It comes right at the time when the company is expanding its service offering to support business operations. Through the platform, merchants can offer instant payment terms to their customers through a frictionless B2C-like “Buy Now Pay Later” checkout experience. 

The solution can be integrated easily via APIs into existing e-commerce platforms and marketplaces.

Shamim Nabuuma Kaliisa, a co-founder and shareholder in the company, says that the B2B merchants that use Chil Food Center will now be able to sell more by offering better payment terms to their business customers. 

“Our Buy Now, Pay Later solution eliminates all the burden and risk associated with offering payment terms online by letting B2B merchants instantly offer credit terms at checkout even if the customer is buying from them for the first time,” Nabuuma says.

Merchants using CHIL Food Center will also see an increase in their revenue and customer satisfaction. Nabuuma says the platform is able to protect them against the risks of non-payment, so they are always sure to get paid no matter what. 

What next?

Currently, the Food Center has over 300 merchants making use of the Buy Now Pay Later solution daily, and thousands of buyers transacting on the platform.

The proceeds of the pre-seed funding will be used towards further developing its digital credit technology and extend its services across Africa, Europe and the Middle East, supporting the growth of the B2B commerce space.

The company plans to recruit more staff for its Lille and Dubai offices and is on the verge of raising $15M in seed round.

What the investors had to say

“We understand that trade credit is critical to supply chains, and Solerchil Technologies is solving this problem. That is why we are happy to be part of this and hope to lead even more rounds,”

says Richard Scott Johnson, a partner investor at Sufishent LLC

The second edition of the e-Government Excellence Awards was held under the theme, “Bold digital Government, embracing disruptive technologies” — to recognize Government Agencies, Private Companies, and Technology Journalists that have played a remarkable role in availing e-Services to the public.

The awards were grouped into seven (7) categories; CIO of the Year, Agency of the Year, e-Service of the Year, Citizen’s Choice of the Year, BPO/ITES Company of the Year, Private Sector Company of the Year, and ICT Journalist of the Year.

The ICT Journalist of the Year award was introduced this year to acknowledge the role the members of the press have played as advocates for change in Uganda’s digital journey.

“This year, we shall award a Press and Media individual or company that has contributed significantly to quality, in-depth awareness on e-government in Uganda,” NITA and its partners said in a statement.

The ICT Journalist of the Year, 2021 nominees were Christine Kasemiire, Edward Kayiwa, Henry Okurut, Ismail Musa Ladu, John Serwaniko, Douglas Albert Kikonyogo, Lydia Nabakooza, Mark Wadulo, Nathan Ernest Olupot, and Paul Murungi. Olupot emerged as the overall winner with the majority votes. He didn’t make it to the Award Gala that was held at the Kampala Serena Hotel and his award was accepted on his behalf by Rogers Gad.

Olupot wouldn’t be reached for comment at that time, but took his LinkedIn and wrote;

“I am extremely honored to be receiving such an important award, the ICT Journalist of the Year 2021 from NITA Uganda and its partners. I am earnestly grateful for the recognition I have received for my work, because I am very sure that every other nominee for this award was as capable if not more, of winning this award.

Winning this award would not have been possible without the inspiration I have received from my seniors, my colleagues, and my fellow tech journalists for whom I have the deepest respect, and from whom I have derived the strength to challenge myself and perform better at each stage.

I sincerely thank each one of you, Albert Mucunguzi, Owino Solutions, Douglas Albert Kikonyogo, Humphrey Mpairwe, Julius Wasjja, Pius, Enywaru, Shillah Arinatiwe, Joshua Twinamasiko, Nowamani Davis Donman, Watson Atwine, to mention a few for helping me reach a stage where I can proudly hold up this award as a mark of my achievement.

I will finalize by thanking all those that voted for me, I also promise to get better at my work so that you can see me win more awards.

Thank you, and what a great way to end 2021.” – Concluded Nathan

Olupot has worked with PC Tech Magazine since 2015 covering/writing tech news in Uganda and across Africa -submitting over 2,500+ articles for the publisher.

PC Tech Magazine was founded in 2010 and to date it happens to be one of the biggest and most well-known technology news websites in Uganda and across Africa.

The Academy was a result of a pledge offered by Huawei to H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni during his visit to China, Huawei pledged to train over 1000 Uganda ICT talents through its ICT Academy at no cost for students.

Since its launch, the Huawei ICT Academy has attracted thousands of enthusiasts and students with multiple accreditation points mounted at Uganda’s top Universities.

Initially, Huawei signed an MOU with Makerere University as the center of the ICT Academy, before seven more Universities joined the race to host regional Academies.

Among the approved Universities, Makerere University Business School (MUBS), St Martyrs Nkozi, Kabale University, Soroti University, Muni University and Mbarara University of Science and Technology endorsed the Huawei ICT Academy certification path with a pool of over 800 students trained as Proffessionals.

Annually, Top Talent students who excel in the Academy’s competitive professional courses tailored to prepare them for the job market, stand a chance to compete in the global Academy competitions for an all expenses paid trip to China, and on a lucky patch, win Internship opportunities in Huawei Uganda’s Enterprise and customer Technical divisions.

