During the 2020 lockdown, Anselme Mucunguzi, 30, noticed a gap in the technology needed to service last mile delivery in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. To his mind, payment processing was robust—people could use Paystack or Flutterwave when ordering stuff online; and for SMS marketing, they could use products like Africa’s Talking. But there was no solution that delivered goods from sellers to the doorsteps of buyers. Sellers relied on random motorcyclists riding past to deliver packages to their customers. It was a risky measure. Not only could they not vouch for the professional and ethical conduct of such random riders, they also had no failsafe way to track the transportation of these packages. Even worse, these random riders were delivering the packages to locations that were described verbally, with landmarks as identifiers. It was an unreliable solution. 

So, in January 2021, he founded Nisawa, a last-mile delivery service. The company was a subsidiary of Panavis, a legal research platform he’d started working on in 2017 as part of his master’s thesis at the University of Notre Dame, and incorporated in 2019. His co-founders were lawyer Mayday Karugarama, and software engineer François Birori. 

Nisawa would close operations a few months later, on October 14, due to disagreement over business direction with his then co-founder, François Birori. Birori had wanted Nisawa to transition to an online marketplace while Mucunguzi insisted on remaining in the last-mile delivery line.

On October 15, the day after Nisawa closed, Vanoma began operations, maintaining all former staff and customers of Nisawa. Building off of the solution he activated at the predecessor startup, Vanoma is an integrated e-commerce solution centred around a last-mile delivery service to enable local businesses and independent sellers to sell online.

Vanoma’s solution is designed to take the burden off the seller. All a seller needs to do to initiate a delivery is supply the receiver’s phone number on the Vanoma website. Vanoma then sends the receiver an SMS with a custom link they refer to as a “delivery link”. On clicking the link, the receiver is led to Vanoma’s website where they can easily geolocate themselves thanks to their smartphone’s built-in GPS capabilities. Once their exact location is established, a rider is sent out to pick up the package from the seller and deliver to the buyer. The seller never has to bother about the logistics beyond that initial action of supplying the receiver’s phone number on the Vanoma website.

In July 2021, Mucunguzi invited his longtime friend Theophile Nsengimana, 30, to join him as co-founder; and in October, Nsengimana agreed.

Friendship and partnership

Mucunguzi and Nsengimana’s friendship is older than Vanoma. They met in 2011, as 2 of 32 high schoolers selected for the annual Rwandan Presidential Scholars programme. Mucunguzi would go on to study chemistry with a minor in mathematics at the Belhaven University, Jackson, Mississippi, while Nsengimana would move to Little Rock, Arkansas to study computer science and mathematics at the Philander Smith College.

Four years later, the pair teamed up to work on a music streaming platform for Rwandan music in 2015. Mucunguzi lived in Indiana at the time and was about to begin his master’s in physical chemistry. Nsengimana had just graduated from Philander Smith and worked in San Francisco.

Yeyote failed to gain traction because, Mucunguzi says, “it is difficult to monetise media” in Rwanda. 

They rested the idea in 2017 and moved on to other projects. Mucunguzi was rounding off his master’s degree at Notre Dame and Nsengimana was preparing to begin his, in computer science, at Tennessee State University.

The “dead end”

I find Mucunguzi’s decision to start Panavis curious, as he is no lawyer by training. (Law is a very technical discipline requiring dedicated training, I maintain.) He laughs at my question, and warns me that we’re about to “get into rabbit holes”. He then tells me the reason he got into the legal business: Yeyote, the music streaming app he’d worked on with Nsengimana. 

While building the app, he discovered that he had to constantly study laws around licensing, copyright, and incorporating a company, across several countries.

The legal research platform did not succeed as a business because its biggest could-be client, the Rwandan government’s ministry of justice, had a stringent budget that planned expenses for 2–3 years at a time. What this means is, the ministry couldn’t decide in April (or even January) of a given year that they’d need Mucunguzi’s service in July. Panavis would have to wait until the next budgetary allocation round to fit into the government’s budget. 

