MUSK’S STARSHIP EXPLODES PREMATURELY
Yesterday, a test flight at Elon Musk’s space exploration company, SpaceX, led to the explosion of what is perhaps the company’s most important test till date.
A Mars landing: Since 2012, SpaceX has been developing Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket with twice the firepower of any known rocket. Starship is over 120 metres long, and Musk’s long-term vision is to help human colonisation of Mars.
After waiting years, SpaceX finally received approval from the government to kick off its tests earlier in April. It was originally scheduled to launch on Monday, April 17, but that launch was cancelled after a pressurisation valve was reported frozen—they couldn’t let it go.
What went wrong this time? The launch was successful. A live streaming of the launch shows that Starship took off at 8:33 AM BST. A few minutes after take-off, though, it blew up. SpaceX, in a tweet, reports that Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly after two sections of its rocket pulled a Bonnie-and-Clyde—they were inseparable.
Congratulations to SpaceX: It might appear that the company lost a rocket and potentially millions of dollars with this test, but so far, everyone—even Musk—considers it a success. That’s why it’s a test! SpaceX itself was sceptical about the success of the test, and will now learn from its mistakes. Musk also took to Twitter to congratulate his team, and urge them towards learning from the test.
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FACEBOOK AIDING CHILD TRAFFICKING IN SA
According to South Africa’s minister of police, Bheki Cele, children in the country are being sold online through social media platforms such as Facebook.
Cele stated that in November last year, police were made aware of incidents of parents advertising children on social media platforms.
Nothing the police can do about it
Despite the police being aware of the cases, Cele says that the country’s crime intelligence did not have the resources to address the issue but that it is in the process of acquiring social media monitoring solutions.
One ministry which seems to be trying to deal with the issue is that of social development. According to Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, some of the measures being employed to address child trafficking via social media include monitoring of such platforms and training relevant stakeholders in combating the issue.
Zoom out: According to a 2022 US Department of State human trafficking report, the South African government identified 83 trafficking victims over the reporting period, which ran from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022. This is far more than the 16 victims identified in the previous reporting period.
Additionally, the report also places South Africa in the second-worst tier of countries failing to have sufficient anti-human trafficking standards in place.
TC INSIGHTS: FUNDING TRACKER
This week, Charger, a Senegalese logistics company, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by Logos Ventures; other participating investors include Ventures Platform, Foundation Botnar, DFS Labs, and Seedstars.
Here are the other deals this week:
- Tunisian gaming platform CoaChess secured $191,000 in pre-seed funding from Omicron.
- Nigerian anti-counterfeiting company Chekkit received an undisclosed amount in funding from Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem accelerator.
That’s it for this week!
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more funding announcements. You can also visit DealFlow, our real-time funding tracker.
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EVENT: THE STATE OF TECH IN AFRICA
We are excited to announce the launch of our State Of Tech (Q1) Report. The State Of Tech Report is our flagship report that analyses quarterly data on acquisitions, expansions, product launches, and funding in Africa’s tech ecosystem. This edition looks at (Q1) 2023 in retrospect and contains interesting patterns and trends to look out for this year.
Join us on a special edition of TechCabal Live on Friday, May 5. At this event, we’ll discuss actionable insights and findings from the report with you and share our perspectives on the outlook of Africa’s tech landscape.
THE WORLD WIDE WEB3
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
Bitcoin
|
$28,142 |
– 3.84% |
|
Ether
|
$1,928 |
– 2.61% |
|
BNB
|
$317 |
– 2.52% |
|
Cardano
|
$0.39 |
– 4.68% |
|
|
Source:
|
|
* Data as of 21:00 PM WAT, April 20, 2023.
The European Parliament has approved the world’s first comprehensive crypto regulation framework. CoinDesk reports that lawmakers voted in favour of Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) and Transfer of Fund rules. The regulations will see crypto wallet providers and exchanges to seek licences to operate across the bloc. It will require issuers of stablecoins tied to the value of other assets to maintain sufficient reserves.
Bankrupt crypto platform Voyager has signed a billion-dollar deal to be acquired by Binance. Decrypt reports that the company reached a resolution with the US government that will allow the US arm of Binance to buy Voyager’s assets.
Written by – Timi Odueso, Tomisin Bamidele & Ephraim Modise
Edited by – Kelechi Njoku
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