and digital platforms. The company has set a target of reaching 100 million customers under the strategy.Her move into government comes as Ethiopia continues to develop policies around digital infrastructure, innovation, technology adoption and technology-driven economic development.Ethio Telecom has been involved in several national digital initiatives, including supporting Ethiopia’s Digital ID programme. Frehiwot has also represented the operator in engagements with international technology companies around areas including AI computing infrastructure, cloud services, enterprise digital transformation, smart industry, talent development and technology transfer.In July, she led discussions between Ethio Telecom and Inspur Software Technology covering areas including AI infrastructure, cloud computing and technology development. Frehiwot’s appointment therefore moves her from running one of Ethiopia’s largest technology companies into a role focused on the broader policy and innovation environment. Her experience spans telecommunications infrastructure, digital financial services, enterprise technology and the development of digital platforms.Her departure also comes as Ethio Telecom enters the second year of its Next Horizon strategy. For the 2026/27 financial year, the operator is targeting revenue of 295 billion birr as it continues to expand its digital and enterprise businesses.As Minister of Innovation and Technology, Frehiwot will take on responsibility for a wider national agenda covering technology, innovation, digital infrastructure, research and technology-enabled economic development.
Read briefing AI is no longer experimental. It is a competitive requirement. Across East African enterprises, rapid adoption is exposing structural weaknesses in infrastructure, skills, security, and governance. The gap between ambition and operational readiness is where this year is being won or lost.Cisco’s 2025 AI Readiness Index found that only around 13 per cent of organisations qualify as Pacesetters despite rising investment. Real AI impact depends less on spending and more on disciplined, system-level readiness.Agentic AI has moved fast from concept to boardroom priority. In Cisco’s research with Omdia, 80 per cent of executives said their company’s survival will depend on agentic AI by 2027, and 87 per cent have already reshaped strategic priorities to support it. For East Africa leaders, the window to build foundations for agentic operations is narrower than local adoption would suggest.That urgency is reinforced by CEO sentiment. Cisco’s second annual survey of 2,500 CEOs across 23 countries, conducted in January 2026 and including African markets, found 93 per cent more optimistic about AI than a year ago and 67 per cent now worried they are underinvesting, up from 57 per cent. Nearly two thirds (64 per cent) treat adoption as mandatory for a modern business. African leaders see room to leapfrog rather than catch up, and their message to peers is that the opportunity is real and the time to act is now.AI adoption has moved faster than the foundations most enterprises were built on. Organisations are layering intelligent systems onto fragmented networks, siloed data, and legacy infrastructure, and the cracks show in performance, resilience, and security. Agentic AI, where systems act across applications, clouds, and data, has made this reckoning impossible to defer.What separates leaders from laggards in 2026 is whether infrastructure modernisation is treated as a strategic priority or a background IT exercise. Secure-by-design networks determine whether AI scales safely. For markets with infrastructure gaps, this remains a leapfrogging moment for organisations that modernise decisively. CEOs put the same problem at the top of their own agenda. Nearly half (48 per cent) expect infrastructure limits to hold them back, and upgrading infrastructure for AI workloads ranks as their number one priority for 2026, closely followed by upskilling teams.With connected IoT devices projected to exceed 21.1 billion, vast volumes of telemetry are generated daily, much of it never analysed in real time. In 2026, more AI workloads have shifted closer to where data is produced, enabling faster decisions and preserving privacy in regulated environments.The Middle East and Africa edge computing market, valued at around USD 1.8 billion, reflects rising demand across manufacturing, energy, logistics, and agriculture. As deployments scale, embedding security directly into the infrastructure is no longer a design preference, it is a requirement.Sovereignty has been a policy conversation for years. In 2026 it became an execution problem. As data localisation requirements tighten, organisations are making concrete decisions about where data is processed, stored, and governed. A growing number of African countries now have data protection laws that shape how enterprises design cloud and hybrid environments. The result is renewed interest in on-premises environments for sensitive workloads, and more deliberate balancing of global platforms with regional infrastructure.The result is selective migrations and diversified cloud strategies, driving demand for regional providers, local skills, and sovereign innovation ecosystems. For East Africa, this is as much a talent and competitiveness story as a compliance one. Fragmented data is already the biggest single brake on progress, named by 36 per cent of CEOs as the barrier holding AI back, and only 22 per cent of organisations have fully centralised, AI-accessible data. Where localisation decisions land will determine whether that picture improves.The rise of AI agents and hybrid human-digital teams has exposed the limits of static security perimeters. Modern security treats identity intelligence as a core cybersecurity pillar, requiring continuous authentication and adaptive governance across users and machines. When an AI agent changes roles and permissions in real time, conventional identity systems cannot keep up.Executives in the Cisco-Omdia research expect 55 per cent of their workforce will collaborate with AI agents within 24 months. That reality is arriving unevenly across East Africa, but it is arriving. Trust now depends on continuous visibility into who, or what, is acting, and how accountability is enforced when something fails. The concern registers at board level too. As CEOs move to put agents into the workforce, security and control of autonomous systems has become their single biggest worry, and Cisco’s 2026 AI Readiness Index finds only 39 per cent of organisations equipped to secure and govern AI agents.
Read briefing The same concern comes up in almost every conversation I have with a bank executive, whether in Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Kigali or Lusaka: we cannot afford to be left behind.They are right to worry. Financial services in East Africa are competitive enough that technology increasingly determines who wins a customer and who quietly loses one. Expectations are higher, customers have more choice and tolerance for friction is disappearing.The constraint is rarely budget or appetite. The harder problem is knowing what technology can realistically do for your business, and then knowing how to execute against that. Plenty of institutions have the first half. Far fewer have both. That gap is where transformation begins to stall.AI is exposing it particularly clearly. A model is only as useful as the data it can reach and the systems it is allowed to act on. When customer records sit in different places that do not speak to each other, infrastructure cannot scale with demand, or every new requirement means another procurement cycle, the pilot never gets to become a product.Getting past that point requires work that attracts far less attention than an AI announcement.Data architecture, infrastructure, integration, governance, security, resilience and skills determine what an institution can actually build and sustain.The infrastructure challenge has changed too. Banks are balancing regulation, latency, cost,security, legacy investments and pressure to innovate faster. Public cloud may make sense for one workload, private infrastructure for another, while some systems remain on-premise. The question is no longer simply whether to move to the cloud. It is whether that mix can behave like one environment rather than five.I have spent much of my four years at Computech working on this challenge as we built our cloud business from the ground up. The lesson has been consistent: complexity itself is not necessarily the problem. Poorly managed complexity is.Resilience deserves the same attention. A bank makes a basic promise to its customer: the money is there and the service works. Every outage and every breach weakens that promise.Security, recovery and business continuity are commercial questions because their consequences reach customers, revenue, regulators and reputation. Prevention matters, but so does what happens when prevention fails. How quickly can the bank recover, and how much of the business can continue while it does?AI ultimately has to face a similarly practical test. I would rather see an institution put a model behind fraud screening, customer service or credit decisioning and measure what it changed than announce an AI strategy whose commercial value cannot be explained.Did fraud losses decline? Did decision times improve? Did the cost to serve fall? Did thecustomer experience improve? These are the questions that determine whether an investment survives the next budget cycle.Before joining Computech, I spent three years at Microsoft in the US. The technology available to a bank in Lusaka is much the same as the technology available to one in Seattle. The difference lies in what gets built with it.Working with financial institutions across five African markets has reinforced that lesson. Technology cannot compensate indefinitely for fragmented processes, weak governance or unclear accountability. Great companies need great people and sound processes before technology can do what it is supposed to do.For East Africa’s banks, getting ahead now requires more discipline than theatre. Know where the technology creates value. Build the foundations it needs. Put the right people and processes around it. Then execute.Banks have heard enough promises about transformation. What earns their trust is a system that works on the day you said it would.
