Top 5 new techniques
CutStruct Technology, a platform that digitizes the construction process for greater efficiency, raised $600,000 in pre-seed funding led by Zedcrest Capital, DFS Labs, Lofty Inc and Ventures Platform’s Kola Aina to build its flagship product, LiveVend.
LiveVend is a construction procurement platform that allows buyers (developers, contractors, etc.) to engage approved vendors on a simple and transparent platform while enjoying other services such as transport, Goods in Transit Insurance and Trade Credit which is offered by Sterling Banks’ Buy It Now and Pay Later product – Specta for Business.
According to two second founders, John Oamen and Tayo Odunsi, LiveVend, the company’s flagship product, has onboarded over 100 leading building materials suppliers and manufacturers.
In a statement, CutStruct CEO John Oamen described the platform as quite simple.
“We connect construction sellers to buyers. All the complex work happens in the background,” Oamen said. “Screening vendors, sorting out the proper coordination, insuring goods, ensuring fulfillment and securing financing – these are the complex things we do in the background while our users interact with a simple platform.”
For his part, the director of strategy, Tayo Odunsi, explained that the platform is free for buyers. They can also access weekly price data for major construction materials in key locations in the company’s beachhead market, Nigeria.
To create the LiveVend solution, CutStruct has partnered with solution providers including Axa Mansard for insurance, Sterling Bank for construction materials financing, Apel Trustees for escrow service, VerifyMe for verification of suppliers and Greychapel Legal for all the legal and commercial structuring.
Meta announces layoffs of 11,000 employees
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, recently announced it would cut more than 11,000 workers, or 13% of the workforce.
It came at a time when the tech giants that added tens of thousands of staff thanks to the pandemic are now retrenching.
In a statement, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized to employees and also admitted that he had underestimated the amount of revenue that would fall due to increased competition and the collapse of the advertising market. digital.
Meta’s layoffs followed similar cuts at Twitter, Lyft and other tech companies. Shares of Meta have plunged more than 70% this year as its troubled and costly shift into metaverse technology rattles investors.
“I want to take responsibility for those decisions and how we got here. I know this is difficult for everyone, and I’m especially sorry for those affected,” Zuckerberg said.
The layoffs will impact employees at all organizations under Meta’s wing, such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, as well as its virtual reality and augmented reality arm Reality Labs.
The meta boss says layoffs are a “last resort”. Several other measures are also underway, including cutting budgets, cutting benefits, reducing its real estate footprint, and improving the efficiency of AI infrastructure.
Bloc partners with SMEDAN to provide Fintech services to SMEs
Bloc, a finTech infrastructure company, has partnered with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to provide fintech services to Nigerian SMEs.
Following our partnership with SMEDAN, we look forward to onboarding SMEs and introducing them to the extraordinary possibilities they can realize with FinTech. Block will provide easy access to financial services – digital banking, bill payment, lending, loyalty card management, social commerce, POS issuance, and more – for SMBs who want to use fintech to unlock more value to themselves and their customers, Bloc said in a statement.
For his part, the General Manager of SMEDAN, through the General Affairs Department, explained that he was convinced that the partnership with Bloc and the platform developed would benefit the SMEs that collaborate with them by simplifying the access to financial services and FinTech infrastructure provided through Bloc.
“With over 4,000,000 businesses registered in our database, our success as an agency is measured by what we can do for them, and we believe we have reaffirmed our commitment to innovation through our partnership with Block,” he said.
Bloc Business Development Director Kingsley Ikart explained that “as an infrastructure company, we believe this partnership also offers a new entry point for start-ups who collaborate with us to expand their offers products and services to SMEs that may not know they exist.
Ikart added: “It’s a win-win situation for us, our customers and SMEDAN; Small and medium enterprises can now leverage the power of FinTech infrastructure, products and services to improve the way they do business and provide the best customer experience.
Telegram launches new feature allowing subscribers to sell usernames
Instant messaging app Telegram has launched a new feature allowing users to buy and sell short, recognizable usernames for personal accounts, public groups and channels.
The new update announced on the official Telegram page has launched an auction for the best usernames on Fragment, a free collectible trading platform. With this new feature, Telegram usernames have become digital assets that can be secured and sold between parties.
According to the platform’s unveiling note, ownership of collectible usernames is secured in TON’s immutable ledger, a fast and scalable blockchain network. Interestingly, the new feature allows owners to add multiple username aliases to their accounts, groups, or channels.
Telegram’s new update marks a milestone in Web3 adoption, and users can now secure their usernames with blockchain.
To acquire usernames on Telegram, buyers must visit Fragment, search for the desired username, and click auction, provided the username is still available. Buyers will then be redirected to a page that displays the highest bid along with the bidding step and minimum bid.
You can buy a collectible username by exchanging it for a special currency called Toncoin – the amount you need will depend on the current highest bid, just like any other auction.
To use this currency, you must first create a secure wallet to store it, deposit new funds, and connect it to Fragment.
Google launches tool to help people prepare for interviews
Google has launched Interview Warmup, a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to help users practice answering job interview questions in various fields.
As part of the Grow with Google and Career Certification initiatives, he asks common interview questions and transcribes the answers in real time.
Originally intended to help Google Career Certificate learners prepare for the job search, Interview Warmup is now open to everyone.
Using text-to-speech or the keyboard, users can practice answering frequently asked interview questions and job-specific ones chosen by an expert in that field.
Interview Warmup has field-focused questions for information analysis, e-commerce, IT help, business administration, UX or basic design.
Google does not record audio or transcripts of interview sessions, although users can manually copy or download a transcript once completed. This feature is currently only available in the United States.
Since Interview Warmup was designed for Google Career Certificates learners, you may come across specific questions for each certificate. However, the tool is available to everyone and includes frequently asked questions applicable to many areas.
More than 70,000 people have earned a certificate, and 75% of graduates report positive career impacts within six months of graduation, according to Google.
Tech personality of the week
Adora Nwodo
This week’s tech personality is Adora Nwodo.
Nwodo is a software engineer at Microsoft currently developing Mixed Reality on the Cloud. She is also a published author, speaker and tech content creator.
In 2018, she started adorahack.com, where she shares articles on software engineering, productivity, and career growth. The following year, she created a YouTube channel called AdoraHack, where she shares tech content that software developers might find useful.
Adora is the co-founder of unstack, an open source conference for tech talent in Africa and around the world, where she focuses on hands-on workshops and world-class conferences that empower people to learn. She is the Vice President of the Nigerian Chapter of the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Association (VRARA), where she works alongside others to raise awareness of virtual and augmented reality technologies.
In February 2021, Adora won the Young CISO Network Excellence in Disruptive Technology, Cloud and Embedded Device Security Award for her work creating and championing disruptive cloud technologies.
In October 2021, she published her first book, “Cloud Engineering for Beginners”, which introduces people to the concept of cloud computing, viable cloud engineering career paths, and how to navigate a cloud engineering career.
#CutStruct #Technology #Raises #B2B #Sourcing #Solution #LiveVend #THISDAYLIVE