The model, called Sahara v2, supports 24 African languages and recognises more than 500 African English accents. The company said the system was trained using more than 14 million audio clips collected from over 40,000 speakers across Africa and the diaspora.

For many users on the continent, voice technology usually has challenges with everyday phrases and names. Common expressions can be misheard or completely distorted, making digital assistants unreliable for basic tasks.

Developers say the problem lies in how most global systems were built. Many were trained mainly on Western speech patterns and do not align with the tonal nature, accent variety and frequent language mixing common across African countries.

With Sahara v2, Intron says it wants to close that gap by building technology that listens to how people actually speak. The recordings used to train the system were gathered across environments, including clinics, courtrooms, call centres, streets and offices.

The new model covers languages such as Hausa, Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo, Zulu, Twi, Kinyarwanda and Xhosa. In total, Intron says its systems now support 57 languages.

One of the additions is a bilingual speech recognition system that switches between English and Swahili. Intron developed the model with Kenya-based health provider Penda Health to better match how people naturally move between both languages in conversation.

The company also released a Hausa text-to-speech system designed to power local language voice assistants that can run continuously for services such as customer support.

Intron said the new system can also operate offline, allowing organisations to run voice tools locally where privacy or data security is a concern.

According to the company, Sahara v2 performs better on African speech compared with several widely used global models. These include systems developed by Google, OpenAI, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.

Testing carried out by the company showed stronger accuracy when recognising African names, locations, numbers and sector-specific terms used in areas such as finance, healthcare and telecommunications.

Several organisations have already begun using the system in their services. These include voice banking platforms, medical documentation tools, courtroom transcription systems and automated call centre software.

Ayo Oluleye, head of Data and Insights at ARM Investments, said the model improved the accuracy of automated transcription.

“Using Intron AI models, we’ve seen significant improvement in transcription and summaries compared to models we previously explored. Their systems capture context and nuance better, leading to more accurate results.”

Sarah Morris, chief product officer at Audere, said the system also performed well during testing. “In our testing, accuracy was excellent on several Southern African accents and APIs were robust with 99%+ success rates.”

Alongside the launch, Intron also released its first Africa Voice AI report for 2026, examining how voice technology is being developed and used across the continent.

The report aims to guide governments, businesses, investors and researchers working to expand digital services that rely on speech technology.

Tobi Olatunji, chief executive of Intron, noted that the project shows what happens when technology is designed with local languages in mind.

“Sahara v2 proves that when technology is built with deep cultural and linguistic understanding, amazing things can happen, and we’re just getting started.”

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The rollout, which is currently open to Alexa+ Early Access participants across all subscription plans, enhances how the company wants people to discover and interact with music.

Unlike the traditional Alexa that responded to straightforward commands, Alexa+ brings a more conversational and intelligent approach. 

It’s built to talk with users like a knowledgeable music companion, someone who not only takes requests but also understands curiosity. With Alexa+, users can dig into the details of songs, artists, or even eras of music. 

You can ask who influenced a particular artist, what a song means, or find that elusive track you only remember from a movie scene.

Amazon said it’s already seeing strong engagement from users testing the feature. Listeners who used Alexa+ explored three times more songs than those using the old version, and users asking for recommendations listened to nearly 70% more music. 

Those numbers show that people are no longer just pressing play; they’re conversing with their music app.

The feature’s conversational depth is what sets it apart. A user might say, “Play pop songs from the ’90s including Madonna, but skip the boy bands,” or “Make a playlist of 2010s hits that keep me moving fast, starting with a track from Nicki Minaj.” 

Alexa+ then builds dynamic playlists based on tone, tempo, and personal taste. You can even request something as niche as, “Create a music playlist that sounds like a Parisian café and only include songs in French.”

Beyond playlist creation, Alexa+ acts as a musical researcher in your pocket. It can explain the story behind lyrics, trace the origins of samples, or connect artists by genre or geography. 