On top of that, the law firm market in Rwanda is small, he says. “We don’t have more than 15 legitimate law firms. Even if each one is paying a subscription fee of $100, or even more, that’s not enough to pay 3, 4 people Unless you are about to get government clients. Even the law schools were not willing to pay substantial money. So, it was really a monetisation problem.”

The business was a “dead end,” he concluded. He shuttered up Panavis in 2020 at the onset of the lockdown—a year before founding Vanoma.

A second try

In July 2021, when Nsengimana got the invitation from Mucunguzi to join him at Vanoma, he was working out of Seattle as a software engineer for Amazon. It was a great job, but he wanted more. He wanted to leave paid employment and return to entrepreneurship. He and Mucunguzi had stayed in touch after Yeyote folded up. In fact, 3 years before, Mucunguzi had asked him to co-found with him at Nisawa, but Nsengimana refused; he was busy balancing school and his work.

Still, the years he’d spent with Mucunguzi building the music streaming app were some of the most fulfilling of his life, he tells me. So, when Mucunguzi approached him to be his co-founder at Vanoma, given their history of working together and his yearning to do work that was “much more rewarding”, he agreed and relocated to Kigali to co-run the business.

Expanding competition

Vanoma startup employs 12 full-time drivers who make deliveries all over Kigali, the city that is the extent of their coverage, as of today.

I want to know what their expansion plans are. Mucunguzi tells me their approach is to avoid markets such as Nairobi, Kenya, that are “extremely competitive”. Nairobi, he explains, already has plenty of delivery products—Uber and Bolt, for example—so Vanoma will not be expanding there just yet. But they could expand into Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, or Cameroon any day now, once they feel ready, as their findings show these markets are ripe for an ecommerce boom.

My Life in Tech (MLIT) is a biweekly column that profiles innovators, leaders, and shapers in the African tech ecosystem, with the intention of putting a human face to the startups and innovations they build. A new episode drops every other Wednesday at 3 PM (WAT). If you think your story will interest MLIT readers, please fill out this form.

Africa’s pandemic-induced bid to increase its share of vaccines manufactured in the continent has begun attracting foreign investors.

Already, German and Chinese investors have expressed interest in boosting local production capacity both in terms of funding projects and skills transfer in preparation for a vaccine “revolution”.

Germany-based BioNtech last week affirmed its June plans of bringing its manufacturing to Africa following a meeting with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, Senegal’s President Macky Sall and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

The COVID-19 vaccine maker said it has begun evaluating the possibilities of setting up malaria and tuberculosis vaccine production sites in Rwanda and Senegal.

“Our goal is the development of vaccines in Africa and the set-up of sustainable vaccine production capabilities to jointly improve the quality of medical care,” said Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech.

BioNtech said it was committed to investing in cutting-edge research and innovation to support vaccine development, the establishment of manufacturing facilities, and the transfer of manufacturing expertise to production sites on the continent.

Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank welcomed the new partnership saying the lender will “stand ready to provide technical experience and financial backing in the coming months.”

Chinese private sector investors have listed ‘speed up local manufacturing in the African medical industry alongside the unification of African standards’ among key topics for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC 2021) meeting, scheduled for later in the year.

“Local manufacturing is vital to African economies, a challenge made especially clear with the supply restrictions that have arisen during the COVID19 pandemic,” according to the latest China-Africa Business Council Report, titled, “Market Power and Role of the Private Sector”.

While many African countries have attractive policies for the medical industry, the report says that policies vary greatly among African countries and there is a lack of mutual recognition, which reduces the willingness of foreign-funded enterprises to invest in
Africa on a large scale.

“Establishing the AU and African regional organizations, the African Medicines Agency (AMA) and the AU technical standards certification organization as quickly as possible will be very useful and will complement renewed efforts from the Chinese side to encourage investment in local manufacturing of pharmaceutical and medical products, rather than export,” says the report.

