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Nokia Lumia 925 Specs

2013-05-14T09:53:32Z

Nokia through a press conference in London has unveiled its new flagship Windows phone. Here are the specs

Networks:
GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900,
WCDMA, 2100, 1900, 850, 900,
LTE 2100, 1800, 2600, 900, 800

Memory: 1GB RAM, 16 GB user memory

Display: 4.5-inch AMOLED WXGA (1280×768)Processor: 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon

Camera: PureView 8.7-megapixel with OIS, Autofocus, dual LED flash.
2nd camera: HD 1.2MP wide angle

Size: 129 x 70.6 x 8.5* mm (*volumetric). Weight: 139g

Connectivity: USB 2.0, BT 3.0, NFC, WLAN a/b/g/n, A-GPS and Glonass, 3.5mm audio connector

Battery: 2000 mAh

Audio: -IHF speaker, 2 microphones, HD voice compliant, 3.5mm AV connector

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Top 30 countries in Africa in terms of their internet security threat profile according to Symantec

2013-05-13T16:00:47Z

Here is the list of top 30 Africa countries in terms of internet security threat profile in 2012 released by Symantec

TOP 30 COUNTRIES IN AFRICA
Africa+B3:C24 Rank (2012)	Country	World Rank (2011)	World Rank (2012)	Malicious Code	Spam	Phishing
Africa+B3:C24 Rank (2012)	Country	World Rank (2011)	World Rank (2012)	World Rank (2012)	World Rank (2012)	World Rank (2012)
1	Egypt	27	29	9	64	71
2	South Africa	43	46	30	47	34
3	Morocco	42	49	42	32	39
4	Tunisia	60	60	46	35	95
5	Algeria	13	61	35	h	59
6	Mauritius	81	67	53	51	104
7	Nigeria	59	69	41	69	91
8	Kenya	85	86	70	86	80
9	Sudan	86	89	87	58	0
10	Ghana	99	92	56	0	91
11	Cameroon	91	99	66	89	127
12	Ethiopia	102	101	60	100	0
13	Libya	101	102	80	78	100
14	Cote D’Ivoire	103	103	83	80	109
15	Angola	90	107	85	82	0
16	Senegal	117	108	111	72	127
17	Namibia	123	119	117	92	109
18	Tanzania	113	122	91	0	109
19	Seychelles	135	123	149	0	66
20	Zimbabwe	134	124	103	116	95
21	Zambia	126	126	101	118	127
22	Uganda	125	127	100	132	127
23	Botswana	130	128	96	146	127
24	Malawi	151	133	102	0	127
25	Mozambique	112	136	124	117	127
26	Congo, Democractic Republic of the	115	137	113	122	127
27	Madagascar	132	146	138	108	0
28	Rwanda	131	149	125	121	127
29	Djibouti	158	158	135	150	127
30	Burkina Faso	159	160	131	0	0

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Safaricom Apps Development Challenge and Why The Quality Kenyan Apps is Going Down

2013-05-11T07:58:16Z

Safaricom earlier this week launched Safaricom Development Challenge, targeting new mobile application developers in Kenya. The aim is to equip the participants with entrepreneurial and technological skills.

This is a follow up to the successful Safaricom AppStar Challenge done last year , which was won by Tough Jungle game application. Tough jungle, a Kenyan game that contains different levels of play which are revealed after successful navigation of one level, went on to win the overall prize at the regional challenge in South Africa . But I would say those were golden moment and golden days for Kenyan developers. I think the quality of the apps being created has gone down. Recently I attended Microsoft Imagine Cup competition and I left the place a disappointed observer. The quality of the apps and ideas by most developers were pathetic to say the least .I am not sure whether that was an isolated case, but the n considering the fact that the likes of IBM don’t trust the local talents to run their innovation and research center in Nairobi, something is not right.

One would probably argue that Imagine Cup is for the university students, but those are our university students, where as a country we expect the best of the best from. In many parts of the world universities are where the research, innovation and invention usually take place. When our students can not come up and compete with the world best, then there is something wrong with the system which need to be rectified.