Asking, “What’s the story behind the lyrics to Hotel California?” or “Recommend some artists from the London punk scene in the ’70s” now leads to detailed, conversational responses rather than robotic answers.

Spotify recently integrated similar conversational features, and Amazon’s move places Alexa+ as a competitor capable of deep engagement and contextual understanding.

The rollout also reveals Amazon’s larger investment in embedding intelligent systems across its ecosystem. Earlier this year, Alexa+ was unveiled as part of Amazon’s broader plan to bring “agent-level” assistance to everyday use, handling not just music, but tasks such as restaurant bookings and grocery orders.

For now, the new feature remains limited to early access users, but a wider release is expected soon. To try it, Amazon Music users can simply update their app, tap the “a” button in the lower right corner, and start talking.

Amazon says, “Alexa+ transforms the way we discover music by offering a more intuitive, conversation-based approach, turning what used to be a basic search function into an interactive discussion guided by your own curiosity.”

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The humanoid robot, known as Uri, made its debut last week at Harvard University, drawing massive attention as the new CMO led Series’ first campus marketing campaign. 

From taking over Harvard Square with a giant student composite banner to parading the stands during the Harvard versus Brown football game, Uri quickly became the centre of attraction. The spectacle generated more than one million views across social media within 24 hours.

Uri, powered by the Unitree G1 humanoid system, is built with 43 degrees of freedom, 3D LiDAR sensors, depth cameras, and reinforcement learning that allows it to adapt to real-time human interactions. It stands 1.2 metres tall and has been programmed to engage with users both offline and online in ways that mimic human marketers.

During the campaign, Uri didn’t just pose for photos, the robot handed out matcha drinks to students, initiated conversations, and roamed the stadium stands, a mix of spectacle and brand promotion that left many in awe.

Nathaneo Johnson, CEO and co-founder of Series, explained the logic behind the appointment. “Most CMOs cost $100k – $300k a year. Ours is a fraction of that, and it gains more attention than most celebrities do in any given room. That’s marketing.”

Series, launched as a platform to connect students and professionals, has already facilitated more than 700,000 messages exchanged with a 95% match acceptance rate. The company says that Uri is more than a novelty act, but part of a long-term strategy to enhance how technology can drive human connection.

Johnson added: “This move reflects our belief that robotics and AI will co-create the future of connection. Uri’s capabilities are far beyond novelty, which reflects the culture of constant innovation that will come to define today’s most ambitious startups.”

In placing robotics at the centre of its growth, Series is testing how far human-robot collaboration can go, not just in automating tasks, but in building strategy and public engagement. For a generation that thrives on digital-first interaction, Uri may be the next frontier of marketing leadership.

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Organised by inDrive, the award offers a total prize pool of $85,000 and global exposure to innovative female entrepreneurs driving social impact.

The 2026 edition will run from August 12 to November 12, 2025, inviting women founders from across the world to showcase tech solutions that combine innovation with measurable change.

Since its inception in 2021, the Aurora Tech Award has become a drive for elevating underrepresented voices in technology. In 2025 alone, it received a record-breaking 2,018 applications from 116 countries, twice the number from the previous year, with African innovators winning the top prize for three consecutive years. 

Nigeria’s Solape Akinpelu claimed the 2025 first prize, while finalists came from diverse fields including health tech, fintech, AI, edtech, and agrotech.

Head of the Aurora Tech Award, Isabella Ghassemi-Smith, spoke on its purpose, “The Aurora Tech Award is more than a prize – it’s a springboard for the next generation of bold women founders from emerging markets. We provide not just funding, but access to top investors, global networks, and the tools to help scale ventures that will shape the future of entire industries.”

Benefits

Female tech founders stand a chance to receive the following prices:

• Grand Prize: $50,000 for the winner.
• First Runner-Up: $20,000.
• Second Runner-Up: $15,000.
• Access to inDrive’s global expertise, curated mentorship programmes, and strategic networking opportunities.
• Direct exposure to investors and industry partners.
• Increased visibility and credibility on the global stage.
• Support in scaling, fundraising, and market expansion.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following criteria:

1. The startup must be owned or co-owned by a woman.
2. Must be less than 5 years old.
3. Have a working prototype and be at the pre-seed stage.
4. Total funding raised must not exceed $6 million.