BioNtech focus on Malaria and TB vaccines bodes well with Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM) target of prioritising endemic and outbreak-prone diseases including HIV/Aids that accounts for high number of deaths in the continent to increase Africa’s manufacturing from current 1 percent to 60 percent by 2040.

“The ambition is to leverage new technology in support of a sustainable manufacturing industry on the continent. This initiative joins others across the continent in pushing forward this vision,” said John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC.

In 2017, African Union heads of state and government committed to end AIDS, TB and malaria by 2030.

In July, the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in collaboration with the World Bank Group, Germany, and France, announced a joint investment to boost vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa.

On the cards under this partnership was a financial arrangement that would see a South African business – Aspen Pharmacare – ramp up its manufacturing capacity and produce more than 500 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by the end of 2022.

A research paper published by the Tony Blaire Institute for Global Change in April shows there are seven other African countries with various capacities, ranging from manufacturing, to fill and finish (the process of filling vials with vaccine and finishing the process of packaging the medicine for distribution), to distribution.

Senegal exports a WHO pre-qualified vaccine, through the Institut Pasteur de Dakar that produces small quantities of yellow fever vaccines while Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Ethiopia – are among countries positioned to provide fill and finish.

The Egyptian government’s vaccine manufacturer is reportedly finalizing a public-private deal with Sinovac to produce Covid-19 vaccine.

Nigeria is investing heavily in research and development with plans to leverage a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to manufacture, among others, COVID-19 and HIV, yellow fever, measles, hepatitis B vaccines.

Vaccine manufacturing in Africa, a report from UK Aid, also shows Algeria has the capacity to do substance manufacturing for rabies vaccine and distribute other imported vaccines.

South Africa, which has historically led much of Africa’s vaccine production through its public-private partnership with Biovac, has over the last five years invested in modernizing facilities and upskilling staff to ramp up manufacturing capacity, says
the paper.

South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare announced in late July that it had started releasing the first Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines created at its Gqeberha-based manufacturing site.

The supplies would be “the first COVID-19 vaccines to be produced on the African continent, by an African producer for South African and African patients. Supplies will also be made to the European Union and other offshore markets,” the South African multinational said on its website.

UK Aid estimates Africa’s vaccine market to be worth 1.3 billion dollars, with projections for it to reach a value of 2.35 billion dollars by 2030.

Two days ago, after contacting more than 700 hospitals and reaching 500 of those, LifeBank has been able to register the availability of 244 equipment owned by the private sector. And from this database, Nigeria has just under 100 ventilators confirmed available in private-owned health facilities. More than half of this number is concentrated in Lagos while the rest are found in Abuja, Ogun, Delta, Rivers and Enugu states. 

There are over 200 million people living in this country, across 36 states and 774 local government areas. 

Nigeria’s COVID-19 confirmed cases have taken a big leap since the index case was reported on February 27. It took an 11 day period to go from that index case to the second; 9 days to go from the second to the third; three days to climb from 3 cases to 12; another three days to climb from 12 to 22; and 10 days to reach its 135 case count as at March 30. 

As at the time of its 22 case count, Dr. Ola Brown of FlyingDoctors Nigeria, an air ambulance and medical emergency logistics service, said the country would need 56,320 ICU beds with ventilators in 30 days if stringent measures were not in place to stall the spread of the virus. 

Some measures have been put in place, per President Muhammadu Buhari’s last address in which a 14-day lockdown was announced, but the coast is most certainly not clear. Since that analysis based on the 22 case count, 109 new cases have been reported and the numbers are certainly rising. 

Experts say that for every reported case, there could be 10 more undetected in the community.  

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses which may cause illness in animals or humans.  In humans, several coronaviruses are known to cause respiratory infections ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The most recently discovered being the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While 80% of people recover from the infection wild mild symptoms that range from a cough to fever, around 1 out of every 6 people becomes seriously ill and develops difficulty breathing which is why ventilators are now in short supply around the world, more grossly so in countries like Central Africa Republic (three ventilators for a country of 5 million) and Nigeria.