That brings me to the judging criteria. Kenya is full of winners, winners of all sort of competitions and challenges, but the pressing questions is do winners end up being something beyond the winning. Having been on this industry for a while, I don’t expect instant success but there is deafening silence about most of the winners to the extent that you would think that all their apps died straight after winning. For example I have talked about Tough Jungle but the last time I heard from them was when they won the competition. Where is Ma3Racer which won the Pivot East competition last year, where are the guys who won the Startup Garage, how about the winners of Startup Weekend, same goes to the winner of Nokia Hackathon and Google Android Challenge? Since the judges give all these apps thumb-ups, may be the problem lies with the judges or if not that then the criteria they use to judge them.

I hope Safaricom has come up with a better judging criteria for the judges.

Great, I have finished ranting, now it is time to finish the Safaricom story. Safaricom Incubation challenge is designed to help Safaricom identify and develop successful early stage mobile technology companies. The participants will undergo training and mentorship throughout the incubation period.

It is open to mainly university students and post university students with knowledge in IT, mobile application development and business management skills. It is also targeted at small and upcoming businesses that have interest in mobile application development.

This challenge is focusing on the following categories:

Agriculture
Health Financial Inclusion
Education Entertainment
Games and Media
Utilities
Transport and Infrastructure
Public Safety and Security

The Incubation program will involve a three month incubation phase that is expected to be full time. Dates for the incubation challenge will be as follows;

Launch: 09/05/2013
Submission Closure: 28/06/2013
Hack-a-thon: 27th to 28th July 2013
Incubation Start Date: 12/08/2013
Incubation Ends: 25/10/2013
Final Event- Award Ceremony: 01/11/2013

The grand prize winner will walk away with Ksh 1,500,000 with the runner up taking Ksh 1,000,000. Category winners will take Ksh 200,000 each.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Launch in Kenya and My First Impression

2013-05-10T11:39:33Z

Just a week after doing the African launch , Samsung finally unveiled the Samsung Galaxy S4 in Kenya. I will do a detailed review later, but for now let talk about what we know about the phone so far. According to Samsung the phone is designed to get you closer to what matters in life and brings your world together. That is an interesting tag line which has made me think about how the mobile phone has changed how people do things.

In a way, I understand why they chose the phrase “brings your world together”. It perfectly makes sense in the world of highly connected people. One device for everything (communication, computer, camera, Social Media, storage and bla bla bla). Within the limited time I have had with the Galaxy S4, I could see why many people think that Samsung has delivered on the impossible promise which they made. I have argued before that the phone companies are taking consumers for a ride and that not much changes in each of the new phones being launched like every month. I must say that although Samsung Galaxy S4 looks like Galaxy S3 to the extent that from a distance one would mistake them for being the same phone, Galaxy S4 is an improvement over its predecessor in every way .

Samsung Electronics East Africa Chief Operating Officer, Robert Ngeru thinks that the beauty of the phone is on the design. During the launch he explained that the beauty of the phone lies in the highly crafted design encompassing a larger screen size and battery, minimized bezel; all housed in a light (130g) and slim (7.9mm) shape. A number of people would still disagree with some parts of that statement purely on a design perspective. The bone of contention here is Samsung use of polycarbonate (plastic ) materials for the cover and especially when compared to iPhone 5 and HTC One. You might not be impressed by the cover but the moment the phone is turned on, the display is amazing. My take is , the phone has among the best displays seen so far.

I think it is a bit ironic in that around here most people get to witness the full display of HD on a phone and not on the normal TV . But at the same time it clearly explains why many tech writers are fond of saying that Africa is poised to leapfrog the developed world in technology adoption. The Galaxy S4 has the world’s first Full HD Super AMOLED display to showcase images at their very best. Its 5-inch large screen has 441ppi for stunning viewing quality. The Samsung GALAXY S4 also utilizes Corning’s new Gorilla® Glass 3. With it comes the Adapt Display feature, which help to optimise colours according to ambient light conditions. The user of the phone can choose between four manual modes (Dynamic, Standard, Professional Photo and Movie) and automatic modes if you select the Adapt Display option.

Next we move to the favorite part for the photographers like Mutua Matheka in the name of 13-megapixel rear camera. One would argue that the Samsung’s experience in manufacturing cameras has helped them make better camera phones and the S4 is not an exception. Shooting photos with the GS4 is something one looks forward to, a fact confirmed by renowned photographer Mutua Matheka during the launch. But for the people who really love themselves (pics), Galaxy S4 has a feature called ‘Dual Camera’ function, that allows simultaneous use of both front and rear cameras.When capturing moments, users can choose from a variety of frame effects, which blend the two pictures naturally and adjust the size of the small picture inside the big one. Users can select eight different ways to combine the two photos taken by the front camera and the rear camera. At the same time, the ‘Dual Video Call’ function enables you to make and receive a video call while showing what you are looking at during the call.

