Friday, December 14, 2012

Google Zeitgeist 2012 – What Kenya searched for most on Google this year.

Its (already?) that time of year when you know that we are coming to the very end when you start seeing all sorts of lists and retrospectives about the year that was even before it has ended. Indeed, one of the most interesting lists out there has to be what people searched for on Google during the year, better known as the Google Zeitgeist which came out yesterday/today depending on which part of the world you live in. For me, as has been the case for the past couple of years, its always interesting to get a local perspective and in this respect to see what Kenya searched for the most on Google. The top ten searches this year in Kenya on the Google Zeitgeist are as follows:

Solution provider of IT Leaders to meet in West Africa

The anticipated annual IT Leaders West Africa Summit will take place from 28 to 29 November 2012 in the heart of Ghana’s esteemed capital city, Accra. The summit is produced by international business-to-business conferencing company, Kinetic Events; key strategic information providers to the IT and telecoms sector within Africa.

Best practices for moving from analog to digital broadcasting

Television stations worldwide are continuing to shift from analog to digital broadcasting, a change providers say increases efficiency, frees up bandwidth and offers higher-quality television.

Nearly all countries are scheduled to make the move to digital broadcasting by June 2015, according to an International Telecommunication Union agreement cited in a report from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the African Media Initiative (AMI).

The report, authored by Knight International Journalism Fellow Meredith Beal, offers advice to help stations make a smooth transition to digital broadcasting:

Betting Big on African Markets

Several global technology firms have set up shop in sub-saharan Africa, and Africa in general, with many leveraging Nairobi’s budding ICT industry as their regional headquarters. Tech firms such as Nokia, IBM, Google, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Samsung and Intel are eager to capture what are known as the emerging markets: India, China, Africa and Latin America.

In 2007, Intel’s Corp Chairman said that the “world’s next 1 billion Internet consumers will come from emerging market…there is only a 2 per cent Internet penetration in Africa,leaving a huge gap…This is not only a commercial opportunity but also poses a challenge and a compelling need for companies like ours to meaningfully invest here and grow the market.” Then, Intel was spending more than $100 million in education and health projects in the developing world. (Source: Associated Press, via USA Today.)

Sunday, December 9, 2012

African News Innovation Winners Focus on Citizen Engagement, Investigative Tools and Whistleblower Security

Twenty African media innovators will receive a total of $1 million to develop digital projects that improve the quality of news across the continent, as part of the first African News Innovation Challenge (ANIC).

Many recipients concentrated on enhancing citizen journalism, investigative reporting and source protection.

ANIC is the largest fund for digital journalism experimentation in Africa. It is designed to spur solutions to the business, distribution and workplace challenges facing the African news industry. The contest was organized by the African Media Initiative (AMI), the continent’s largest association of media owners and operators, and managed by Knight International Journalism Fellow Justin Arenstein. The fellowships are administered by theInternational Center for Journalists.

A jury of 15 international media strategists, technology innovators and other experts evaluated more than 500 project plans before selecting winners from a shortlist of 40 projects. Arenstein announced the winners in Kigali, Rwanda, on November 28, at the African Editors’ Forum annual meeting.

African Women and ICTs. Investigating Technology, Gender and Empowerment

The revolution in information and communication technologies (ICTs) has vast implications for the developing world, but what tangible benefits has it brought when issues of social inclusion and exclusion, particularly in the developing world, remain at large? In addition, the gender digital divide is growing in the developing world, particularly in Africa. So what do ICTs mean to African women?African Women and ICTs explores the ways in which women in Africa utilize ICTs to facilitate their empowerment; whether through the mobile village phone business, through internet use, or through new career and ICT employment opportunities. Based on the outcome of an extensive research project, this timely book features chapters based on original primary field research undertaken by academics and activists who have investigated situations within their own communities and countries. The discussion includes such issues as the notion of ICTs for empowerment and as agents of change, ICTs in the fight against gender-based violence, and how ICTs could be used to reconceptualize public and private spaces.

Zambian Women Launch Ambitious Crowd sourcing Project to map all African Women in Technology Initiatives

Using the power of crowdsourcing & social-networking Zambia's Women in Technology organisation Asikana Network is creating the world's first comprehensive map of Africa's Women in Technology organisations, projects and initiatives.

Lusaka's http://asikananetwork.org/ organises mentoring, training, events and meet-ups for women trying to break into the male-dominated world of ICT in Zambia.