“We can say we don’t have enough,” Minister of Health, Osagie Ehaniire said during a Presidential Task Force press briefing on Monday. 

To assist government efforts in the fight to contain the spread and cushion the effects that an ineffective healthcare sector will have if the number of cases continue this sharp climb, technology companies in Lagos are jumping in to assist in various ways.

One of this efforts, led by angel investor and President, Africa Business Angel Network, Tomi Davies, from the private sector segment will see to the likely commencement of manufacturing of more ventilators through reverse engineering by a government agency whom he couldn’t name when TechCabal spoke with him but is likely to be the  National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).

According to Davies, the agency requested for and has since received a ventilator sample which is now being reverse engineered at their labs after which a prototype will be developed. 

“Once the prototype is working then they’ll be able to give that to those with local manufacturing capability,” Davies said.

Local auto manufacturer, Innoson Motors, has said it is ready to begin manufacture of ventilators and other medical equipment the country is in dire need of at the moment.

“There are other people saying they want to import. I, personally, believe if we’ve got the capacity, the one we can do ourselves will pay us in the long term,” Davies added.

What imports may look like at this time is dicey. From Australia to the United Kingdom, even the United States with its 160,000 ventilators, countries are seeking ways to ramp up production and manufacturers are stepping in to lend their facilities and technical know-how to the process. 

A vacuum cleaner manufacturer in the UK has designed and built CoVent, and is making 15,000 pieces to support medical efforts in the country. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has come up with a cheap, open source ventilator called E-Vent and is expecting regulatory approval to make publicly available all information necessary for manufacturers to produce the equipment. Auto manufacturers Ford, Ferrari and Fiat are also working to convert some aspects of their factories towards increasing the number of ventilators available in Australia and Italy respectively. Many more such efforts are ongoing.

Ventilators are not the only medical equipment needed when dealing with severe COVID-19 cases in short supply. N95 masks which healthcare workers require when intubating patients to be put on ventilators to keep themselves safe are also in grave demand. 

And since patients can spend days or weeks being connected to these ventilators that help circulate oxygen round the bloodstream and remove carbon dioxide, without enough, the chances that patients with severe symptoms will survive become even narrower. 

With cases still in its first hundred, the questions remain how quickly Nigeria is able to push for the development of a prototype and manufacturing of these machines to make up for what is currently available, how much scale can be achieved within these circumstances and/or how able we are to develop and build alternatives like the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device which is not a ventilator but helps ICU patients keep the flow of oxygen going. 

At the press briefing on Monday, the health minister was quoted as saying  “…probably just 4% or less of the cases that you get requires a ventilator” which may not seem like a lot with 135 cases. But with a steady climb as testing improves thanks to initiatives like LifeBank’s mobile testing centers, there is no saying what these numbers will be like in another week. Or two. 

Will the country be prepared to keep those who need it the most breathing, if or when that 4% is no longer a negligible fraction of the whole?

The seven startups whose tools have been selected from a shortlist of 15 will receive US$1,000 grants, workspace, legal services and mentorship from the Ventures Platform team.

The call was open to companies solving for a range of current issues directly or indirectly resulting from the pandemic including reporting, tracing, real time tracking, remote work tools, distribution of goods and service and healthcare management. 

Over 500 applications were received, according to the Africa-focused venture firm, and those not selected to move forward in the competition will continue to receive the support of the venture firm in building out their solutions.

“We will extend support to those who didn’t make the first cut by providing AWS Credit and access to the VP team, and a community of other innovators working on COVID-19 through a slack channel,” the Ventures Platform team said.

The Lagos state government through the Lagos State Science Research and Innovation Council (LASRIC), Nigerian Economic Summit Group and Nigeria Center for Disease Control are some of the government agencies supporting the initiative.

The seven winning solutions are: 

COVID Triage by Wellvis: Wellvis’ triage platform is a simple digital assessment tool that allows anyone anywhere on the continent assess if they are at risk of contracting the virus, what they need to do if they are at low, medium or high risk and when they need to seek medical help. 