Even with the Current COVID19 Pandemic, the Academy continues to certify students online with over 200 students currently undertaking different certification paths. But just like Student Success stories, Huawei Academy Instructors continue celebrate new heights. 

Among the top Instructors in Uganda, Mr. Olin John Peter from Makerere University is a Huawei ICT Academy Instructor who has benefited from not only being an academy Instructor/Teacher, But also Improved his status as a key contributor in Uganda’s Technology ecosystem

According to Olin, his journey with the Huawei ICT Academy flips back to 2018 when he joined a Bootcamp hosted at Makerere University where he won an Invitation to TTT (training designed for prospective instructors of Huawei ICT Academies).

With prior experience, training, and practice of one vendor, sometimes the cross to another vendor is a steep one, mainly considering the change in implementation, platform, and command structure. I, with some other extremely committed intelligent people managed to make it through the challenge and became Uganda’s first Huawei Certified Academy Instructors (HCAI Routing and Switching). – Olin Said

Olin Peter

By emerging as one of Uganda’s first ever Huawei Certified Academy Instructors, Olin as a certified tutor embarked on a journey of unprecedented learning and training of Students at the Makerere Huawei Academy to mentor skill filled, practice oriented, and creative minds ready to join the real-world Technology ecosystem.

Through various hands-on simulator, and cloud-based trainings in Network Engineering, Cloud Technologies, Cyber Security, among others. The Huawei ICT Academy programs empower students with top notch ICT skills to leverage the high demand of IT Professionals in Uganda’s workforce sphere.

As a certified Instructor, 70% of Olin’s all-time academy students are currently certified as Huawei routing and Switching associates. A Majority of these also work in Huawei Uganda’s technical departments putting learnt skills to immediate enterprise, service provider and technical use.

 Personally, I was fortunate to take more than 100 students, so far, through these trainings, of which more than 70% successfully passed. Most of these start as interns, who are after a short period of time awarded contracts to work with Huawei or one of the various Huawei Partner Companies in Uganda. These include MTN, Airtel, and some special tech sensitive projects of the country

By garnering exposure as Interns with some of Uganda’s top Technology brands, excelling students get to know and be part of the technical architecture, design, implementation and maintenance of ICT systems. 

With Instructor level trainings capped at expert level, Olin has embarked on expanding his academy involvement by Upgrading from the base Instructor level to Professional, and currently planning to upgrade to expert level certification as he confirmed:

With the Huawei ICT Academy, learning never stops, and opportunities never end. I was able to up my R & S Certification to Professional Level, by successfully self-preparing for HCIP’s 3 examinations, which I sat and passed successfully.  What’s more, I successfully passed the first and most essential exam to the Expert level Certification in Routing and Switching (HCIE R&S), and now left with Lab and Interview exams, which I will take on this year. – Olin Added

Furthermore, as a run-to place for equipping ICT students with top notch skills, guidance, Internship offers and Technology centric jobs.

The Huawei ICT Academy continues to groom both students and Instructors through its global academy competitions where International University scholarships, grand prizes including a USD 30,000 take home for the overall global winner are offered.

Likely, Top 11 participants at the national stage and best Instructors receive numerous rewards from the competition, making the Huawei ICT Academy a must-enroll for young Technology enthusiasts in Uganda, with several Universities currently offering the academy’s top courses and resources. 

Today, the telco has promoted one of its longest-serving employees Ms. Juliet Nsubuga who joined the company 16 years ago. Having risen through various ranks, Juliet has now joined the four women force that makes up MTN’s top-line leadership.

As the new General Manager Wholesale and Carrier Services, Ms. Nsubuga will manage telecom to telecom partnerships as well as infrastructure services to other telecommunication providers.

Commonly, her role will be tamed to ensuring breathing partnerships with other telcos like Airtel, Africell, Lyca, UTL, Smile, among others, to facilitate a smooth user experience for the telco’s customers.

Additionally, her obligation will be to ensure that the telco’s infrastructure is right, services are great, and channels of delivery are robust to serve the customers directly or indirectly.

With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience, Ms. Nsubuga is an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM-UK), holds a Master’s degree in Economic Policy and Planning and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Makerere University Kampala.

Her previous roles at MTN Uganda include: Senior Manager Sales Operations, Senior Manager Business Sales, and Manager Government Sales. 

On the telco’s Wall of fame, Ms. Nsubuga was part of the team that initiated and deployed electronic airtime distribution that replaced physical scratch cards. Through the project, electronic airtime distribution was easily adopted to by customers when Government through UCC banned the use of Scratch Cards to load airtime.

Historically, Ms. Nsubuga started her career in Sales and Marketing from different management and executive positions in the Petroleum, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), and Telecommunication industries for Global and Multinational organizations prior to joining MTN Uganda. 

Progressively, her legacy is tamed to maximum footfall and revenue for the brands she has worked for. Hence, her career change at MTN Uganda won’t only benefit the telco, but also attract better customer value.

With the Makerere University Vice-Chancellor prof Barnabus Nawangwe bracing the struggle that shaped from just an online trend to a physical one-off with the student who not only met the VC, but even more inspiring personalities he had never dreamt to meet ever before. Suubi’s past shame is now his sound of victory.

