These are the tech-related news that you have missed over the previous week.

• Google honours Rashidi Yekini with a Google Doodle for his posthumous birthday
• IROKOtv denies shutting down as it reduces, announces migration plans
• IHS Towers donates 1 billion to Bosun Tijani’s 3MTT program
• Mobile Money users revert to cash payments to avoid high charges fee
• Nigerian Startup wins top price at tech event

Google honours Rashidi Yekini with a Google Doodle for his posthumous birthday

In honour of the late Rashidi Yekini, an iconic Super Eagles football player, Google Doodle has used his image to mark his 60th posthumous birthday.

The Nigerian footballer was born in October 1963 in Kaduna, Nigeria. Rashidi began playing football in the early 1980s, where he played for UNTL Kaduna between 1981 and 1982. His position was a Forward, and during his professional career, he scored over 500 goals, making him the all-time highest goalscorer in Nigeria.

“Today’s Doodle celebrates iconic Nigerian footballer Rashidi Yekini, an accomplished forward nicknamed the “Goalsfather” for his ability to sneak shots by the keeper,” Google said.

Rashidi Yekini died in May 2012 due to a protracted illness.

IROKOtv denies shutting down as it reduces, announces migration plans

Twenty-year-old Nigerian streaming platform IROKOtv has denied shutting down rumours after months of going dark without prior information to its users.

IROKOtv is one of Africa’s leading streaming platforms; recently, it was taken off Apple and Android app stores, along with its website and social media pages going offline.

The CEO of IROKOtv, Jason Njoku, debunked the rumours of his platform shutting down but announced that the company was going through internal changes, which was why it went offline.

“We’ve been migrating platforms for the last few weeks, so the site has been in maintenance mode,” he said.

He stated that the migration was near completion, and IROKOtv would soon be accessible to Smart TVs across African countries by the end of the year.  

IHS Towers donates ₦1 billion to Bosun Tijani’s 3MTT program

Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, revealed a collaboration with IHS Towers, which has promised to donate ₦1 billion towards the creation of the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) Learning Community.

This partnership is a core part of the newly introduced 3MTT program and is expected to create learning communities across Nigeria.

One of the primary features of this collaboration is IHS Towers’ vow to fund the wage fees of 37 learning community managers for the next three years.

“Many states will have various learning communities which will be self-organising.” the minister said.

Mobile Money users revert to cash payments to avoid high charges fee

Due to governments increasing the fee rates for mobile money services, Kenyans and Tanzanians have decided to boycott mobile money and resume cash payments to avoid paying these charges.

In 2021, the Tanzania government introduced a new levy between TZS10 ($0.004) and TZS10,000 ($4) on mobile money transactions to fund the country’s developmental projects.

The people complained about the rules, which saw the government reduce the fees to between TZS10 and TZS4,000 ($1.6), a new levy enforced in 2022.

Nigerian Startup wins top price at tech event

Nigerian startup GIFTY AI came first place at the GITEX2023 event.

The startup came first in the SuperNova Challenge by North Star at the tech event.

GIFTY AI offers an AI-powered sales growth assistant for e-commerce industries. The AI helps automate the marketing and sales activities of these e-commerce businesses.

The CEO of GIFTY AI, Victor D. Akpan shared his joy in a statement.

“Representing Africa in the Middle East was a tough one for me, but I guess I followed my star from Africa to Expand North Star, Dubai. We are building  gifty.com.ng to inform the world that Africa is taking over!”