The Kantanka from Ghana The Kantanka is a car that was conceived, designed and made in Ghana. This brand of cars is probably the most promising of all the cars.

A Nigerian mobile game developer, Gamsole, is setting a high standard for future African gaming companies. Six months after its induction, in 2012, and under the leadership of CEO Abiola Elijah Olaniran, the company had already amassed an impressive player base of three million. Gamsole develops a wide array of entertaining and educational games for Windows Phone and Windows 8, usually around an African theme. In 2014 it was one of five companies to receive a grant from the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative, and the company is growing quickly. Today over 10 million Gamesole games have already been downloaded. Olaniran spoke to How we made it in Africa about his journey as a software developer, the primary ingredient for his success, and his entrepreneurial advice for others. Click On Image To Read More

AfriLabs, the pan-African network of tech & innovation hubs, presently convenes for their second annual congress in Berlin (also see an article on their first meeting last year), Meanwhile the number of hubs across Africa is increasing, and the quality is getting higher and higher. Below Tim Kelly of the Worldbank discusses a map of tech hubs that was recently created in cooperation with iHub Research (Kenya) and BongoHive (Zambia), in a project carried out for the Botswana Innovation Hub. Check out the map, read the article, and join the discussion below! This article originally appeared at the Worldbank blog and is published with permission. Click on the image to enlarge the map. In a recent project carried out for the Botswana Innovation Hub, we worked with two of the longer established labs, the research arm of iHub in Kenya and BongoHive in Zambia, to create a map of tech hubs. To our surprise, there are now more than 100 tech hubs across the continent, and more than half of Africa economies have at least one. South Africa was the first to make it into double figures but other countries are not far behind. Indeed, hubs such as MEST in Ghana, the Co-creation hub in Nigeria or iHub in Kenya are widely regarded as models, and the latter was recently named by Fast Company magazine as one of the most innovative companies. It has impressed the Kenyan government enough for it to commit to establishing a tech hub in each of its 47 counties. As might be…Read More (Click On Top Link)

Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in Ghana are having trouble accessing credit from financial institutions, as they have to compete for limited resources with the government and big corporations, says a financial analyst. Read More (Click On Image)

Bloomberg reported that the two oil drillers, who first discovered oil in Kenya’s rift valley basin only last year, now say the 450 KM long basin could hold 10 billion barrels- enough to run Kenya for 300 years! As you may be aware, Kenya has a long history of exploration of oil and gas, which finally culminated in the important discoveries in 2012 of oil in the Turkana region and natural gas offshore. Read More (Click On Image)

Discovery on plantation ends farmer’s nine-year quest to cultivate one of the most expensive delicacies in the world. Farmer Cameron Anderson was about to give up for another season but decided to go out to the orchard for one last look. Beside an oak tree his dog, Shammy, a nine-year-old weimaraner, sniffed pointedly at something so Anderson dug it up. There in his hands was tuber melanosporum, or what experts are describing as the first South African truffle For Anderson it was the end of a nine-year quest to cultivate one of the most coveted and expensive delicacies in the world. “I was elated,” he recalled on Tuesday. “The future of the project was hanging by a thread at that point. It’s not assured yet but this motivates you to push a hell of a lot harder.” Read More (Click On Image)

How the world’s third fastest growing economy is attracting U.S. investors and creating jobs   The United States is the world’s third largest exporter shipping capital goods, industrial supplies and consumer goods such as cars, foods and beverages around the world every year. Yet exports account for only a small fraction of its GDP—13 percent in 2014—and exports to traditional customers such as Canada and Europe are falling. In addition, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, America’s trade deficit widened by 7.6 percent in September 2014 to $43 billion, largely due to a slump in exports to Europe, Latin America and Japan. Slowing exports to the developed economies and a widening trade gap are bad news for American businesses and jobs and American manufacturing firms. Beneath the headlines, however, is a glimmer of hope, which comes in the form of sub-Saharan Africa. For several years the United States has been nurturing its diplomatic and economic ties with countries on the continent, particularly Kenya which has seen its economy grow at around 5 percent annually over the recent years. Read More (Click On Image)

South Africa has a deserved reputation as a superb destination in which to spot wildlife, but another natural resource is now being put under the spotlight with the launch of the country’s (and the world’s) first diamond safari. Launched by Cape Town’s Ellerman House hotel in conjunction with Benguela Diamonds, the R215,000 (£11,400) package will invite up to six guests to board a private jet and fly from the private terminal at Cape Town International Airport to the isolated town of Port Nolloth, set on South Africa’s western coast and close to the border with Namibia. A copper-mining enclave in the 1800s, the town boomed anew after diamonds were detected in the locality in the 1920s, and later in the soil of the surrounding ocean floor. Though the gems aren’t quite so abundant today, the region remains mineral-rich and these treasures can still be uncovered by divers who trawl the sea bed for gems. With their base for the day a modern seafront villa, clients who book the package will follow breakfast by either diving with Benguela Diamond dive masters (a Padi Open Water 1 certificate is required) or accompanying the team by boat and watching as they scour the depths for treasure. However clients choose to observe this stage of the process, what follows is the same: the seabed gravel retrieved by the divers is sieved via an apparatus called a classifier and the gemstones contained therein (garnets and olivines might be found alongside diamonds) are exposed. Representatives say the likelihood of finding something precious is “pretty much 100 per cent” and whatever rough diamonds emerge are sent to be cut, polished and set into jewellery at Benguela Diamond’s design studio in Stellenbosch. Source: Telegraph

Facebook has signed up almost half the countries in Africa – a combined population of 635 million – to its free internet service in a controversial move to corner the market in one of the world’s biggest mobile data growth regions. Facebook’s co-founder and chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, has made it clear that he wants to connect the whole world to the internet, describing access as a basic human right. His Free Basics initiative, in which mobile users are able to access the site free of data charges, is available in 42 countries, more than half of them in Africa. But digital campaigners and internet freedom advocates argue that Facebook’s expansion is a thinly veiled marketing ploy that could end up undermining, rather than enhancing, mass efforts to get millions more people connected. Read More : Click on Image