This is especially important to limit unnecessary contact and reduce how rapidly our medical facilities are overwhelmed especially with mild cases or inquiries that do not require urgent or emergency response.

According to CEO, Dr. Wale Adeosun, in the first 12 hours after the platform was launched, it was visited 20,000 times and numbers have since surpassed 100,000 site visitors from over 20 countries.

Infodemics: An initiative of Dr. Nestor Inimgba, Infodemics’ platform is both an information disseminating and collection tool. According to Inimgba, the platform will help “cater for unconfirmed cases, cases in self isolation and those who request for a COVID 19 test” through the platform and in that way provide another useful database for the NCDC in monitoring how the virus is spreading across the country.

Infodemics is also providing useful health information at this time to the most vulnerable communities using existing social hierarchical systems. With the help of USSD, traditional broadcast media, field agents and volunteers, they are helping the NCDC disseminate accurate information about the virus especially to those at risk. At a time when we are prone to being misinformed as past health crisis situations like this have shown, accurate information reaching the right demographic is crucial.

MyServiceAgent by iQube Labs: iQube Labs has developed an AI-powered tool called MyServiceAgent which can communicate with 100s to 1,000s of callers simultaneously and intelligently. Working both ways, the tool disseminates information to the callers while collecting useful data to return back to the NCDC to further improve their handling of the pandemic. 

According to the team, the system will be able to take the burden of both real and ‘false alarm’ calls off the NCDC and pass on the data to them for swift action.

They have also made the service available in major Nigerian languages and round the clock. 

CmapIT by CmapIT Software: The Cmapit software is a GIS and data visualization software that analyses and visualises geospatial data and its variables. 

More a learning tool but also an information tool to keep up to date with the numbers, the software “permits you to compare various datasets and  create a web map app in minutes” according to a member of the team. What else is all this downtime for if not to pick up some new knowledge?

COVID-19 Nigeria by Innover Technologies: COVID-19 Nigeria is an information platform seeking to collate accurate information about the virus from all authoritative sources and to translate them into other Nigerian languages as well as catchy infographics in order to reach more people.

Wella Health Driage by Wella Health: Wella Health’s triage bot is providing NCDC-approved guidelines as well as collecting user responses for the NCDC to better respond to the challenges of the pandemic. 

GloEpid by Prunedge: Prunedge develops efficiency-solving technology tools for various organisations using a range of technologies including data analytics, AI, and Internet of Things (IoT) systems and will be incorporating some of these in their product GloEpid, a monitoring and tracking tool targeted at helping the NCDC control and monitor the spread of the virus.

The tool, which is the brainchild of a not-for-profit Tech4Dev, features a Backward Contact Tracing and Identification System which will cross reference existing data from telecoms, immigration and other identity verification databases to trace and contact close associates and suspected carriers of confirmed/high cases; a GPS location detection; a multichannel notification system as well as self-assessment channels to help individuals assess their symptoms and know when to seek help.

In addition to the grant, workspace and support these companies will receive, they will be mentored by a host of business, technology and medical experts as they continue to build out these solutions and ready them for full adoption into the NCDC’s COVID-19 arsenal. The mentors include Titi Akinsanmi, Rebecca Enonchong, Dr. Ola Brown, Dr. Ifeany Nzofor who is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch, Dr. Femi Kuti, CEO, Reliance HMO, Iyin  Aboyeji, Dr. Iloba Dumebi, Consultant Urological Surgeon at the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo State among many others. 

This initiative from Ventures Platform is one of many concerted efforts by private-led companies to make up for government efforts in battling the spread of the virus. CcHub has offered funding and support to companies working on COVID-19-related projects. Hotels.ng is partnering with hotels to convert their spaces into self-isolation centers. LifeBank is compiling a database of ventilators and respirators available in the country. Investor, Tomi Davies, is driving efforts to see the production of more of these equipment now in scarce quantities across the globe.

While work towards developing a vaccine for the virus persists and healthcare ministries try to stem the rise in cases and fatalities, against all odds, from online music concerts (quite the number in the US) to remote work, life is trudging on. 

