technology Tag

Posted on February 4, 2019
In Uncategorized

The year 2019 will be  a busy and exciting year, as key new technologies begin finding their way into real, useful applications. The smartphone will still be our central tech device by the end of next year, but as augmented reality and wearables progress, we’ll sense more and more that a new paradigm in personal computing is around the corner. That will be helped along by enabling technologies such as 5G networks, which will be stretching far and wide by the end of 2020. And, artificial intelligence will become infused in all kinds of products, allowing gadgets and services to subtly begin to anticipate our wants. The smartphone will still be our central tech device by the end of next year, but as augmented reality and wearables progress, we’ll sense more and more that a new paradigm in personal computing is around the corner. Technologies like self-driving vehicles and robot assistants are under development. Soon, these and the other exciting technologies described below will go mainstream, changing the world in the process: 1) Voice Assistants: Thanks to the power of artificial intelligence (AI), voice assistants will grow increasingly helpful. Voice assistants are making a significant impact in markets across the globe, and some observers expect that in the future we will communicate with technology through voice rather than text. 2) Augmented and Virtual reality: Advances in Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR), all of which can be summarized in R+, will continue to be at the forefront of attention during 2019 with some fascinating new practical applications for industries 3) Blockchain Technology:  In 2019, to the delight of organizations, Blockchain is going to bring the first enterprise...

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Posted on November 23, 2018
In Uncategorized

As customers’ financial behaviors evolve to include digital banking and financial technologies—like peer-to-peer payment, virtual currency, mobile payments and mobile wallets—tokenization is one of the most important new technologies merchants can leverage to stand in the way of cybercriminal access to customer payment information. What is Tokenization? It is recommended that consumers use a paper shredder to destroy bank account statements, checkbook registers, tax forms, payment receipts and similar documents that include sensitive data because any account number reflected on the document that wasn’t destroyed beyond recognition could be used fraudulently. Similarly, when a shopper buys something online, they are required to divulge confidential and sensitive information, such as their address and ATM card info. Giving out this information online is risky since it may be stolen and used fraudulently. Much like a paper shredder renders account information meaningless so that it’s made nearly impossible to re-assemble, repurpose or identify, the same theory applies to tokenization—through technology. Basically, tokenization is the process of replacing sensitive data with unique identification symbols that capture all the vital information about the data without compromising its security. The algorithmically generated number used to replace the sensitive data is called a token. How It Works Typical consumer credit/debit (ATM) cards come with names, 16-digit personal account numbers (PANs), expiration dates and security codes — any of which can be "tokenized." When a merchant swipes a customer's credit card, the PAN is automatically replaced with a randomly generated alphanumeric ID (“token”). The original PAN never enters the merchant's payment system; only the token ID does. The merchant can use this special token ID to keep records of the customer....

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Posted on September 15, 2018
In CAS Blog, Tech, Uncategorized

By 2030 one in five people will be African. Africa will account for more than half (54%) of the 2.4 billion global population growth in coming decades. The United Nations predicts that between 2015 and 2050, Africa will add 1.3 billion people, more than doubling its current population of 1.2 billion. Combine the continent’s soaring population with technology, improvements in infrastructure, health and education, and Africa could be the next century’s economic growth powerhouse. Africa has had a sporadic growth in Technology through the development from spears and arrows from trees, to the discovery of machines and software to making life better. Even in this evolution of Africa in Science and Technology, research still shows that Africa portrays a gap in Technology compared to the rest of the technology inclined world, due to the myopia on the part of its Government to recognize the value and need for science and technology in its country’s development. As Africa transitions from the margins to the mainstream of the global economy, technology is playing an increasingly significant role. According to the IMF’s 2014 World Economic Outlook report, of the ten fastest growing economies in the world, six will be from Africa. Past Technological Achievements Despite suffering through the era of horrific system of slavery, countless contributions to the fields of science and technology was made by early Africans. The first evidence of tools used by African ancestors is interred in valleys across Sub-Saharan Africa. There is no doubt that tech and innovation can play a big role in making some countries richer than others. About half the differences in GDP per person between countries are due...

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Posted on September 1, 2018
In CAS Blog, Uncategorized

Although the term “blockchain” has really grown in popular imagination in the last few years, the technology itself is just 10 years old, given that it was first conceptualized in 2008. Blockchain is the basis of the Bitcoin protocol. (see here for our post on the ABC of blockchain). Interestingly, although blockchain is one of the most discussed topics in recent times, a vast amount of people within the industries that stand to benefit most from blockchain are also completely uninformed about it. This is amazing since blockchain technology has the potential to completely revolutionize industries like healthcare and insurance. Another industry that blockchain stands to benefit enormously is finance. This incredible new technology stands to benefit the industry by saving them enormous amounts of money by streamlining their processes. Why Blockchain in Financial Services? Many of the industry’s processes are overdue for an upgrade or in some cases complete replacement to withstand new volumes, hacks and security threats. Blockchain is far more impregnable and recoverable as no centralised version of this information exists.   Transfers facilitated by central authorities such as banks have not changed in the last 150 years! An international transfer can still take as long as five days to settle, entailing risks like credit risk, exchange rate risk etc., and the industry needs to reduce heavy transaction fees and transaction times. Blockchain can make these transfers visible securely immediately, which other technology cannot.   In the future, people are going to make a lot of smaller payments. That’s going to increase economic activity. That, in principle, makes a larger pie with lower fees, higher volumes and a demand for...

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Posted on August 11, 2018
In Tech

Necessity is the mother of invention, and in Africa it has been the mother of innovation. While the continent is vastly different, the level of innovation has been interesting to watch, largely fuelled by the equalizing nature of technology and mobile telephony. Most discussions of the origins of Africa’s tech movement circle back to Kenya in 2007, when Kenyan telecom Safaricom launched the M-PESA mobile money product. M-PESA allows people to store money on mobile accounts and make simple transfers via SMS messaging — you don't even need a smartphone to use it. MPESA (known popularly as mobile money) is an innovative technology which allows people to send money and conduct other financial transactions using their mobile phones. M-PESA has grown from Kenya and is now being replicated in many countries such as India, Afghanistan,Egypt, Ghana, and even countries in Eastern Europe, among others. Groups that typically have limited access to formal financial services have benefited from the financial products offered through M-Pesa. Africans are more Mobile, and Mobile is the Future The proliferation of mobile phone networks has transformed communications in sub-Saharan Africa. It has also allowed Africans to skip the landline stage of development and jump right to the digital age." Essentially, Africa leaped over the PC era and landed directly in the mobile revolution. Which is why we are better at mobile money that others. The rise of M-PESA is largely due the dominance of mobile on the continent. Because of M-PESA, Kenya is the leading e-commerce capital of the world. This one app moves an entire third of the Kenyan GDP among its 15 million, mostly rural,...

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