Image: Nasa The design for Africa2Moon, the African radio telescope selected to fly to the lunar south pole aboard China’s Chang’e-8 mission in 2029, has been published in Nature Astronomy. The paper sets out how the instrument is meant to work – and the mechanism is stranger than the mission summary suggested. The three Bounced…
Drought-resistant and locally sourced, they are sustainable alternatives to wheat and the market for them is growing. As health-conscious consumers increasingly look beyond wheat, Africa’s indigenous crops are finding new commercial value. Growing demand for gluten-free foods is encouraging bakeries, researchers and food manufacturers to transform traditional staples such as cassava, millet, sorghum and teff…
The communications department has told parliament that no date has been set for South Africa’s analogue television switch-off, and that it is concerned communities may believe otherwise. Director-general Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani told the portfolio committee on communications & digital technologies on Friday, 14 August, that a date would be considered only after engagements with stakeholders had…
I have spent 28 years in African telecommunications watching operators compete for customers. The playbook has been consistent: build the network, own the spectrum and control the customer. The assumption underneath all of it is that the company with the infrastructure wins. Capitec is about to test that assumption in the fixed broadband market, and…
Partner Content: Africa’s Business Heroes The Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) Prize Competition, a philanthropic initiative of Alibaba Philanthropy, has announced the 20 entrepreneurs who will advance to its 2026 Semi-Final, taking place in Nairobi, Kenya, on 21–22 August. The Top 20 were selected from an expanded Top 100 cohort drawn from more than 24,000 applications…
Current geopolitical tensions could be catastrophic for climate action, especially Africa’s renewable energy transition. Climate action, particularly the transition to renewables and low-carbon energy, is caught in the crossfire of the United States (US)-China geopolitical rivalry. This new cold war could accelerate global warming, with Africa potentially a victim – living out the old proverb,…
Africa grows plenty of cotton. It just does not make much of it into clothes. A new $5 billion plan aims to change that, turning a scattered collection of cotton producers into a regional textile industry. The road out of Koudougou in Burkina Faso is lined with cotton fields that stretch toward the horizon, broken only by…
In the period that followed decolonisation, Africa’s development landscape continued to be shaped by Western partnerships. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, this Western-facing architecture took the form of policy conditionality, governance agendas and institutional reform attached to rotating credit agreements. This approach rested, at least in part, on a simple reality: countries in…
For centuries, useful metals have been developed by starting with one core element and adding small amounts of other elements. Steel, for example, is composed primarily of iron; carbon is added in varied amounts to produce different grades of steel. Bronze is made up of copper and tin. These mixtures are known as alloys. Africa…
Rwandan entrepreneur David Kamugundu has advanced to the top 20 of Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) 2026, securing Rwanda place in the next stage of one of Africa leading entrepreneurship competitions. Kamugundu, a medical doctor who founded digital health company eFiche Ltd, is among the entrepreneurs selected from more than 24,000 applications submitted across all 54…