For many technology companies, as people explore and stretch more in terms of thinking about what can now be done virtually, the COVID-19 outbreak presents new business possibilities across a varied number of sectors. 

Telemedicine and primary healthcare

Unsurprisingly, healthtech companies are the most positioned to grow amidst the crisis, while supporting weak healthcare systems in Africa which are ordinarily overwhelmed and have no capacity to withstand a surge in COVID-19 cases. 

“I see people understanding the value of telemedicine being the future of healthcare at the end of it all,” says Ifeanyi Nkwonta, Business Development Executive at Tremendoc, a telemedicine platform that is, in partnership with Sterling Bank, providing free medical consultation to the bank’s customers in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. 

“I would expect the customer base to grow within this period,” Nkwonta says and with two new services, therapy and fertility consultations, the company now has a larger base to trial both. Whether they remain permanently signed onto the platform once the free subscription expires is dependent on how efficiently they serve and convince them to stay. 

“We expect that they see the value especially with the new therapy service,” Nkwonta said. 

Wellvis, another telemedicine platform which launched in 2018 has developed a digital triage tool which can be used by anyone anywhere in Africa to reduce the burden already facing some of the Disease Control Centers and have since received support from Co-Creation Hub to further expand the features of the platform.

According to CEO, Dr. Wale Adeosun, in the first 12 hours after the platform was launched, it was visited 20,000 times and numbers have surpassed 100,000 site visitors since Friday from over 20 countries. The platform asks six simple questions around body temperatures, cough, breathing difficulties and recent contacts and tells you if your risks are high, medium or low.

“All these are layered on our telemedicine solution and we hope that over the next weeks and month, we would have increased brand awareness and converted the users into long term and repeat customers,” Adeosun said.

For Dr. Femi Kuti, Director at Reliance HMO, another healthtech company which originally started out as and still operates Kangpe, its telemedicine platform, these remote medical consultation services are critical.

“For healthy young people, it (COVID-19) is really like a flu. You feel really bad for a few days but then you’ll be fine. But the real tragedy is when it infects people with what we call comorbidities,” he told TechCabal.

When people with early symptoms visit already struggling hospitals, they compound the problems of patients whose immune systems are already at risk even if they are in the hospital for other ailments. 

“If you’re someone who is sick from something else, you are better protecting yourself by using the telemedicine platform,” he adds.

On its telemedicine platform, as with the Wellvis triage tool, people can assess their symptoms and know if there is anything to be worried about, if they should remain home, or seek medical help. 

There have been concerns around health insurance and what this will look like for COVID-19 patients. According to Kuti, once a COVID-19 case is confirmed, the government is mandated to take care of the individual’s medical bills through the NCDC. 

“Testing is free. It’s paid for by the government and if an individual is diagnosed with COVID-19, that entire treatment is taken care of by the government so you don’t even need insurance to cover that at all,” he said. 

Beyond possible opportunities for business or brand growth, Kuti says what is paramount to his company at this time, is to offer the best support they can to the community via its business and through dedicated sharing of accurate medical information. 

For Helium Health, an EMR healthtech company based out of Lagos, the COVID-19 outbreak is causing a fast-track of planned features to boost its service offering especially now when accurate data/information collection and dissemination is key.

On Monday, it rolled out a telemedicine feature on its EMR platform, a video feature which will allow hospitals speak to their patients virtually, again, to reduce the contact between probable early symptom patients and immunocompromised individuals already sick in hospitals. 

“We are also launching a patient portal which has been in the works for a while,” Ifeoluwa Olokode, Head of Partnerships at Helium Health told TechCabal.

The app portal will allow patients access to their medical records and also comes with a triage feature to assess early symptoms and how to access help if need be. 

Olokode also says the company is looking to create location-specific guides to help through the period and with difficult subjects like stocking on food supplies in a country where many have to go out daily in order to feed, and power outages are a constant. 