Read briefing The 18th edition of the CIO100 Awards is bringing together organisations from 10 countries, setting the stage for a cross-continental competition for recognition in technology leadership, innovation and digital transformation.The shortlisted organisations will compete across sectors for the CIO100 Awards’ top honours, including sector-specific and individual awards, as well as the Ivory, Silver and Gold marks of recognition. The finalists were selected following the judging and adjudication process for the 2026 edition of the awards, which recognises organisations that are using technology to create business value and drive transformation.The 2026 shortlist reflects the increasingly broad role of technology across Africa’s economies, with organisations from Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom represented in the competition.Kenya has a particularly strong presence on the shortlist, with organisations spanning banking and financial services, telecommunications, aviation, healthcare, energy, hospitality and the public sector. Among those in contention are M-Pesa Africa, Safaricom, Equity Group, Kenya Airways, KenGen and Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi.The competition also brings together major organisations from other African markets. Nigeria is represented by organisations including Dangote Cement and Nigerian Breweries, while Ethiopia’s entries include Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and Ethiopian Airlines. Tanzania has Vodacom Tanzania among the organisations in contention, while Uganda Electricity Generation Company represents the country in the shortlist.South Africa also features prominently, alongside entries from Rwanda, while Centenary Bank brings Malawi into the competition and Chitungwiza Central Hospital represents Zimbabwe. The presence of an organisation from the United Kingdom further extends the geographic reach of this year’s shortlist.The diversity of the shortlist also extends beyond geography. Organisations from sectors including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications, aviation, energy, government and public services will be competing for recognition based on the impact of their technology initiatives.The CIO100 Awards are designed to recognise how organisations are applying technology to address business challenges, improve operations, enhance customer experiences and create new opportunities. This year’s shortlist therefore reflects the range of ways technology is being integrated into organisations operating in very different markets and sectors.The next stage of the competition will see shortlisted organisations battle for sectorial recognition as well as individual awards that highlight technology leadership. They will also compete for the Ivory, Silver and Gold marks, which recognise different levels of achievement among the organisations participating in the CIO100 programme.The winners will be announced during the CIO100 Gala Dinner, which will form part of the CIO100 Symposium and Awards taking place from November 25 to 27 at the Diamonds Leisure Beach & Golf Resort in Diani, Kenya.The three-day event will bring together CIOs, technology executives, business leaders and technology providers for discussions around the role of IT leadership in driving business growth. The 2026 edition is themed “Innovation at Scale: Driving Business Growth Through IT Leadership.”Beyond the awards themselves, the event will provide a platform for organisations represented on the shortlist to share their experiences, benchmark their technology strategies and engage with peers from across the continent.With organisations from 10 countries and a broad range of industries represented, the 2026 CIO100 Awards will provide a snapshot of how technology leadership is evolving across different African markets and the wider enterprise technology landscape.The final results will determine which organisations emerge as sector leaders, which technology executives take home individual honours and which shortlisted organisations secure the Ivory, Silver and Gold marks at this year’s CIO100 Gala Dinner.
Read briefing Arthur Goldstuck will deliver the keynote at the CIO100 Symposium 2026 in Diani, Kenya.Set for 25 November 2026, Goldstuck, the founder and CEO of World Wide Worx, the South African research firm measuring how technology actually gets used on the continent and author of 21 books will launch the Symposium into high gear with his keynote. Six of his books are about South African urban legends, which says a lot about how he thinks: he has spent a career separating what people believe from what is true. He also publishes the online consumer technology magazine Gadget.co.za, and with his weekly column as the most widely syndicated technology column in South Africa.“I gave a keynote at the first East African Internet Conference in 1996, and the region’s technology community has been teaching me ever since. I said yes because CIO100 brings together the people who will decide whether Africa builds its own AI advantage or rents someone else’s. I want every delegate to leave knowing where their own organisation’s edge lies, and what they must do to make sure nobody else captures it,” says Arthur Goldstuck, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI: The African Edge.Goldstuck’s insights have always crested with the technological wave, capturing the moments in his series of books. He watched the dotcom boom arrive in this market, then mobile, then social, then big data, then blockchain. When someone who has watched several cycles come and stay in the African market and has the receipts, it piques one’s curiosity. His 1995’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet: A South African Handbook was South Africa’s best-selling IT book. It explained a new technology to a continent that was being sold a great deal of nonsense about it. It was followed by 2005’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Going Wireless, 2007’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Going Mobile, 2023’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI and his latest book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI: The African Edge published in July 2025.Built off Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, which begun as a radio series in 1978 and became a sci-fi comedy novel in 1979, the references keep working. In Adams’s novel, the Guide is a handheld device you can ask a question and it answers. What does that sound like in 2026? And the Galaxy got a fictional Guide with the words Don’t Panic emblazoned on its cover albeit in large, friendly letters. Goldstuck’s series comes armed with the exact promise a reader wants from a book about a technology they feel behind on.As for the hitchhiker, they are no pilot or the engineer. What they are is a passenger crossing other people’s territory, travelling light and getting by wits alone. This is how most of us experience a new technology. Goldstuck, a journalist and a researcher, reinforces our hitchhiking through the technological world, each new guide in the series explaining the complex to the ordinary. Plenty of writers have used The Hitchhiker’s Guide on their book titles, but Goldstuck’s have well, stuck and resonated decade later for the continent.The publisher’s synopsis of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To AI: The African Edge opens with three questions: “Did you know that AI helped South Africa to win the 2023 Rugby World Cup? That Africa led the way in small language models? That AI has been supporting farmers in Kenya for the last decade?”When Africa got the internet, Africa never got ownership of it. Instead, we rented the cables, the cloud, the platforms and the data centres. It would be fair to say we are still paying that rent. The question now is whether AI goes the same way, and whether anyone in a position to change it is paying attention.Goldstuck’s keynote, The African Edge: From AI Adoption to African Advantage asks that almighty question: how can African organisations move beyond consuming tools built somewhere else, and start using what they actually have such as their own data, their languages, their operating conditions, right down to their knowledge of markets no one else understands, all to build something that is theirs.Harry Hare, Chairman and Co-Founder, CIO Africa by dx5, the organisers of the event said, “We are delighted to have Arthur Goldstuck join us for the CIO100 Symposium & Awards 2026. His session will remain true to his insights and current work while giving the CIO100 audience a practical leadership agenda.”World Wide Worx runs primary research in African markets. Their insights delve into what people actually buy, what businesses actually deploy, to how fast things actually move. Meanwhile, the African tech leader is drowning in global analyst reports calibrated to other markets alongside vendor content that counts as insight. But Goldstuck can speak to what he has measured.He is, in essence, a translator. The CIOs hardest problem is often rarely ever the technology. Instead, it is explaining the technology to a board and a CFO who control the money. Goldstuck hands CIOs clear language for that conversation from a continental vantage point that grants relevance and gives perspective.
