NovoTech Africa · SN
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A few weeks before the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, Senegal is also preparing on another front: cybersecurity. Since 28 September, a series of exercises has been testing the country’s ability to detect, manage and coordinate a response to a cyber crisis.
AnalysisAuthorised in November 2025, launched in February and billed as a pillar of the state’s digital strategy, Starlink had its licence suspended on 7 September after a legal challenge by Orange Sonatel. The story of a showdown that goes well beyond satellite internet.
GuideInternet shutdowns, public Wi-Fi, remote work: the VPN has become an everyday tool, in Senegal and elsewhere. But a bad choice is costly, and a glitch does not always justify switching providers. Our guide, with no brand to sell.
Dossier-TekPaying for a subscription, a plane ticket or a purchase on a foreign website without a bank account: that is the promise of virtual cards linked to mobile money. Wave has launched its own with Visa and Ecobank in Senegal. How they work, the competitors, the limits and what is at stake: our Dossier-Tek.
The third edition of this pan-African programme brought together young people from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Zambia, Senegal, Ethiopia and Mozambique. The final took place on 19 September in Abidjan.
ReportA hundred electric taxis delivered in Dakar, a 1,000-vehicle programme financed by leasing, and millions of battery swaps at Spiro. In Africa, the electric car is arriving first through the people who drive all day.
AnalysisThe first ECOWAS biometric cards expire in October 2026. The deadline has been known since 2016, but the state is preparing an extension whose length and beneficiaries have not been set, after a cyberattack that halted production.
AnalysisA pilot country in a Smart Africa programme alongside Kenya and Lesotho, Senegal has approved its national plan for making use of data. The goal: move from scattered, unused data to concrete services, notably through AI.
Senegal’s Social Security Fund pays several benefits directly into the Wave accounts of beneficiaries who request it. Here is which ones, and how to sign up.
The digital minister, Samba Diouf, met Wave’s teams on 10 September. Transport, health, the Treasury: the goal is to pay for and collect more public services through mobile money.
Dossier-TekBanking, agriculture, customer service, local languages: AI is already at work in the continent’s companies. But between the announcements and the results, the gap remains wide. Figures, concrete examples and obstacles: our Dossier-Tek on what is really changing, and what is still holding things back.
ReportAfter GaindeSat-1A in 2024, Senegalese engineers are assembling GaindeSat-1B, a nanosatellite for environmental observation. The next ones are to be built near Dakar.
With Eutelsat, Sonatel has offered satellite internet since December at 30,000 CFA francs a month for households. The operator is also announcing a million more fibre connections by 2028.