Financial exclusion remains a significant challenge in developing economies. It has been shown that access to credit facilities is a strong predictor of financial inclusion. Credit reporting and scoring remain effective tools for both traditional and alternative lenders, however, access to credible credit data and scoring mechanisms is one of the biggest roadblocks that alternative lenders in developing economies face. While some lenders have developed systems that leverage social media analytics and data harvested from smartphones in order to create a scoring system, the poor and vulnerable are still excluded from such scoring systems. There have been significant advances in the use of telecoms data for credit scoring, making it a promising alternative to credit bureau data. However, readily available data is still an issue. With the increase in the development and use of open APIs, telecoms data could be made readily available for credit scoring, while addressing privacy and other issues. This paper is a conceptual paper that proposes a model for the use of Open APIs from telco data for credit scoring that will ultimately increase access to credit, and ultimately financial inclusion in Africa.

COVID-19 is ravaging many countries and there are unprecedented challenges in managing the pandemic.Basically, two strategies are being adopted; Traditional Health System and Telehealth which include telemedicine, remote monitoring of patient, Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) etc. This paper discusses how the communications and computing resources are being used in the telehealth sector to respond to COVID-19. It expatiates the positive impact of telehealth on the general approach of managing COVID-19 pandemic and how this is rapidly facilitating flattening the curve of COVID-19 pandemic as seen in the country experiences of China and South Korea discussed. The research includes both the Secondary and Primary data. The literature review exhibited the secondary data conducted on this subject matter which was also validated using the quantitative survey conducted for the primary data collection. Experiences of selected countries were also discussed as case studies on how ICT resources are being deployed in the COVID-19 pandemic as practical evidence to the research. Recommendations were organically extracted from the result of the primary research data to fill the gap noticed in mitigating pandemic by optimizing ICT resources and infrastructures. The use of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, emergency numbers for different applications and increase use of those ICT infrastructures and resources have assisted in mitigating COVID-19 in the illustrated examples. This has validated the results of the research and therefore given empirical evidence to the feasibility of the recommendations.

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The paper discusses practical applications of digital technologies (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data Analytics, Mobile Technologies etc.) on how COVID-19 pandemic and other contagion curve can be flattened. The background of the paper deals with issues around the novel COVID-19, the way different countries responded to it generally but with a focus on the application of digital technologies and its effects. The objective of the paper is to show how important digital technologies are being used to help flatten the curve of COVID-19 pandemic. More so, analysis of the digital technologies was also carried out. The methodology was hinged on facts analysis and observations based on what needs to be improved while leveraging on digital infrastructures to flatten the COVID-19 infection rate curve. Under the methodology, studies were conducted on randomly sampled countries which were analyzed and specific digital technologies were identified for regulations and standardization. Recommendations were made based on studies conducted in countries like South Korea, Taiwan etc. In conclusion, ICT related policies were identified and specific innovative digital technologies were identified for regulatory interventions and future standardization works. The candidate digital technologies identified are proposed for technical studies by relevant standards bodies e.g. International Telecommunications Union-Standardizations (ITU-T) is expected to create relevant Study Question based on the identified digital technologies and carry out studies leading to the standardization of the digital technologies. This will accelerate the flattening future contagion infection rate curve.