Read briefing Eric Muriuki, a former NCBA executive who helped shape some of Kenya’s most prominent mobile-money and digital-lending products, has joined Absa Group as Managing Executive for Pan-African Growth Strategy, Platforms and Digital Ventures.His appointment comes as African banks expand beyond traditional banking into digital platforms, everyday payments and financial services that reach customers outside conventional bank accounts.Muriuki brings nearly two decades of experience in Kenya’s banking and digital-finance sector, including his leadership of LOOP DFS. His background aligns with Absa’s efforts to strengthen its regional growth strategy and develop digital ventures that can deepen customer relationships across its markets.Muriuki’s career includes involvement in the development of several financial products that have transformed how Kenyans save, borrow and make payments. In 2007, he helped design the regulatory settlement model for M-PESA, including the trust-account structure that enabled Safaricom to issue electronic money with regulatory approval.He later spearheaded the development of M-Shwari, the mobile savings and microcredit service launched in 2012, and contributed to the creation of Fuliza, Safaricom’s mobile overdraft facility introduced in 2019. Fuliza allows customers to complete M-PESA transactions when their balances are insufficient.
Read briefing AI is exceeding most CEOs’ expectations and their optimism is growing. Cisco’s latest study shows that 67 per cent now worry they’re underinvesting in the technology — up from 57 per cent last year — with nearly two thirds (64 per cent) of those surveyed now seeing AI adoption as mandatory for modern business. But significant challenges remain for companies struggling to build the infrastructure, data foundations, and security controls to make AI work safely, reliably and at scale.This is the second consecutive year Cisco has surveyed 2,500 CEOs across 23 countries to understand how they view AI, what they expect from it, and what’s getting in the way of scaling. In Africa, CEOs approach AI with striking optimism, viewing it as a transformative opportunity rather than a disruption to manage. Their advice to fellow leaders is direct: the opportunity is real, and the time to act is now. As one African CEO declared: “AI is the game changer in every industry that is planning to prosper.”Deploying AI agents to work alongside employees is among the top three priorities for CEOs in 2026. By 2030, almost every CEO expects AI to play a role in business, but they don’t expect AI to fly solo. 74 per cent envision a future where AI only supports or executes under human direction, judgment, or governance. Their reasons are both practical and relatable: keep AI systems secure, ensure productivity in human-AI teams, and navigate the ethics of AI decision-making effectively. One CEO put it plainly: “Move fast with AI, but also anchor decisions in human values — always.”The knowledge gap is closing fast. In 12 months, the share of CEOs who said their understanding of AI held them back in the boardroom fell to 57 per cent from 75 per cent, with those who said it blocked informed decision-making dropping to 43 per cent from 74 per cent. While knowledge and confidence are rising, so is their awareness of what it takes to get this right.While CEO intent is growing, execution is stalling because of three major constraints:“African leaders are seeing this as an opportunity to leapfrog, not just catch up,” says Ossama Eldeeb, Managing Director for Africa. “Optimism alone won’t close the gap. Infrastructure, data, and trust are what will determine who scales successfully. That’s why we’re hyper-focused on helping organisations across the continent build the secure, AI-ready foundations they need to turn this optimism into results.”These CEO concerns are validated by data on the ground. Cisco’s 2026 AI Readiness Index, based on 8,000+ IT leaders globally, shows that organisations globally are facing the same three barriers: less than a quarter (22 per cent) rate their network as optimal for AI workloads, just 39 per cent feel equipped to secure and control AI agents, and only 22 per cent have fully centralized, AI-accessible data. Those who have solved all three are pulling ahead, while the rest risk missing out.The research was conducted among a sample of 2,500 CEOs from companies with 250+ employees across Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America, and Africa. The data was collected in January 2026.
Read briefing The biggest mistake in technology procurement may no longer be buying the wrong device; it may be assuming that new is automatically better. For years, refurbished IT was treated as the cheaper compromise, the option businesses considered when budgets were tight or supply chains failed.That attitude is becoming harder to defend. The refurbished market is evolving from a niche corner of IT into a serious alternative to conventional procurement, and the forces driving that change are economic, environmental, and operational.The economics alone are enough to disrupt the old model. IDC forecasts global PC shipments will decline by 11.3 percent in 2026 while average selling prices rise by 18.3 percent, driven largely by a prolonged memory shortage. For South African organisations already dealing with currency pressure, inflation, and unpredictable supply chains, buying thousands of brand-new devices every refresh cycle is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.At the same time, hybrid work continues to sustain demand for portable computing, meaning businesses still need large numbers of capable devices without necessarily needing the latest generation.While cost was a key driver for several years, sustainability is changing the definition of what responsible technology procurement looks like. The Global E Waste Monitor estimates that 62 million tonnes of electronic waste was generated globally in 2022, with only 22.3 percent documented as formally collected and recycled.Further, South Africa’s evolving waste management framework is placing greater emphasis on circular economy principles, keeping materials in use for longer and reducing waste to landfill.Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) further strengthens this approach, encouraging greater accountability across the product lifecycle and making reuse, refurbishment, recyclability and responsible end-of-life management increasingly important procurement considerations.For companies facing increasing ESG expectations, refurbishment can therefore move from being a budget tactic to becoming part of a credible circular technology strategy.Supply chain disruptions are also accelerating the change. The pandemic exposed the vulnerability of relying on a single route to new hardware, while the current memory shortage is creating another wave of uncertainty. Refurbishment gives organisations another source of supply, particularly when they need hundreds or thousands of devices at short notice.A business that can combine new equipment with professionally refurbished equipment has more options when prices rise, stock becomes scarce or a large workforce suddenly needs to be equipped. This shift is therefore not simply about buying affordable computers. It is about making the technology supply chain more resilient.The biggest barrier to refurbished has always been trust. That is changing too, refurbished no longer has to mean somebody else’s unwanted laptop with an uncertain history. The professional refurbishment industry is becoming increasingly structured around inspection, diagnostics, component replacement, grading, and certification.Unlike in the past where IT equipment would be classified into grades e.g. Grade A, B, and C, modern refurbishment has made these classifications redundant. The old classifications used to provide a transparent indication of cosmetic condition, while technical testing established whether the device was actually fit for purpose. We now take a different approach, offering premium refurbished devices across the board rather than sorting stock into grades.This shift towards structure and accountability isn’t limited to independent refurbishers. Three of the world’s largest OEMs — Lenovo, Dell and HP — have also entered the market with their own certified refurbished programmes, proof that refurbished has earned its place in the industry.Security is equally important. Manufacturer programmes are increasingly demonstrating what that standard can look like. Lenovo states that its certified refurbished devices are wiped according to NIST SP 800 88 standards, while Dell describes a process involving data wiping, inspection, testing, repair and cosmetic grading.Warranty coverage is another important distinction. A professionally refurbished business device backed by a meaningful warranty is a very different proposition from buying an unknown second-hand machine with no accountability.The performance argument is changing as well. The question is not whether a refurbished device can outperform the newest model. It is whether it can perform the job required of it. For many employees running cloud applications, collaboration tools, browsers, productivity software and enterprise applications, a previous generation business class laptop may provide more than enough performance.This is particularly relevant to hybrid workforces that need large fleets of reliable devices rather than a premium specification for every employee. South Africa’s refurbished electronics imports grew by 120.68 percent between 2023 and 2024, according to 6Wresearch, while its 2026 market research now tracks manufacturer refurbishment, third party refurbishment, certification and corporate demand as distinct parts of the market.
