- MR EAZI LAUNCHES AFRICAN MUSIC FUND TO SUPPORT AFRICAN ARTISTES
Nigerian music executive and entertainer, MrEazi has launched the African Music Fund (AMF), an initiative designed to fund new and established artists. Selection will be based on demonstrated streaming revenue and projected incomes for future records. Interested artistes will be required to distribute their music through the new distribution platform created by emPawa and Vydia called Cinch Distro. For more information, click here.
- NIGERIA GOVERNMENT APPROVES N75 Billion FUNDING INITIATIVE TO SUPPORT YOUNG ENTREPRENUERS.
The Nigerian government has approved 75 Billion naira to support ideas, enterprise and ideas created by the Nigerian Youth.
Through an initiative called Nigerian Youth Investment Fund, the loan will 68 million Nigerian youths under the ages of 18-35. The modalities on its access will be made public in the nearest future. For more information, please click here.
- CFYE announces calls for Digital or skill craft jobs for youth
Challenge Fund for Youth Employment has launched a call for proposals that address creation of digital or skill craft jobs for youths within Nigeria. Companies that can propose projects within these categories which will open up employment opportunities for more than 500 youths (15-35, especially women) should submit their proposals for co-funding from CYFE. Lead applicants should be private companies though they may be in partnership with NGOs and government organizations. CFYE will donate at least € 200,000. And it will be supported with a co-investment of at least half of the granted requested. Each job should entail a salary of nothing less than 30,000 naira. For more information, please click here.
- CONCEPTS NOTES ARE NEEDED BY “EDUCATION OUT LOUD”
The biggest education fund in the world, Education Out Loud has called for Concepts Notes for the creation of enabling environment (transnationally and globally) for civil society advocacy and transparency efforts. Education Out Loud is financed by Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and Oxam IBIS. A single organization should submit a proposal on behalf of a cohort of civil society groups who is working on creating an enabling environment for successful national education advocacy in any GPE eligible country. The frontline must be a registered company with its account number written alongside the name of the organization. Grants for a period of 2-3 years will be provided for winners in the range of $450,000 – $1,200,000. For more information, please click here.
- One Tech Holdings secures US$26m from IFC to expand production, supply of mechatronics products
A Tunisian based export-oriented group, One Tech, which operates in cabling, mechatronics manufacturing and ICT distribution & implementation has received €23 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to support its development in Tunisia, Morocco, and internationally. The financing will also be used to stimulate job creation and economic growth. For more information, please click here.
- Samurai Incubate Africa invests in Nigerian startup, Eden Life
Samurai Incubate, a Japanese Venture Capital firm and its arm in Africa, Samurai Incubate Africa have been investing in start-ups in the past decade. The parent company has invested in more than 100 start-ups while its arm which was launched in 2018 has invested in more than 20 emerging businesses in Africa with the most recent being a Nigerian home service start-up, Eden Life. This investment was made from the newly launched $18.2 million second fund to consolidate the company’s efforts in Africa. Previously, Samurai Incubate Africa had invested in Ugandan payments platform startup, Swipe2pay; Kenyan postal service, MPost; Nigerian fintech startup, Wallets Africa; and Rwandan fintech startup, Exuus. For more information, please click here.
- African Development Bank-funded training builds skills for the economy of the future in Ghana
The African Development Bank’s Development of Skills for Industry Project (DSIP) in Ghana has yielded positive results. This was revealed in a report from African Development Bank issued on 15th July 2020. The DSIP’s goal was to support the Ghanaian government’s efforts to reform the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) sector and enhance technical and professional schools’ capacity at the intermediate level. For more information, please click here.
- Nigeria’s Access Bank gets $50mln IFC loan
Access Bank has secured a $50m loan from the World Bank’s private sector arm, International Finance Cooperation.
“The funds from the loan, made through IFC’s global COVID-19 fast-track financing support package, will allow Access Bank to provide increased trade financing and working capital to their business clients experiencing disrupted cash flows, hence supporting business activity and preserving jobs,” the international body said in a statement.
The global COVID-19 fast track facility, launched in March 2020, is aimed at supporting vulnerable businesses and preserving jobs in this pandemic context. Under this program, the institution has invested about $400 million in Africa. For more information, please click here.
- LBS FACULTY EUGENE OHU WINS $234K GRANT FOR VIRTUAL REALITY RESEARCH
Dr. Eugene Ohu, a faculty professor at Lagos Business School (LBS), Pan Atlantic University, has won a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc (TWCF) to conduct a two-year virtual reality (VR) research. The grant was awarded under TWCF’s Global Innovations for Character Development (GICD) initiative.
The TWCF funded two-year intervention and research project seeks ways to grow the character traits of empathy and compassion in a diverse society like Nigeria, where there are multiple expressions of religious, cultural, social and economic identities. Targeting an initial group of teenagers, who make up more than 60 percent of Nigeria’s population, the study hopes to explore the perspective-taking capabilities of VR to increase understanding for the identities of others different from ourselves.
Dr Ohu intends to use the grant to explore the potentials of VR for character development in his research project title “Teaching Children Empathy and Compassion through Virtual Reality Games”. The Professor runs a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab at Lagos Business School, where he explores the implications of the immersive, interactive and perspective-taking characteristics of technologies like computers, mobile devices and virtual reality (VR) for character development, learning, behavior modification, wellbeing and productivity. Click here.
