UNICEF and Liquid Intelligent Technologies launch a partnership to help Giga bridge the digital divide in Africa

UNICEF and Liquid Intelligent Technologies, a business of Cassava Technologies, a pan-African technology group, announced a partnership in support of Giga’s work to connect every school to the Internet and every young person to information, opportunity, and choice.

Liquid will share anonymized data to support Giga’s work to map the location and connectivity status of schools in Africa. Liquid will also share information with Giga about schools’ proximity to telecoms infrastructure and will help develop a connectivity monitoring platform. The resulting information will provide a basis for better-targeted investment to connect schools, including in hard-to-reach areas.

The partnership will initially focus on Kenya but will aim to incorporate other Liquid markets over time, including South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Rwanda.

“This partnership with Liquid will allow our Giga team to gain a deeper understanding of the connectivity landscape in Kenya and across Africa,” said Thomas Davin, Director, Office of Innovation at UNICEF. “That knowledge will help UNICEF to get more schools online, giving children access to the opportunities they need to flourish.”

Ben Roberts, Group Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Liquid Intelligent Technologies, said, “The Giga Initiative from UNICEF and ITU echoes Liquid’s sentiment of creating a digitally resilient economy in Kenya and Africa at large. There is no better place to start than our schools that shape the minds of our children, thereby securing our future. Through our expertise in the digital and telecom landscape, we will support UNICEF in its endeavour to map school connectivity data across Kenya by providing real-time figures to measure impact. This initiative also reiterates the vision of our parent company – Cassava Technologies, of creating a digitally connected continent that leaves no African behind.”

Around half of the world’s population still has no meaningful access to the Internet. UNICEF and Liquid are committed to addressing this digital divide, which has widened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Giga has already mapped over 1 million schools and their connectivity around the world and has connected over 3,000 schools.

Liquid has connected 4,000 schools to internet across Africa. The company aspires to continue empowering schools with digital technology and has mapped 150,000 schools through the continent. 

Giga is part of UNICEF’s broader Reimagine Education initiative, the UN Secretary General’s Common Agenda and Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, and ITU’s Partner2 Connect Coalition. It has the potential to transform efforts to narrow the digital divide, providing a connectivity layer on which digital empowerment initiatives can build.

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Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Africa Legal launch online courses on legal tech

Liquid Intelligent Technologies through its innovation and partnerships arm Liquid Labs, has partnered with Africa Legal, an organisation that connects legal professionals across the African continent to launch three online courses on legal technology. 

The courses are targeted at supporting career development amongst students, budding entrepreneurs, and lawyers.

Liquid Labs aspires to make relevant tech training programmes accessible to students and professionals to bridge the affordability and digital divide, the main deterrents to increased access. The courses will offer targeted training for lawyers and the business community to enable working people to upskill and embrace the opportunities of the digital world.

According to Ben Roberts, the Group Chief Technology, and Innovation Officer at Liquid Intelligent Technologies, “New technologies are challenging the way Africans do things in their everyday lives. For instance, innovations like blockchain deliver smart contracts using digital tech platforms. The advancement of such innovation means that the fourth industrial revolution will create challenges and opportunities at the intersection of law and tech. ‘’

‘’We’ve partnered with Africa Legal on these courses to better equip lawyers through technology, and support technologists to engage with the law. Our aim is to empower and encourage professionals and students in both sectors and to help them leverage these opportunities.” he says. 

The courses on offer are Leveraging off Legal Technology to Grow Your Firm that encourages students to conduct their business in a way that leverages the inherent benefits of legal technology, Change Management for Lawyers that provides the learner with critical change management perspectives relevant to any area of development within their business and Fundamentals of Business Law for Entrepreneurs. This course is designed for emerging entrepreneurs. It provides the platform of legal knowledge required to begin to grow a business from initial start-up to becoming investment ready and will share some insight into what to look for when partnering with a law firm that will be a valuable ally in growing your business.

Africa Legal’s Chief Executive, Scott Cowan, said he was delighted by the partnership which was in line with the platform’s vision of building networks, reinforcing pan-African relationships in the legal community, and building capacity.

“This is just the beginning of an exciting journey and we look forward to offering so much more to our Africa Legal community by way of news, job opportunities and education,” he said.

The courses have been formulated with the vision to augment digital transformation across the continent and provide the right know-how needed for budding entrepreneurs to successfully and efficiently operate in their businesses. These courses from Liquid Labs and Africa Legal will deliver practical knowledge and understanding that will focus on developing critical-thinking skills for students by presenting real-life scenarios, conflicts and solutions in order for them to master the lawyer-based thinking approach in life and their professional paths ahead.

The courses will launch on 4 November 2021. Interested students can now pre-register here.

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