Jay-Z’s music streaming service, TIDAL has made its foray into the African market

Subscription-based music streaming service, TIDAL owned by American music rapper, Jay-Z has made its foray into the African market through a partnership with Africa’s leading telecommunications operator, MTN.

The music streaming service, which has launched in Uganda, provides MTN Uganda over 10 million subscribers a variety of options for a data-inclusive TIDAL membership as part of their mobile plan to gain access to exclusive high-quality streaming music, videos, concerts, livestreams and original content available on TIDAL.

According to Lior Tibon, COO of TIDAL,

“Africa is a continent that has long been an inspiration for music heard around the world and TIDAL is excited to highlight the vibrant musicians on our platform. TIDAL is also thrilled to bring a new wave of digital music to Uganda as part of this collaboration.”

The partnership, which is expected to be rolled out in other MTN operations across Africa, comes with an array of membership options where customers can tap into one, three, seven and 30-day memberships, all of which include data and a free 30-day trial for all first-time members.

MTN customers in Uganda will be able to subscribe to TIDAL using MTN Mobile Money and can sign up to any subscription package by dialling *165*66# via their mobile phones.

TIDAL is available in more than 52 countries, and boasts over 57 million songs and more than 233,000 high quality videos.

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NimCure App — digital tool for monitoring patient treatments

The NimCure app is a digital patient care tool to promote adherence to treatment by TB patients.

Using the NimCure app, patients are paired with caregivers who support and manage treatment remotely. The app innovates around the current method of treatment, Direct Observe Therapy (DOT) by the use of vDOT (video Direct Observe Therapy).

With NimCure, patients are able to record short videos to log their daily dosage. Other features of the app include enabling patients to track treatment progress, receive key notifications and reminders as well as contact their caregivers. Caregivers, through the NimCure Care app, are able to monitor patient treatment including assessing video submissions, manage patient treatment progress and contact them directly.

The app was developed by Nigeria’s Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB) in partnership with the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR).

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uMashesha, the cab-hailing app that doubles as a delivery service

uMashesha, a cab-hailing app based out of South Africa wants to be both a ride-hailing service during peak periods and a courier delivery service during off-peak hours.

Founded in 2017 by Christine Mesolo, the first female to own a ride hailing company in South Africa, with over 20 years of experience in the transport industry, the app claims to have completed over 1000 trips in and around Pretoria, East London, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Polokwane, and Durban.

With bootstrapped investments of more than R3 million (over $200,000) and a short-term loan of R2.5 million (about $175,000) from a business partner, Mesolo believes that her offering stands out from the “mushrooming” number of such start-ups in South Africa because the company “values and respects” its drivers and also points out that the start-up helps its drivers with paying traffic fines.

According to Mesolo, the start-up which currently employs 30 full-time operational staff, 44 interns, has 1,500 drivers who are charged a commission of 14.5% on their earnings.

“It does not make business sense that we take a big chunk from their takings, but they have to pay for all other services like data, petrol, car service and liability insurances,” says Christine Mesolo.

Its vehicles are fitted with car tracking systems, panic buttons and cameras, both inside and outside the cars. The company says adds that in case of an accident, its drivers and riders automatically qualify for emergency air medical evacuation, hospital cash back cover, medical expenses cover, trauma counselling, mobility cover as well as accident funeral cover all up to R7500 ($522) per month.

In addition to courier deliveries, the company plans to launch other services like grocery deliveries in the future as well as offer more locations across South Africa.

The app is available for download on the Google Play and Apple’s AppStore.

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