Read briefing Dan Kwach has returned to Kenya and rejoined Africa Data Centres (ADC), taking up a new role as Executive for AI Data Centres after a brief stint in Madagascar.Kwach, who previously served as Africa Data Centres’ Eastern Africa Executive, confirmed his return in a LinkedIn post, saying he was “happy to be back home” and would be joining the Cassava Technologies AI team under Africa Data Centres. His new role will focus on building and operating data centre infrastructure capable of supporting the growing demands of artificial intelligence, as AI workloads place new requirements on computing capacity, power and cooling.“Exciting and quite humbled to take up a new role as Executive for AI Data Centres at a time when more questions than answers around AI make for global headlines,” Kwach said.He added that Africa needs to play a more active role in shaping the continent’s AI future.“One thing is for sure, we either get a seat on the table when this assessment is happening or be on the menu as a continent,” he said.Kwach’s return follows a short period in Madagascar, where he took up the position of Deputy CEO at StellarIX. He said the experience gave him an opportunity to learn from a different culture while reinforcing his view that African markets share common ambitions despite their differences.“The short season I’ve had in Madagascar made for an exciting opportunity to learn different cultures with utmost appreciation that we have a common desire and ambition for this great continent,” he said.Kwach’s return to ADC also comes at a time when AI is reshaping the data centre industry. AI workloads require significantly higher computing density than many traditional enterprise workloads, putting greater pressure on infrastructure providers to rethink how facilities are designed and operated. Beyond infrastructure, Kwach said Africa’s technology development needs to remain connected to broader socioeconomic priorities, including enterprise growth, sustainability, security, resilience, trade, job creation and productivity.“The challenges remain the same and Tech for Good must align to Africa’s socioeconomic priorities in enabling and spurring growth in the Enterprise sector, ensuring innovation and sustainability go hand in hand, that security and business resilience remains top of mind, supporting continental and global trade at scale, job creation and increasing productivity and efficiency,” he said.Kwach’s return also marks a new chapter following his departure from ADC after 19 years. At the time, he said he was leaving the organisation to pursue a new opportunity outside the Cassava Technologies group.He has now returned to the group with a mandate centred on one of the most significant developments facing the data centre industry, as African operators look to position their infrastructure for the rapid growth of AI.
Read briefing Communications Authority of Kenya has ordered Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, Telkom Kenya and Jamii Telecommunications to deliver government emergency texts to every subscriber, even those who opted out of marketing messages. The rule covers only official alerts, not ordinary bulk SMS.The letter dated October 1, 2026, and was addressed to the chief executives of the four operators. The Authority said operators were “hereby directed to exempt Government-authorized emergency bulk SMS communications” from those requirements. In practice, operators must deliver these messages to all active subscribers, including those with Do Not Disturb settings or earlier opt-outs from promotional messages.The directive covered test runs that were scheduled for October 2, 2026, as well as early warning messages, disaster preparedness advisories, simulation notifications and El Niño-related emergency alerts. Under the order, messages are to go out through designated government platforms, such as short code 1590, giving the public one recognised channel for public safety communications. Operators have also been told to prioritise delivery of these messages and to provide technical support for the test run of the National Early Warning System, as well as for any real emergency response.The El Niño warnings behind the order have been building since June. On June 2, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) put the likelihood of an El Niño event during June to August at 80 per cent. Kenya Met’s own public statement followed on June 10, saying forecasts pointed to a high likelihood of El Niño occurring and persisting through the end of the year. A day later, on June 11, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA) confirmed that El Niño conditions were present in the tropical Pacific and said they were “expected to strengthen in the coming months.”For Kenya, the concern is the short rains. Kenya Met’s head of public weather services, Hannah Kimani, put the chance of a very strong 2026 El Niño at 81 per cent, and the chance of it lasting into early 2027 at 97 per cent. The department’s outlook dated August 26 forecast above-average rainfall across much of the country for October to December. On September 21 it followed with a public advisory warning of floods, landslides, damage to buildings and the displacement of families. On October 5, Kenya Met said the season had officially begun, with rain already recorded in 24 counties. The earlier outlook language was consistent with that, “Above average rainfall is expected over most parts in October and November,” said Stanley Kinyua, Kenya Met’s Narok County director.The warnings have been public for months, but a warning only counts if it reaches the people in its path. Kenya’s consent rules for SMS exist to protect subscribers from marketing, and a flood alert can’t be allowed to fail because of a setting meant for adverts. One outlet noted that on Safaricom the block sits in the *456# menu, under Stop, then Marketing Messages. That is a setting millions of Kenyans have likely used, so without this directive the people who opted out of marketing would also have been cut off from public safety alerts.