“It's extremely difficult for females in ICT to land their dream ICT jobs because it is still considered a male dominated field “, says Ella Mbewe, co-founder of the Asikana Network.

Kenyan Local Digital Content: Challenges and Prospects

Local content is an expression and communication of a community’s locally generated, owned and adapted knowledge and experience that is relevant to the community’s situation.

In Kenya, local digital content can be used to share and provide information on all aspects of the country’s socio-economic, political, cultural and religious aspects. This will help promote its interest in trade, investment, tourism, industries as well as promote local and international goodwill.

Now more than ever social media offers new ways of capturing some parts of this information. Videos, photos, audio and texts are some formats used to create this content, as technology becomes available to millions of people through computers, tablets and mobile phones the possibility is limitless.

Kenya launches a new mobile system M-Shwari

This week saw the launch of what is likely to be a revolutionary mobile phone product called M-Shwari. It comes from two long term partners - Kenyan mobile company Safaricom, well known for it’s world famous mobile money product - MPesa, and a local bank, the Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) who have been custodians of M-Pesa funds for years?

M-Shwari is a savings and loan product that is immediately accessible to the 15 million users of Safaricom’s MPesa. It gives them access to banking services – savings and loans without having to walk into a bank hall or fill out a single form. It allows them to save as little as 1 shilling (earning interest of between 2-5% a year) or borrow as little as 100 shillings (Kshs 100 is equivalent to about $1.17) and attracts no account maintenance fees or transfer fees. It will be a great product for people who run informal businesses and take money home at night in pockets or blouses, or envelopes to stuff into mattresses, as they now have a simple tool which they can use to instantly and simply save by clicking into their phone SIM menu.

Data Journalism Boosts Voter Registration in Kenya

Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) published the location of voter registration centers around the country for the first time on Monday - but they released this important information as a PDF, which is fairly large to download and really difficult for ordinary citizens to read. Even professionalinfomediaries, like media and civil society organisations who gather and organize information, would only ever use a fraction of the content of the PDF.

Our pioneering Code4Kenya initiative immediately realized that the information trapped in the PDF was just too important to ignore. So, Code4Kenya's lead developer David Lemayian and one of the initiative's Data Fellows, Simeon Oriko, got to work. First, they liberated the information, by scraping the data from the PDF into an interactive spreadsheet. Then, they built the simple GotToVote! website on top of it.

Financing Technology Entrepreneurs & SMEs in Developing Countries

In developing countries, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have considerable difficulty obtaining the necessary financial resources to effectively scale up and grow their businesses. Access to traditional growth capital, including debt and equity, is often prohibitively costly, due to such factors as insufficient legal and regulatory policies, and inadequate financial markets

Current ICT Initiatives and Projects in Kenya

Kenya, through Vision 2030 recognises ICT as a foundation for a knowledge economy. Developing affordable information and communication network infrastructure and applications is central to building the information economy. Accordingly, the Government's objective is to ensure that the country has a competitive telecommunications industry that delivers reliable and affordable services and products for the economic and social benefit of citizens. The development of ICT Parks and Digital Villages will gradually lead to low-cost provision of ICT goods and services. This is also expected to facilitate the growth and establishment of BPOs.

ICTs to empower Zimbabwe women

Women represent just over half of Zimbabwe’s population and the sustainability of our country’s development efforts hinges on women’s equal participation in the social, political and economic fabric of the nation.

After realising that women’s economic empowerment is key to achieving long term economic development and reducing poverty, the government of Zimbabwe recently launched the Broad Based Women’s Economic Empowerment Framework (BBWEE).

The framework has a number of interventions and strategic goals to enable women to participate in society, politics and economics but chief among all these aims is to improve access to technology for women.

The importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in stimulating socio-economic development is widely recognised.

Magaret Zinguze, director of E-Knowledge for Women in Southern Africa (EKOWISA), says: “ICTs can create new types of economic activities, employment opportunities and improvements in service delivery of healthcare among other services.”

Moved by images of buildings crumbling like sand castles and children wandering the streets crying for parents buried in the rubble, I donated $10 to the Yéle Haiti Earthquake Fund, excited that saving the world was as simple as texting — something I do daily without even thinking. Yéle reportedly collected more than $2 million from its SMS fundraising, which was lead by hip-hop producer and Yéle chairman Wyclef Jean. Then a report by Smoking Gun lifted Jean’s Superman cape. Turns out the organization had some serious financial mismanagement issues, including not filing taxes and large payouts given to Jean and his associates. Jean defended Yéle’s credibility, but the damage was done.One year after the earthquake, millions of Haitians are living in tents and dying in record numbers of curable diseases, even after donors around the world gave more than $14 billion.