How to Apply

Eligible candidates can apply online via the website before the deadline on Wednesday, November 12, 2025.

Competition Timeline

• 8 December 2025: Announcement of the Top 100 quarter-finalists.
• Following weeks: Selection of the Top 30 semi-finalists.
• Early 2026: Announcement of the Top 3 finalists.
• February–March 2026: Tailored mentorship programme for finalists.
• March–April 2026: Aurora Tech Award ceremony.

Entries will be assessed by a panel of investors and industry experts, focusing on innovation, scalability, and social impact.

2025 winner Solape Akinpelu said, “Winning the Aurora Tech Award proved that African women founders can thrive on the global stage. The funding, mentorship, and exposure transformed my organisation’s growth. I urge South African women innovators to apply, your ideas deserve to be seen and celebrated.”

From Chile, finalist Loretxu Garcia noted that, “What inspired me was knowing there’s an award that recognises not just technology, but the courage to innovate from our own lived realities. Applying to Aurora was my way of saying: women are also shaping the future through science.”

Third-place winner Shreya Prakash of FlexiBees, India, added, “Very few women-centric programmes provide actual funding. As a woman founder, it was heartening to see that the Aurora Tech Award backed its belief in women entrepreneurs with the catalyst of capital.”

The award is a non-profit initiative of inDrive, a global mobility and urban services platform operating in 982 cities across 48 countries. Known for its peer-to-peer ride-hailing price negotiation model, inDrive is the world’s second-most downloaded ride-hailing app.

Through the Aurora Tech Award, inDrive aims to address the fact that less than 2% of global VC funding goes to women-led startups, shifting resources and recognition to founders building their own platforms rather than waiting for a seat at the table.

For more information, visit the website.

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Developers have long had challenges with slow performance, limited form handling, and inconsistent behaviour across browsers when building web PDF tools. 

Foxit’s latest product tackles these issues by employing a modular architecture and a WebAssembly-powered rendering engine. This combination speeds up document processing by up to 50% and also enables smoother, more secure workflows for digital signatures and form interactions.

“This release is more than just a feature update. It’s a signal that the future of document technology is modular, browser-native, and built for intelligent automation,” said Evan Reiss, vice president and head of marketing at Foxit. 

“As organisations move away from legacy systems and toward AI-enabled, cloud-first architectures, developers need toolkits that are fast, flexible, and built for the way we work today. With PDF SDK for Web v11, Foxit is leading that shift — and raising the bar for what’s expected from online PDF experiences.”

Key improvements include a refactored form module with unified APIs, enabling developers to build robust and scalable applications faster. The redesigned signature workflow offers a more secure and intuitive signing process, crucial for compliance and reducing bottlenecks in document handling. 

Additionally, the migration of PDF JavaScript execution to Web Workers, rebuilt in C++/WebAssembly, enhances responsiveness and stabilises user interactions even on complex PDFs.

Beyond performance gains, the SDK features upgraded user interface components designed for consistency across devices and browsers, delivering an accessible and modern experience to end users.

This release aligns with the global movement away from bulky, legacy PDF solutions toward lightweight, cloud-ready, and intelligent document technologies. 

Foxit’s PDF SDK for Web v11 provides developers with the tools to build web-first PDF applications that meet evolving demands without relying on desktop software.

Businesses are adopting AI-ready, cloud-first platforms and Foxit’s latest SDK is a huge innovation in the space. Competitors still leveraging outdated models risk lagging behind in the advancing digital document sector.

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The funds will focus on boosting the country’s technology sector, particularly in manufacturing mainframe and quantum computers. 

More than $30 billion of this will be directed towards research and development, as the company seeks to further its American operations in these cutting-edge sectors.