Read briefing The inaugural Inuka Tech Fellowship cohort has completed its programme, with organisers highlighting the need for more pathways for women entering Kenya’s technology sector.The fellowship, run by KPC Foundation and Power Learn Project (PLP), brought together 30 fellows selected from more than 1,000 applicants. Women made up half of the cohort. The completion was marked on September 25, 2026, at PLP’s offices in the iHUB Jahazi Building in Nairobi during an event themed “Her Data, Her Future.” The gathering brought together fellows, women working in technology and representatives from organisations including KPC Foundation, NCBA, Safaricom, Loop, Spiro and Qhala.The programme was designed to combine technical training with practical experience and industry exposure. Fellows received training in areas including Python, machine learning, dashboard development and data storytelling, alongside mentorship and real-world simulations.Rachel Gathoni, KPC Foundation Manager, said participants needed to approach their careers with confidence while continuing to develop their skills.“Women must occupy the spaces they enter at work with confidence.” Rachel Gathoni, Manager, KPC Foundation.The fellowship’s organisers said the programme was structured to address the participation of women in technology by deliberately including them in the cohort rather than leaving gender representation to chance.“We are passionate about tech and more so women in tech.” Mumbi Ndung’u, Co founder and Executive Director, Power Learn ProjectThe programme prepares fellows for roles such as Operational Data Analyst, Business Intelligence Analyst and Predictive Analytics Engineer, with additional career opportunities supported through PLP’s Talent Hub.At the completion event, fellows also took part in activities focused on career planning and mentorship. A My Path Canvas exercise enabled participants to map out potential career steps over the next five years, while structured mentorship sessions and a fireside discussion provided an opportunity to engage with women already working in the technology industry. For some participants, the practical elements of the fellowship provided a link between academic learning and workplace experience.Chantelle, one of the fellows, said the programme helped turn classroom knowledge into practical experience through hackathons and assignments. Another fellow highlighted interactions with women already working in technology as an important part of the programme and said the experience had helped her consider the next stage of her career.The Inuka Tech Fellowship operates under KPC Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Kenya Pipeline Company PLC. Its first cohort has now completed the training, with the programme positioning technical skills, mentorship and industry exposure as key components of the transition from learning into technology careers.
Read briefing According to the 2026 GBS.World Buy-Side Demand Survey, 80 per cent of global businesses are piloting generative AI initiatives, 61 per cent are testing autonomous AI workflows within back-office operations, and 63 per cent now require formal AI governance frameworks.Hybrid human-AI workforces are rapidly becoming the operational standard across global business services (GBS). As enterprises accelerate their adoption of AI, cloud technologies and intelligent automation, the conversation is shifting beyond technology itself to focus on people. Increasingly, competitive advantage will depend on the ability to access workforces that are digitally skilled, adaptable and capable of working confidently with, and alongside, AI.Against this backdrop, Rwanda is implementing one of Africa’s most coordinated long-term digital workforce strategies. Through sustained investment in education, digital infrastructure, AI, industry partnerships and workforce development, the country is building the capabilities required to compete in the next generation of knowledge-based global services.Over the past decade, Rwanda has embedded digital transformation at the centre of its national development agenda. National initiatives including the ICT Strategy, the National Artificial Intelligence Agency, National Artificial Intelligence Policy and the 1 Million Coders Programme are helping prepare a future-ready workforce, while broader ambitions to develop approximately 1.5 million digitally skilled citizens by 2029 demonstrate the country’s long-term commitment to digital competitiveness.Rwanda’s digital talent strategy extends well beyond coding. Universities such as Carnegie Mellon University Africa, the University of Rwanda, the African Leadership University (ALU) and Kepler College, together with more than 110 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions, coding academies and innovation hubs, are contributing to an expanding ecosystem that now supports approximately 345,000 ICT learners. This coordinated approach is strengthening the country’s pipeline of AI-ready, cloud-enabled and digitally skilled professionals equipped for modern global service delivery.This investment is already translating into employment and delivery capability. Rwanda’s GBS sector supported 4,705 jobs in Q2 2026, with 79.2 per cent serving international markets. More than a quarter of the workforce (or 1,238 people) is employed in IT Outsourcing, including software development roles, alongside growing capabilities in data and analytics, testing and quality assurance, IT support, cybersecurity, cloud computing and AI engineering.“Artificial intelligence is changing far more than technology; it is changing the capabilities businesses expect from their people. Rwanda recognised this shift early and has invested deliberately in building a workforce that can thrive alongside AI, automation and digital technologies. Our ambition is not simply to develop technical talent, but to create a globally competitive digital workforce that supports the future of global business services,” says Chantal Kayonga, CEO of the Rwanda GBS Growth Initiative.International operators are already seeing the benefits of this investment. Rwanda’s growing technology and GBS ecosystem includes companies delivering software development, IT and technical support, data and analytics, cloud-enabled services, cybersecurity and other knowledge-intensive digital services to regional and global clients. As these capabilities deepen, Rwanda has an opportunity to expand beyond traditional business process services and strengthen its position as an emerging regional technology and innovation hub.“Our experience has shown that Rwanda’s greatest strength is not simply the availability of talent, but the quality of its people and their willingness to learn, adapt and embrace new technologies. As AI continues to reshape our industry, having access to a workforce that is developing alongside these technologies creates a significant competitive advantage,” says Aileen Allkins, CEO, TeKnowledge.“Rwanda has created an ecosystem where education, industry and government are working towards a common objective. That collaborative approach has enabled us to build capability, scale operations and develop highly skilled digital professionals who are supporting clients across international markets,” says Yannick Kabayiza, CEO, Awesomity Lab.This connection between policy, skills development and employer demand is central to Rwanda’s approach. National digital priorities, universities, TVETs and specialist training providers are increasingly being aligned with the changing skills requirements of technology employers, creating pathways from education into employment while supporting continuous reskilling as technologies evolve.According to the Rwanda GBS Growth Initiative, the country’s long-term investment in digital skills, innovation and workforce development is increasingly aligning with the priorities of multinational businesses seeking resilient, future-ready global delivery locations.
Read briefing Absa is taking cash out of more of its branches in South Africa, with 215 now cashless, up from 122, and a target of 456 over time.Absa said that only some of its South African branches will keep teller cash. Everyone else will be sent to ATMs, self-service machines and, later, local shops that act as banking agents. The reason, according to Absa, is that fewer people use branches for cash, and the counters are expensive to run. The change came with its results for the six months to 30 June 2026.More than 90 per cent of its retail customers have moved routine transactions to self-service channels, and about 90 per cent of deposits now go through ATMs and self-service devices. In 2019, more than half were still handled by tellers. The value of cash handled across its branches and ATMs fell 30 per cent between 2020 and 2025.Pieter van Eeden, Absa’s managing executive for integrated channels, said: “Customers are banking differently, and our branch frontline must keep pace with that change.” He added that cash still matters to many people and businesses, especially where other options are limited.Absa also says this isn’t about shrinking its footprint. Its branches grew from 551 in 2021 to 574 now. What’s changing is the type. Since June 2025, its smaller sales and service outlets rose from 122 to 215, while traditional branches fell 18 per cent to 359. Those two add up to the 574.Cost is behind it. CEO Kenny Fihla said cash-dispensing branches are substantially more expensive to run than cashless ones. On jobs, Fihla said the changes “wouldn’t necessarily result in massive retrenchment”. Absa has not said how many teller roles are affected.More is coming. Eighty-one branches have so far moved to an advisory service model. Before making network changes, Absa says it will assess local cash demand and nearby alternatives, adding device capacity where needed. It is also developing an agency model so customers in townships and rural areas can withdraw and deposit cash at local businesses.Absa’s explanation is that customers are moving to digital banking and fewer people are doing cash transactions, so it doesn’t need as many machines. It described the 2 per cent fall to 4,976 as part of that shift. It also said in 2025 that it reviews its ATM footprint deliberately as demand for cash changes.