This is what I call an aid fail.
Read more: http://techchange.org/2011/06/10/techvest-in-africa%E2%80%99s-future-what-africa-really-needs-right-now/

Monday, November 26, 2012

BlackBerry opens second apps lab in South Africa

Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, has announced the opening of its second BlackBerry apps lab in South Africa.
The new lab is based in Cape Town and follows on the launch of the BlackBerry apps lab at the University of Pretoria in May this year.
"Cape Town is a key innovation hub, and a natural site for RIM's second BlackBerry apps lab in South Africa," Alexandra Zagury, RIM's MD for South Africa and southern Africa, said in a statement on Friday.

'Fostering mobile innovation in Africa'

According to RIM, the aim of the BlackBerry apps labs is to help accelerate mobile application development in South Africa, thereby creating new economic opportunities and jobs in the mobile space, and to support the larger context and objectives of the South African Department of Communications' eSkills Institute.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Rwanda tops Africa in Broadband speed

Africa has always been viewed as a continent that isn’t very connected in terms of internet speeds and the number of users – compared to other parts of the world. Research done by Net Index has reaffirmed this belief, and while Africa has some pretty impressive average internet speeds, the continent’s top country only managed to rank 65th on their list of 174 countries from around the world.
Rwanda is officially ranked the fastest broadband Internet in Africa, according to latest statistics from Ookla’s NetIndex, overtaking Ghana.

Kigali — Moving Rwanda's economy from an agricultural based one to knowledge based one is part of the major plans that have to be achieved by the year 2020.

This called for intense input especially from the ICT sector which has gained much support and government backing to make this goal a reality.

An article by Lorentriesman explains the growth of tech community in Rwanda and its development to meet Kigali's vision.

Greetings to all from East Africa. In my recent trip, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet with some of the inspiring people who are working hard to ensure that Rwanda’s tech community is given the opportunity to thrive. Here’s an overview of some of the fantastic organisations and people I’ve been connecting with.

Mobile Monday Kampala examines the democratization of mobile broadband

Mobile Monday Kampala, the Ugandan chapter of the global network of mobile industry professionals, visionaries, developers and entrepreneurs, today hosted over one hundred delegates as speakers discussed “how the democratization of mobile broadband” will impact lives.

The discussions were centered on the opportunities presented by broadband internet such as tools that enable us work from home, video conferencing, cloud-based storage and backups; and how high-speed internet accessible via mobile devices influences our behavioral and consumption patterns.
Read more

Ghana Library Board - The Northern Regional Library

Library’s maternal health SMS service reaches over 90 women

Northern Regional Library’s Technology for Maternal Health Project has got off to a flying start: 94 pregnant women are now receiving vital health information sent directly to their mobile phones; the library’s health corner has been formally launched, and 10 health workers have been trained to use computers to conduct research.

Northern Regional Library in Tamale is working in partnership with the local development agency Savana Signatures to implement the maternal health service. Savana Signatures provides technical support for the SMS service, helped install the library Health Corner and provides information and communication technology (ICT) training for health workers.

No where else to experience it!

The IMAX Theatre is designed to put you IN the movies. IMAX's state-of-the-art technology delivers the world's most immersive movie experience through a revolutionary projection system, a powerful digital audio system and customized theatre geometry.

It is a skill that individuals have practiced either in a bid to stand apart from the society, or to improve the society. The word itself connotes innovation and creativity – coming up with something new or improving it.

Me and three of my friends decided to start a start-up company, Synacor, we all had the same path of thoughts and our different careers made us quite a team. Thus we decided to head into the entrepreneurship world, and this is what has made us to be Nokia Do Good Hackathon Winners, just 8 months into the business. We run by three things, faith, perseverance and determination… one must always be looking for ways to enable efficiency and improvement of your product. Douglas Injugu , Techpreneur.

Here are a few tips I have come to learnt in my last few years as an entrepreneur:

Hope and Faith

As an entrepreneur you need to have faith. These are times when you trust your guts, and when such times come, you need to have faith, you need to believe in somewhere inside you, it will work, and it doesn’t hurt if you fail, at least you tried, and got to know why it failed.