The move aligns with IBM’s focus on economic growth. Arvind Krishna, IBM’s chairman and CEO, stressed that “Technology doesn’t just build the future — it defines it.”

This investment is a big step in the company’s longstanding dedication to U.S. job creation and innovation, a commitment that spans over a century.

IBM’s role in the tech industry is undeniable. It has been indispensable in shaping essential developments such as the data systems behind the U.S. social security program and the technology that supported the Apollo mission to the moon. 

More than 70% of global transactions, by value, rely on IBM’s mainframes, which are manufactured in Poughkeepsie, New York.

The company’s focus is not just on maintaining its position in traditional computing but also on leading the charge in quantum computing. With the largest fleet of quantum computers globally, IBM is positioned to drive the next big shift in technology. 

Quantum computing promises to tackle challenges that current systems cannot address, offering potential breakthroughs in fields like national security and economic competitiveness. 

As part of its plan, IBM’s Quantum Network provides access to these systems to major corporations, academic institutions, and startups, enhancing the reach and potential of this transformative technology.

By doubling down on both innovation and manufacturing in the U.S., IBM is showing its intention to secure America’s role at the forefront of technological advancement. 

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Its roots trace back to the early 20th century, when it was little more than a collection of orchards and suburban towns nestled in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. But this unassuming region would soon evolve into the global epicenter of technology and innovation.

The Birth of Silicon Valley

The term “Silicon Valley” found its origin in the 1970s, but the area’s journey began long before that. In the early 20th century, Stanford University played a strong role in shaping the region’s destiny. Stanford’s commitment to research and innovation attracted brilliant minds, laying the groundwork for what was to come.

The 1930s and 1940s marked the emergence of the first tech companies, most notably Hewlett-Packard, founded in a Palo Alto garage. These humble beginnings belied the transformative impact these companies would have on the world.

The Semiconductor Revolution

The post-war era brought forth the semiconductor revolution, led by pioneers like William Shockley and the “Traitorous Eight” who left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to form Fairchild Semiconductor. This transition marked a pivotal moment in Silicon Valley’s history, propelling it into the heart of the electronics industry.

The invention of the integrated circuit by Robert Noyce, a key figure among the “Traitorous Eight,” revolutionized electronics and paved the way for modern computing. Noyce’s co-founding of Intel in 1968 further solidified Silicon Valley’s status as a technological powerhouse.

The 1970s witnessed the emergence of the personal computer, spearheaded by companies like Apple and Microsoft. Apple’s iconic garage startup story, with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at the helm, is an enduring symbol of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Microsoft, founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, became synonymous with software innovation, forever changing the way we interact with computers.

The 1990s brought forth the internet revolution, with companies like Netscape Communications leading the charge. The “browser wars” between Netscape and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer played out on a global stage, shaping the internet as we know it today.

Silicon Valley’s Recent Challenges: The SVB Closure

However, Silicon Valley’s path has not been without challenges. In 2023, the region faced an unexpected shock with the closure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). SVB had played a pivotal role in fueling tech startups for four decades. Unfortunately, a $1.8 billion loss due to the sale of U.S. treasuries and mortgage-backed securities triggered a dramatic 50% decline in SVB’s stock price.

HSBC UK Bank plc stepped in to acquire Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited (SVB UK) for £1, a surprising turn of events considering SVB’s prominent role in the industry. While the acquisition involved taking over approximately $72 billion in SVB assets, a significant portion remained under the purview of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for future disposition.

Preserving the Legacy and Forging Ahead

Despite the challenges, Silicon Valley’s legacy of innovation, resilience, and adaptability remains steadfast. It continues to be a beacon of inspiration for entrepreneurs, technologists, and dreamers worldwide.

Silicon Valley’s history reiterates what can be achieved when visionary thinkers, risk-takers, and creative minds converge. As we navigate the dynamic landscape of technology, we can draw inspiration from the valley’s remarkable journey—from orchards to innovation hub—and the indomitable spirit that keeps it at the forefront of technological progress.

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