Read briefing Affordable fibre is becoming an increasingly competitive segment of South Africa’s broadband market as providers expand into townships, rural areas and other communities that have historically had limited access to high-speed fixed connectivity.Ilitha Telecommunications is among the companies expanding in these markets, with CEO Vuyani Jarana arguing that affordability alone does not determine whether households adopt broadband services.“While affordability is key, the internet use case has a big effect on adoption and usage,” Jarana said. “What drives usage and adoption is the sense of value.”The company has expanded its network to 27 communities across the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal over the past 18 months. It formally launched its network in Mthatha this week as part of the expansion. Beyond connectivity itself, the company is seeking to increase the practical uses of broadband through services such as digital healthcare and online learning.At the Mthatha launch, Ilitha showcased TruMD, a digital healthcare platform that provides online consultations with registered doctors, as well as its partnership with SpecCon, which provides accredited training programmes and qualifications.“We are moving from asking how we connect a community to asking what we can enable once that community is connected. That is where we see the next opportunity,” says Jarana.Network capacity is another consideration as providers expand into lower-income areas. Ilitha said its packages can provide between 200Mbps and 300Mbps across up to 15 devices, depending on the package, while its prepaid, uncapped model allows households to use the connection without purchasing additional mobile data. The company also provides connectivity across connected communities, allowing users to remain connected beyond their homes.Jarana said network deployment also needs to account for differences in settlement patterns. Established townships can have relatively high housing density, while self-built and peri-urban communities can have larger plots and greater distances between households, affecting the cost of connecting homes.“We didn’t start by building a conventional network in an established urban neighbourhood and then ask how to make it work in townships. We started in these communities, and our model has been shaped by what we have learnt on the ground about how people live and use connectivity,” says Jarana.Ilitha’s expansion is being supported by R500 million in funding from Absa Corporate and Investment Banking.“We have spent the past 18 months proving that this model works. The next phase is about taking what we have learnt and scaling it responsibly,” concludes Jarana.
Read briefing The Ministry of Health has given health facilities another month to leave the SHA Provider Portal for the new Health Management Information System, one day after the portal was due to be shut down. In a statement signed by Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, the Ministry said all 6,427 public Level 2 to 4 facilities have already moved to HMIS, while four public Level 5 facilities have finished and 23 are partway through. Public Level 5 facilities are now expected to complete the transition by October 30, 2026.The extension softens an ultimatum Duale issued only days earlier. Speaking ahead of the September 30 deadline, he said private and faith-based facilities that had not moved would not be able to serve patients, telling them “if you have not transferred institutions, you cannot serve a patient in Kenya.” The Ministry’s October 1 statement reads differently. It says ” No patient will be denied access to healthcare services because a facility has not yet fully transitioned to HMIS.” because a facility has not yet fully transitioned.The portal was SHA’s first technological interface for providers, and the push to retire it has been running since June. Providers were told on June 29, at a stakeholder forum convened by the Ministry, SHA and the Digital Health Agency, that they had three months to integrate with HMIS or risk being decontracted. SHA chief executive Dr Mercy Mwangangi said then, “we will have no option but to decontract non-compliant facilities.”The first cutover came at midnight on June 29, when claims processing for Level 4 public hospitals moved to the Taifa Care HMIS, with new claims to be filed through the new platform and earlier claims left in the portal to be processed. On September 1, SHA moved the compliance deadline for providers to September 30, citing the need for time to complete configuration and certification.The government’s case rests on the old system’s record. The HMIS is said to fix problems that dogged the portal, namely delayed reimbursements, weak verification and claims fraud, and that it allows real-time patient verification, electronic claims processing and secure provider authentication. Duale also told facilities that patients’ scans and records can be viewed across hospitals without being carried, and said the Treasury has been asked to set aside money in October for outstanding NHIF arrears owed to faith-based and private facilities.The numbers show where the delay sits. Of 518 contracted faith-based facilities, 38 have completed the move, and the Ministry says 28 existing private HMIS platforms have been certified by the Digital Health Agency. Kenyatta National Hospital and Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital are expected to finish by the end of next week, with other Level 6 facilities due by October 30.The remaining work falls on private and faith-based providers, who are being asked to certify or replace their own systems. The Digital Health Agency will run Rapid Results Initiatives through October to help them, and the Ministry meets health sector associations on Friday, October 2, to agree facility-by-facility plans.The HMIS deadline also sits alongside a separate and tense contracting process. SHA chief executive Mercy Mwangangi announced on Thursday that providers now have until October 14 to complete their contracts for the 2026-2029 cycle, 14 days later than planned. The new contracts, branded HAKIKA, run from October 1, 2026 to June 30, 2029.The Ministry of Health launched them on September 18 alongside an e-contracting platform where facilities submit documents, verify licences and sign online. The earlier cutoff was September 30, when existing contracts were due to expire at 11:59pm, and SHA had warned that facilities without an executed contract would lose access to the provider portal and be barred from offering services.The extension softens that warning, but only for a fortnight. Facilities keep operating under their existing contracts until October 14, after which the contracts lapse, and SHA says no further extension will be granted. Each provider is being issued a 14-day extension of its current contract through the e-contracting platform. Mwangangi said providers must “confirm acceptance, sign, and return the agreement within three (3) days,” and that services to SHA beneficiaries continue only at facilities that accept it.Providers that decline have been told to work with their SHA county managers to move patients on ongoing care to contracted facilities. SHA will run HAKIKA contracting clinics in every county from Monday, October 5, through its county offices, and says 10,006 providers have expressed interest and are at different stages of the process.
