It’s almost the end of 2019. It definitely has been a year full of lots of news stories. Here’s a list of 10 of our best stories of 2019:
1.Google Opens AI Center in Accra
In April, Google officially opened it’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Center in Accra. The launch was preceded with a presentation of Google’s mission in Africa and AI.
As part of the launch, the media was also invited for a tour of the new AI office.
2. All Girls Robotics Team Wins At World Robotics
In a story published in May, we wrote about Team ACRO-BOT, an all-girls team made up of nine girls from the Methodist Girls’ High School in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The team representing Ghana came first in their division in the 2019 World Robotics competition which was held in Michigan, USA.
3. The Ghana National Authorisation Is A Mess
In 2019, the National Identification Authority in Ghana embarked on yet another national registration exercise to sign up Ghanaian citizens for a new Ghana National ID Card.
We took a look at the history of the NIA and the missed deadlines and how they’ve been unable to fully register and distribute national identity cards to the general population.
4. MTN Opens Mobile Money API
MTN finally opened up their Application Protocol Interface (API) to third parties and developers for their mobile money platform. In opening up the platform, MTN opened up the possibility for third parties to create innovative solutions using mobile money.
5. Battle of The Ghana Telecom Companies
In Ghana, there’s a very competitive battle for subscribers amongst the mobile network operators. MTN, Vodafone, AirtelTigo (and sometimes Glo) put out constant promotions to get users to sign up for their services. In January, we put together a timeline showing how the battle is going.
6. MTN Ghana Launches 4G+ Service On Its 4G LTE Network
MTN was the first mobile network operator (not counting Surfline Ghana) to purchase 4G spectrum and offer 4G services to its subscribers.
MTN, later on, announced an enhancement to their 4G services by offering 4G+. Interestingly, this was on the heels of Vodafone Ghana launching their 4G service.
7. Opinion: Face App Your Privacy Away
It seems you can’t get enough of face apps. FaceApp, an app which allowed users to transform
But in their privacy policy, the company never stated what all the face data would be used for. To make matters worse, the company was from a Russian company which didn’t help matters, further raising the issue of online privacy.
8. Current Map Of The Ghana Tech Ecosystem
In May, we officially debuted our list of tech startups operating in Ghana. We partnered with Briter Bridges, who helped created a great map of Ghana’s tech ecosystem.
9. Bolt Ghana Expands Operations To Kumasi
Bolt (formally Taxify) is looking like the closest ride-sharing competitor to Uber in Ghana. The company in July announced that it was expanding to Kumasi after operating in Accra after almost a year.
10. Disrupting Accra’s Transportation System – A Lost Cause?
With all these new ride-sharing apps coming into the Ghanaian market, can they really disrupt the current state of Accra’s Transportation system? We looked into the current state of Accra’s public transportation system and wondered if ride-sharing apps could change behaviors and disrupt the system.