With its digital data collection platform in use across 150 hospital facilities in the country, they are also gearing to serve as a data point for the Nigeria Center for Disease Control and every other government organisation monitoring the situation in the country. 

For LifeBank, which launched five years ago to aggregate supply and transport blood to those who need it the most and has since added oxygen to its list of medical supplies, the times have presented a new challenge and they are accepting the gauntlet positioning themselves to become one of Nigeria’s comprehensive databases for emergency medical supplies and logistics.

The company has begun curating a database of ventilators, respirators and ICU beds spaces to support COVID-19 efforts in Nigeria. As with blood and oxygen supply, the information will assist medical health facilities provide life-saving care to admitted patients with severe symptoms. 

Learning when classrooms shut down

In Lagos and South Africa, Kenya and in many other African countries where COVID-19 cases have been reported, schools across all levels have closed indefinitely. Globally, over 1 billion learners have been affected in around 124 countries. 

This presents an opportunity for digital learning platforms and tools to thrive although data costs and internet access can quickly become a hindrance to their adoption especially in such a time when the global economy is being impacted by the pandemic and job security hangs by a thread. 

“We are hoping for a Corona boost,” Sam Rich, CEO at eLimu told TechCabal, “but to be honest, we haven’t seen it yet.”

But, it might be too early to tell. Pre-university level schools in Kenya were shut down only last Wednesday and universities on Friday and despite the numbers having gone down since then, users appear to be spending longer time now on the platform. 

“We are seeing the site is more sticky, there are users that are staying on it all day,” Rich said. 

eLimu plans to subsidise its rates as well as provide some free content within this period where job security hangs on a balance and affording data can quickly become luxury. 

“The good news is that Safaricom is zero rating some traffic, and so we want to talk to them and see if they will do the same for us,” Rich says.

For platforms like uLesson which launched its app recently and consuming content isn’t completely dependent on internet availability, the opportunities are immense now more than ever. 

Like eLimu, uLesson has sought ways to subsidise its pricing, cutting it by almost 60% and will now make the services available to learners across the continent and African diaspora in North America and Europe.

Grocery delivery and logistics

Succor.ng launched last year as a marketplace store congregating supermarts, groceries and restaurants. The platform allows people shop for fresh foods from open air markets around Lagos from tubers of yam to baskets of tomatoes. With its in-app logistics service, riders, operating using the ride-hailing business model, pick up the orders from vendors or in-house errands runners and deliver to the customers where they are. 

With social activities almost at a stand-still in some countries and with Lagos at the edge of a halt, services like this will potentially see an increase in customers and marketplace vendors as well. Already, a lot of restaurants and coffee houses in Lagos are now offering order pickups or off site deliveries as they seek to keep to social distancing injunctions by national health agencies.

Abiodun Fasakin, Senior Executive, Operations at Succor says there are now over 1,000 marketplace vendors on their platform and orders have grown by about 42% since the COVID-19 restrictions.

In South Africa, ecommerce grocery and alcohol retail companies are battling with a spike in orders since President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster lasting for three months if not extended or cancelled on March 15. South Africa’s COVID-19 cases have risen rapidly in the past weeks to 402.

Grocery delivery startup, OneCart, has recorded a 300% jump in order volumes as has Daily Dish, a fresh food delivery startup (150% jump in the week of March 16 over the previous week). 

In spite of these growth and innovation opportunities, projected economic slowdown post-COVID-19 outbreak is still unfolding and will have an impact across various sectors in the coming months. A McKinsey & Company report projects that GDP growth will slow down to 3.18% in 2020 from 3.97% in sub-Saharan Africa with dependencies on China’s recovery and growth rate once the outbreak ebbs. In its worst case scenario projection, China’s GDP growth will slow from 5.99% to 3.82% in 2020.

Slowed down economic growth in turn will reduce purchasing power especially as unemployment is projected to rise sharply as organisation try to stabilise. Some sectors will be worst hit more than others, no doubt, but the opportunities remain to stretch, innovate, test out new products, services and rethink what is possible with the immense wealth of digital.