Read briefing Qhala, a Nairobi-based technology company, has received the Innovation Award at the African Leadership Roundtable in New York during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly.The award recognises the Nairobi-based technology firm’s work in advancing artificial intelligence governance and adoption across Africa, including efforts to equip policymakers and institutions to participate in shaping the continent’s AI future.Dr Shikoh Gitau, founder and chief executive of Qhala, said the recognition highlights the importance of strengthening African participation in the development and governance of emerging technologies.Qhala was recognised alongside Iyinoluwa Samuel Aboyeji of Future Africa and Eric Osiakwan of Chanzo Capital, both investors in African technology companies.Aspen Initiative Nairobi nominated Qhala, citing the company’s work to strengthen African participation in AI governance and build capacity around responsible AI adoption.Qhala’s work is based on the position that African countries should have a role in shaping AI governance frameworks rather than simply adopting rules developed elsewhere.The company focuses on training policymakers, convening cross-sector discussions and developing tools that help governments assess their AI readiness.One of its initiatives is the Africa AI Village, which Qhala staged in Paris in February 2025 alongside international AI policy discussions taking place in the French capital. Aspen Initiative Nairobi sponsored the event.Qhala has also participated in the Africa AI Dialogues, a platform convening policymakers, technology companies, investors and civil society organisations to discuss AI adoption across the continent.Founded by Gitau in 2020, Qhala has positioned itself at the intersection of technology, policy and innovation.Gitau previously worked at Google’s emerging markets division, iHub Research, the African Development Bank and Safaricom.Her earlier technology initiatives include M-Ganga, which focused on healthcare access, and Ummeli, a mobile platform launched in 2010 to connect job seekers with employers in South Africa and other African markets.Gitau completed her undergraduate studies at Africa Nazarene University and holds a doctorate from the University of Cape Town. In 2013, she became the first African recipient of the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship.She currently serves on the board of the Kenya National Innovation Agency and the council of Africa Nazarene University.The award comes as African countries increase their participation in global discussions on AI governance.The United Nations General Assembly appointed 40 members to the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence in February 2026, with African states holding eight seats. The Global Dialogue on AI Governance held its inaugural meeting in Geneva in July 2026.Kenya has also adopted a National Artificial Intelligence Strategy covering 2025 to 2030.Qhala’s work comes against a backdrop of limited AI infrastructure on the continent. The African Actors of Data Center Association’s 2026 economic report estimates that Africa accounts for about 0.6 per cent of global installed data centre capacity.
Read briefing Safaricom and Pesapal are expanding M-PESA payment options at physical merchant outlets in Kenya through new QR code and contactless payment features.The partnership introduces Dynamic Scan-to-Pay and Tap-to-Pay on Pesapal’s point-of-sale (POS) devices, building on Safaricom’s existing M-PESA Scan-to-Pay service. Dynamic Scan-to-Pay allows customers to scan a QR code displayed on a Pesapal POS using their phone. The merchant’s details and payment amount are automatically populated, reducing the need for customers to enter the information manually before completing the transaction.Tap-to-Pay allows customers with near-field communication (NFC)-enabled smartphones to tap their devices against a Pesapal POS, verify the transaction details and complete the payment. The new options extend M-PESA’s QR and contactless payment capabilities into physical checkout environments, giving merchants another way to accept digital payments.“As the way Kenyans shop and transact continues to evolve, we are focused on ensuring that M-PESA evolves with them. This means moving beyond simply enabling payments to reimagining the payment experience itself. Our partnership with Pesapal is an important part of that journey, bringing together our respective capabilities to shape the next generation of everyday payments,” said James Maitai, Group Chief Technology Officer, Safaricom PLC.Safaricom is also rolling out AI Pay through My OneApp. The feature allows customers to scan a receipt, including printed or handwritten receipts, with the application. Where the information is recognised, AI Pay can automatically identify and populate the relevant M-PESA Till or PayBill details and payment amount. The feature is intended to reduce manual entry when making payments and lower the possibility of errors when customers enter merchant details.Pesapal Founder Agosta Liko said the integration would give businesses using its POS infrastructure additional payment options.“Tap-to-Pay and Scan-to-Pay on the Pesapal POS represent the biggest leap in Kenya’s checkout experience in years. Thousands of businesses trust our platform, and by teaming up with Safaricom, we are delivering the faster, error-free transactions their customers expect. Today, we activate the future of payments,” said Agosta Liko, Founder, Pesapal.Safaricom said Scan-to-Pay is already available at more than 60,000 merchant outlets, with the company targeting 500,000 outlets over the next year.The expansion comes as mobile and contactless payments become increasingly integrated into Kenya’s retail and merchant payment infrastructure, with providers competing to reduce friction at the point of sale.
Read briefing The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has licensed 29 additional digital credit providers (DCPs), bringing the number of regulated digital lenders in the country to 281.The approvals, announced on September 30, come two months after the regulator licensed 25 DCPs in July. The latest licences were issued under Section 59(2) of the Central Bank of Kenya Act.CBK said it has received more than 900 applications since March 2022, when it began licensing and supervising digital lenders following amendments to the law.The regulator said its assessment focuses on applicants’ business models, consumer protection measures, and the fitness and propriety of proposed shareholders, directors and management.The expansion of the regulated sector comes as digital lenders continue to play a significant role in providing credit to Kenyan households and businesses.As of August 2026, licensed DCPs had disbursed 9,596,509 loans worth Ksh165.1 billion, equivalent to about $1.28 billion. The average loan size was approximately Ksh17,200.The lenders operate mainly through digital channels, including mobile applications and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platforms. Their products include education loans, development loans, short-term personal loans, asset financing and business loans.Despite the latest approvals, hundreds of applications remain under review. CBK said applicants are at different stages of the licensing process, with most yet to submit the required documentation.The regulator urged applicants with outstanding documents to submit them promptly to allow the review process to continue.CBK said the licensing process is intended to ensure compliance with applicable laws while protecting consumers. It also acknowledged the support of other regulators and government agencies involved in vetting applicants.The central bank began supervising non-deposit-taking digital lenders after amendments to the CBK Act in 2021, following widespread complaints about unregulated lenders.The complaints included high borrowing costs, aggressive debt collection practices and misuse of borrowers’ personal information, including contacting people in customers’ phonebooks to pressure them to repay loans.The regulatory framework requires digital credit providers that do not take deposits to obtain a CBK licence before operating in Kenya.