One thing I always say is that, the worst thing you can do as an individual who is starting a company is not taking risks involving your new product, the one you want to be your companies flag bearer, fear is the worst thing an entrepreneur can have. Thus hope and faith, with this two you will get to trust your instincts at least.

Kenya Climate Innovation Launch

A new business hub for African climate technology entrepreneurs was launched in Nairobi to boost locally sourced green technologies in the Africa region. The Kenya Climate Innovation Center (CIC), a cutting-edge facility, will offer financing and other services to a growing network of climate innovators and entrepreneurs.

The first of its kind in the world, it is expected to support up to 70 sustainable climate technology ventures in the first five years, and is set out to generate 4,600 direct and over 24,000 jobs in total within ten years.

read more

Teacher Opens Doors for Youth in Botswana using infoDev Business Incubation Training Global Forum Snapshot

Tommie Hamaluba has spent the majority of his career educating youth in Gaborone, Botswana; he now wants to use his passion for youth empowerment to help former students and other young people to create sustainable ICT-related businesses in his incubation facility- The Global Youth Alliance.

Tommie attended the Open Innovation Africa Summit in Nairobi last November and was inspired to combine his love of teaching with his academic background in business and marketing. In order to increase his incubation knowledge, he went to South Africa for infoDev Incubation Training in March and attended the 4th Global Forum on Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Helsinki to complete the remaining training modules.
Read more

What's next for ICT in Africa?

This infoDev session brought together entrepreneurs and researchers to discuss how the ICT landscape is shaping Africa's future.

As part of Financial and Private Sector Development week, infoDev and the Africa Finance & Sector Development Front Office hosted a session on the future role of ICT in Africa. The session was moderated by Valerie D'Costa, infoDev program manager, and included an expert panel of speakers. We were joined by:

Mouhamet Diop, Chairman and CEO, Kheweul.com; CEO, NEXT SA, Senegal

Javier Ewing, Managing Director, Excelsior Firm, East Africa

David Kaplan, Professor of Business-Government Relations and Economics, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Bright Simons, Founder, mPedigree, Ghana read more

How Kenya has beaten the World in Mobile money

Click a few keys, exchange a few numbers, and it’s done. With just a mobile phone and a registration with Safaricom, Kenya’s mobile service giant, you can pay for anything in seconds – no cash, no long journeys to towns to reach a bank, and no long lines when you get there. This is m-Pesa, the revolutionary approach to banking which is changing economies across Africa. The service allows customers and businesses to pay for anything without needing cash, a bank account, or even a permanent address. In today’s Digital Diversity, in honour of its recent fifth birthday, we present a beginner’s guide to m-Pesa and examine its implications for financial access in developing economies.
read more

Updating the smartphone software for Android phones

How can I update my smartphone software to the latest version?

The software of the smartphone can be updated to fix specific issues, update applications or to update the used version of Android. Running the latest software will allow you to get the best from your smartphone.

PRECAUTION
During the update process, all data stored on your smartphone will be overwritten. This means all information, such as contacts, email and appointments, as well as software you installed yourself will be erased. Therefore, we recommend making a backup of all data before starting the update process.
REQUIREMENTS
To update to the latest software, you need the USB cable that shipped with your Acer smartphone and a free USB port on a computer that meets the following requirements:
read more

Friday, November 16, 2012

Eight ways journalists can use SoundCloud

Audio is an engaging way to bring readers and listeners deeper into a story, and it’s never been easier to tell stories with sound on the Web.

The best part: You don't need prior radio experience or access to expensive tools. SoundCloud, a Web-based audio program that allows users to create, share and collect audio clips, lets journalists and news organizations post, share and comment on audio with its free, user-friendly tools.

Launched in 2007 as a musician's resource, SoundCloud now has 20 million registered users, and is increasingly used for the spoken word. ReadWriteWeb recently described it as “a hub for radio-style journalism and commentary with an interactive twist.”

Here are some of the ways SoundCloud is being used around the world:

1. To post news programming

Traditional news outlets such as France 24 post their regular radio news programming on SoundCloud. This makes the news ripe for social sharing and available to a new audience. Listeners can also submit comments directly onto the audio track. The site lets users upload a total of 120 minutes of audio at any one time, but yearly subscriptions with more space are available for a fee.Read more

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Kenya leads East Africa in green technologies: World Bank

Kenya is leading the East African region in the implementation of green technologies, a World Bank official said on Tuesday.

World Bank Group Director of Innovation Gerardo Corrochano told Xinhua that the region could borrow from the lessons from the country's emerging industry.