From simply trending to becoming a great talk of the online community to winning an online fundraiser. Suubi’s life is destined to change for good in a struggle that was had one of the most respected Digital marketeers in Uganda Mathias Ssemanda boiling up the mix.

How Suubi became popular

The Makerere student shined out of being a Meme to a superstar in less than 48 hours, this is due to the fact that he was seen carrying a metallic suitcase around the Elite campus in Kampala. His photo was shared on social media as the VC looked out for the student and his popularity struck up.

From TV Interviews to online pledges, to one on one visits, Suubi shared his sad story of how he performed well at A-level, qualified for the annual Gov’t scholarship for university students, but denied his favorite Engineering course, Suubi got a total of 17 points as his UNEB A-level results.

• Mathematics – A
• Physics – C
• Economics – B
• Sub ICT – D1
• General Paper – C5

According to Mathias in a Tweet, he invited Suubi to his office who popped up with a TECNO feature phone that functions no way closer to the MTN Kamunye, but mainly possed glowing passion for his new education levels.

With his analog lifestyle, the Twitter community (UOT) rose up to help Suubi who since then has never lost online mentions with Smartphone pledges yet to be fulfilled by several good samaritans.

How Social media has changed Suubi’s life

From the time Suubi’s picture surfaced online to the time Smartphone pledges popped up online to financial pledges by popular icons like Allan Kassuja (celebrated media personality) stepped in to extend support to the student. The student’s moments of truth have always shined opportunities like never before.

The Makerere Academic registrar’s office decided to propose a change of course for Suubi who had dreams of being an Engineer by giving him of eligible courses he can be granted in exchange for his current course that was set against his will. Below is a list of courses he was granted to choose from.

• Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
• Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering
• Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering

As if a Course switch wasn’t been enough for Suubi, the Makerere student expects financial support from role models like Cedric, Prof Nawangwe, Kasujja among others who promised to support the new Urban entrant with whatever material that may help him progress to the next level of life.

All in all, Social Media has always been seen as a tool of gossip by authorities, but with Suubi, the UOT community has saved his life and made him a popular student in a period of less a month since he joined the Makerere University Campus.

Hence, Suubi joins the Fresh Daddy league of Winners who have been disrespected online but successfully made it through the favor of kind-hearted tweeps.

“We will certainly be able to continue serving our customers. Our production capacity is huge, and adding Huawei to the Entity List won’t have a huge impact on us. We are making progress in bidding worldwide.” Ren said.

The U.S. Commerce Department announced that it will add Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and its affiliates to its so-called “Entity List,” a move aiming to ban Huawei from buying parts and components from U.S. companies without government-approved licenses.

The preparation he mentioned includes the company’s huge R&D investment and contingency plan. According to the 2018 EU R&D Investment Scoreboard, Huawei ranks fifth, with steady growth in its R&D investment. Huawei has a consistent Business Continuity Management System which has been certified by dozens of neutral third parties in Europe. The company has also been vigorously integrating BCMS into it global suppliers’ obligation.

Ren conceded that he expected Huawei’s growth to slow down, but expressed confidence in the company’s future prospects.

“In the first quarter of this year, our revenue grew 39% over the same period last year. This rate decreased to 25% in April, and may continue decreasing towards the end of this year. But the US ban will not lead to negative growth or harm the development of our industry.”

The leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands said that their governments will not follow suit to ban Huawei from involvement in their networks.

French President Emmanuel Macron said it was not the aim of France to block Huawei, nor to launch any form of technological war. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said companies could participate in expanding Germany’s 5G network if they met established safety criteria.

In an interview with CNBC Africa on Wednesday, Huawei Vice President of Corporate Communications, Glenn Schloss said.

 “The device in people’s hands are completely unaffected by what’s happening in the US. For owners of Huawei handsets it will be business as usual.” Schloss said.

“We remain positive, but we are preparing for various eventualities. We are stockpiling components and have been working with our supply-chain partners for some time.” He added.

Jaguza is a subset of Afro Soft technologies Ltd, a company co-founded by Ronald Katamba and a crew bringing creative innovations to life. As a matter of fact, the Jaguza app is one mantel solution that is a problem solver to all livestock-related cases through the usage of AI-powered drones and chips.

The Jaguza app packs a direct link to all configured drones that are shipped in by Farmers to monitor animal movements plus health meters away from the signal source. By the same fashion, the AI-powered drones simplify the work of a farmer by executing the hard task of tracking and monitoring animals on a farm.

So, the World Agri-tech Innovation Summit will be braced by one of Uganda’s Innovative founders with AI-powered drones taking over the thinking cap in agriculture. Furthermore, Ronald will be in Sanfransico to not only exhibit how Jaguza AI-powered drones spike the agricultural standards but also ship in new chips to improve the AI drone bots.

Henceforth, as Ronald Katamba braces the 19th-20th slated World Agri Tech summit, we shall be on the watch of all innovative solutions bred from the 2 day shakedown. So, its a thumbs app to Jaguza which is now becoming a global brand and a spike for more innovative startups in the agriculture jungle.