Read briefing Angola Cables is upgrading capacity across its transatlantic submarine cable network to support growing demand for cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and other data-intensive services connecting Africa and the Americas.The telecommunications company is deploying optical networking technology from Ciena across the MONET and South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) submarine cables.MONET spans 10,556 kilometres between the United States and Brazil, while SACS connects Brazil and Angola across 6,165 kilometres. Together, the two systems provide a direct route between Angola and the United States, with a reported round-trip delay of about 130 milliseconds.The upgrade is intended to increase the amount of data the network can carry while providing more flexible connectivity options for cloud providers, hyperscalers, content companies, enterprises and wholesale customers.“Our submarine cable systems are a critical digital bridge connecting Africa with the Americas, offering a diverse and secure route between these continents, while demand from hyperscalers and cloud providers continues to accelerate. Together with Ciena, we will enhance the scale, flexibility, and intelligence of our subsea infrastructure to help customers build and expand AI-ready networks while maximizing the performance of our existing fiber assets,” Adriano Caldevilla, CTO, Angola CablesAngola Cables will deploy Ciena’s Waveserver platform powered by WaveLogic 6 Extreme, alongside the 6500 Packet-Optical platform and Navigator Network Control Suite. The technology will be used to increase capacity across the existing subsea infrastructure and introduce additional options for routing traffic between the United States, Brazil and Africa. The deployment will also support 800G client interfaces on the MONET system.“Demand for AI, cloud services, and digital applications is accelerating the need for higher-capacity, more intelligent networks. Ciena’s coherent optical and software solutions lay the foundation for AI-ready connectivity across the Atlantic, enabling Angola Cables to support hyperscalers and cloud providers with scalable, high-performance connectivity,” Fernando Capella, Regional Director for CALA South, Ciena.The upgraded network will support connectivity ranging from individual 100Gbps connections to capacity across an entire fibre pair. Angola Cables will also be able to provide spectrum and managed optical fibre network services.The deployment builds on Angola Cables’ previous use of Ciena technology across its subsea infrastructure. The upgrade comes as demand for international bandwidth continues to grow, driven by cloud services, AI workloads, content delivery and the expansion of digital services across African markets.For Angola, the additional capacity strengthens one of the country’s key international links to data infrastructure in Brazil, the United States and other global markets, while providing additional connectivity options for organisations operating across Africa and the Americas.
Read briefing The defining cybersecurity challenge of the AI era is not intelligence, but autonomy. As African organisations embrace agentic AI, assumptions that have shaped security strategies for decades are beginning to break down. Security teams have traditionally defended against attacks powered by human decision-making and speed. But AI agents can reason, adapt and act independently. In a world where cyberthreats operate at machine speed, organisations must rethink not only what they protect, but how they protect it.For African businesses, autonomous AI is no longer a distant prospect. Agents are proliferating in sectors such as financial services and logistics, and 82 per cent of African respondents to an MIT Sloan Management Review and BCG survey said they viewed agents more as colleagues than tools. Private-sector adoption in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa is advancing faster than AI policies and governance frameworks can evolve, leaving organisations to navigate an increasingly complex risk landscape. In a recent Dark Reading survey, almost half of respondents identified agentic AI as the single most dangerous attack vector facing modern infrastructure.The challenge is not only that organisations are deploying autonomous systems faster than governance can evolve. It is that they are doing so as cyberthreats themselves become increasingly autonomous. The very physics of cybersecurity is changing. Attackers can now use AI to lower the cost of offence, generating exploits faster, scaling campaigns further and operating with unprecedented efficiency. Meanwhile, the volume, velocity and complexity of what must be secured continue to grow. Approaches built for human actors cannot keep pace with AI agents and machine-speed attacks.For African organisations, the question is no longer how quickly they can adopt AI, but whether their security can evolve at the same pace.The answer is not simply to add more AI to existing workflows. It is to redesign security around a cyber stack built for autonomy. Signals and sensors create awareness across the digital estate; security context turns those signals into usable understanding; models supply intelligence and reasoning; and a harness coordinates models and agents across security workflows. Agents then apply that intelligence, while actuators translate decisions into protection. Together, these layers form a continuous learning system that can understand risk, adapt to change and improve security outcomes over time.Of all the layers in this new security model, context may be the most important. Raw signals from identities, devices, applications, data flows and user activity can reveal unusual behaviour, suspicious activity or emerging threats, but they rarely explain why those events matter or how they connect to broader organisational risk.For autonomous security systems to make sound decisions, they need a shared, continuously updated understanding of the environment they are helping to defend. By connecting identities, devices, applications, data and activities into a coherent picture of risk, security context enables AI agents to distinguish normal behaviour from genuine threats, prioritise action and reason more accurately. Rather than continuously gathering and correlating information from disparate sources, agents can operate with a near real-time understanding of the organisation, improving the quality of decisions while reducing the time, compute and cost required to operate at scale.Context provides the foundation for sound decision-making, but effective security also depends on applying the right intelligence to the right problem. Investigating a suspicious sign-in, analysing malware or assessing a complex attack path each demands different forms of reasoning, expertise and speed.Rather than relying on a single model, organisations need a flexible, multi-model architecture that can apply the most appropriate capability to each task while balancing quality, reliability, responsiveness and cost. This is particularly important in security, where protection must operate continuously and at scale. By taking this approach, businesses can strengthen outcomes today while retaining the flexibility to benefit from future advances in AI, without having to rebuild their security architecture every time the technology evolves.Applying the right intelligence to the right problem is only valuable if it leads to action. Security teams do not need more alerts. They need better outcomes. This is where actuators become a critical part of the cyber stack, giving organisations the ability to translate intelligence into action.By connecting detection, decision-making and response, actuators help organisations move from simply reporting risk to continuously reducing it. This allows routine measures to happen faster and more consistently, while defenders remain in control and focus their expertise where it adds the most value.Every layer of the cyber stack ultimately depends on trust. As organisations introduce greater autonomy into security operations, safety, governance and accountability cannot be treated as afterthoughts. They must be designed into the architecture from the outset. This means establishing clear guardrails around how AI systems operate, ensuring decisions can be explained and audited, and maintaining strong oversight of data, access and compliance requirements.
Read briefing Prembly launches its MCP Server, enabling AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT to access identity and compliance automation, anti-money laundering, PEP screening, fraud intelligence, KYC/KYB, and account management tools directly.Trusted by businesses worldwide to verify identities, prevent fraud, and simplify compliance, Prembly’s MCP Server makes it easier for businesses to build faster, guarantee secure onboarding experiences, reduce risk, and make more informed trust decisions.“As a technology-first company, this thinking drives how we approach our products and what we choose to prioritise as we work to make trust more straightforward and accessible. With nearly 90 per cent of organisations now using AI, it is increasingly important to bring these capabilities into the workflows businesses already rely on,” said Lanre Ogungbe, CEO of Prembly.The integration addresses a common challenge for businesses that need access to verification and compliance tools. Traditionally, using these capabilities requires developers to review API documentation, write custom integrations, and build the necessary workflows before teams can begin running checks. With Prembly’s MCP Server, users can interact with these tools using natural language, significantly reducing the technical steps required to access them.For developers, this means less time spent building and maintaining custom integrations. For compliance and operations teams, it means being able to initiate identity checks, business verification, screening, and other workflows directly through an AI assistant.Built on the Model Context Protocol, the server acts as a middleman: it connects to an AI assistant on one side and makes standard REST API calls to Prembly’s Core APIs on the other, using the user’s API Key.This is designed with strict adherence to data privacy and credential security. Organisations can choose deployment options that align with their security policies, including enterprise AI solutions with Zero Data Retention or locally hosted AI models for greater control over sensitive data.The Prembly MCP Server is available worldwide, with the underlying API tools functioning globally.
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