"Kenya is quickly adopting green technologies due to a huge appetite and spirit from entrepreneurs eager to tap into the emerging opportunities," Corrochano said during a climate conference to launch the Climate Innovation Center (CIC) estimated to cost $12 million.

He added that the World Bank group has partnered with the Danish and British governments to set up the first center in the region and will be hosted at Strathmore University.

The director said that initial estimates indicate that over 5, 000 green jobs will be created by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that will be incubated in the facility.

The World Bank official said that commercial banks are yet to embrace extending loans to innovators of green technologies. "Green finance is an emerging ecosystem and so the banks are yet to fully understand the risks in the businesses," he said.

He noted that the World Bank is supporting low carbon growth initiatives in Kenya and will be used a model for the rest of the region.

World Bank Climate Technology Program Coordinator Jonathan Coony said that there is a lot of capital in the developed world looking for investment opportunities. "In the last few years, economic growth has been occurring in low income nations but perception of high risk has limited cash inflows," Coony said.Read more

What is Green technology?

The term "technology" refers to the application of knowledge for practical purposes.
The field of "green technology" encompasses a continuously evolving group of methods and materials, from techniques for generating energy to non-toxic cleaning products.
The present expectation is that this field will bring innovation and changes in daily life of similar magnitude to the "information technology" explosion over the last two decades. In these early stages, it is impossible to predict what "green technology" may eventually encompass.
The goals that inform developments in this rapidly growing field include:
Sustainability - meeting the needs of society in ways that can continue indefinitely into the future without damaging or depleting natural resources. In short, meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
"Cradle to cradle" design - ending the "cradle to grave" cycle of manufactured products, by creating products that can be fully reclaimed or re-used.
Source reduction - reducing waste and pollution by changing patterns of production and consumption.
Innovation - developing alternatives to technologies - whether fossil fuel or chemical intensive agriculture - that have been demonstrated to damage health and the environment.
Viability - creating a center of economic activity around technologies and products that benefit the environment, speeding their implementation and creating new careers that truly protect the planet.

12 Reasons Why Cloud Will Thrive In Africa

If you’re wondering what the future for Cloud technology in Africa looks like, the answer is bright. Very bright. There are many reasons why I believe Cloud as a technology will prosper in Africa –not just ideally but also practically and here are a few of them:

Rising Exposure: The African market has for the past few years been getting a lot of exposure to new & increasingly advanced internet technologies. The increased familiarity with tech is making people more accustomed to & thus more receptive to advanced solutions like cloud.
Smart Device Adoption: With a growing middle class we find that there is an increasing number of users who own one or more smart devices or at least use them on a daily basis. These devices are web enabled and optimized for easy use of web-based services such as cloud.

Kenya's leading technology incubator

NaiLab is a startup accelerator that offers a 3 to 12 months entrepreneurship program with focus on growing innovative technology driven ideas, this is done by providing business advice, technical training and support, professional mentoring and coaching, access to market, strategic partnership and most important investors.

The NaiLab focuses on early stage business ideas that are likely to have a large social and economic impact, are highly scalable, require minimum investments to prototype and have a strong value proposition.

Hubs in Africa

BongoHive, Lusaka's Technology and Innovation Hub, was set up in May 2011 and provides a place for technology entrepreneurs to meet, swap experience, and attend training, networking and hackathon events.

Visit

Africa: Technology Innovation Can Develop Africa

Naivasha, Kenya. With the highest rates of mobile technology growth being recorded in Africa, experts attending the Open Innovation Africa Summit (OIAS) in Naivasha, Kenya recently said that there is still need for innovation in developing local content for Africa to have social economic development.
Delegates at the first OIAS included delegates from public policy specialists, researchers, entrepreneurs, ICT experts and financiers who are vital in creating various demand-driven innovations that would improve the standard of living on the African continent.
These delegates from the government, private sector and financiers are vital in creating the working environment for the development of ICT content that is relevant for the content.
Read more

African innovations

Across Africa, developers and programmers are coming up with new technologies from mobile banking to mapping software and medical tablets to cloud storage. Now the continent is increasingly relying on its own homegrown innovations.

But this technology revolution is not without its challenges. So what are the obstacles facing the industry, and will this new breed of innovators be able to overcome them?

Friday, December 14, 2012

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Monday, December 10, 2012

Betting Big on African Markets

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Monday, December 3, 2012

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Tuesday, November 27, 2012