I have talked a number of people especially developers who have never been impressed by the Samsung UI TouchWiz ,although the normal users(the people who really matter) usually love it. In the case of Galaxy S4 ,Samsung has outdone itself with recent iteration of TouchWiz UI software. Samsung has paired Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with the new TouchWiz UI, creating one of its kind experience. I would love to talk again with those developers who have issues with the TouchWiz to hear what they say about S4 interface

I just have to mention ‘Group Play’ function. The feature which enable the users to enjoy music, photos, documents and games with those around them without even requiring a Wi-Fi AP or cellular signal. Basically the feature enables users to connect directly with others to share, play and co-create content and entertainment instantly. Better still is the ‘Share Music’ option, which allows users to have the same song playing on multiple phones in sync to create the best party atmosphere. The audience at S4 launch was entertained by Wyre using the feature and connecting with his friends to share his music. …

Before I go, I have to go back to the discussion I had before and it came back recently because what Robert Ngeru said during the S4 launch in Kenya. According to Mr. Ngeru Africa is now the fastest growing smartphone market in the world. I mentioned that online and it brought back our never ending “Dumb phone vs The Smartphones” argument with Linet Kwamboka (g33kmate). Linet has got a friend on her side from Nigeria Mr.Emeka Okoye (@Emekaokoye) , who recently gave some interesting stats about the feature phones use in Africa.

Population using Feature phones: #Kenya 88%, #Nigeria 89%, #SouthAfrica 70% via @bbc & #BuzzCity. #Africa

— Emeka Azuka Okoye (@EmekaOkoye) May 7, 2013

Before that, Mr. Emeka had tweeted that almost every person with smartphone in Nigeria also own a feature on the side. The feature phones in this case are all for the backup purposes in case the smartphones run out of charge. You know Nigeria has issues with Power just like Kenya. I believe it is time for developers in Kenya and Africa to move on start developing exclusively for the smartphones. Sms and USSD developers (for feature phones) all sound like NGOs. Their target is to save the world instead of making the money to survive. The NGOs around here covers humanitarian kind of functions quite well, and therefore, developers who want to make money, should switch to creating smartphone apps.

For instance the interest on Galaxy S4 in Kenya is at record high with official distributors of the Samsung Phones running out of the phone within a few days of its arrival. Safariom setup the pre-order for the Galaxy S4 and Maryann Michuki, Digital & Social Media Manager at Safaricom Limited, is excited about the number of people who placed the order for the phone. It is worth noting that this was the first time that Kenyans had the choice to place the orders for the Samsung flagship phones in advance.

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Nokia 105 in East Africa

2013-05-08T18:27:27Z

Nokia 105 has been around in East Africa, for a few weeks now. Nokia 105 is the successor to the Nokia 1280. According to Nokia , the phone features quality handset design, a durable, one-piece keymat and a long-lasting battery, making it ideal for first-time buyers. The handset is available in cyan or black and features a colour screen.

The Nokia 105 handset retails at KES 1,750, UGX 63,000 and TZS 40,000 in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania respectively.

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88mph Opens Applications For Nairobi Early Stage Start-ups Funding

2013-05-08T13:45:28Z

88mph, an early stage startup fund and 3 month accelerator program has opened applications for Nairobi. The program assists start-ups by giving them investment of up to a 100k, access to business networks and the know how to quickly grow their businesses.

That’s why, in addition to funding, the 88mph team in Nairobi has put together talent and resources, to add more value for the startups:

A partnership with Google has enabled the right space and internet resources to build tech companies, as well as access to Google’s experienced web professionals who can mentor the startups.
A host of highly experienced local Kenyans and global mentors have been added to the already top-notch 88mph mentor network.
Furthermore, “Entrepreneurs-in-residence” – experienced entrepreneurs, specialized in sales, programming & web design – are being brought in from across the world to work side by side with the local startups during the 3-month acceleration.
Finally, 88mph arranges a demo day, where the startups will get access to a group of investors and showcase what they’ve achieved so far.

The Application process

• Application deadline is midnight July 15th, 2013

• Startups can apply now on 88mph.ac

• 88mph invests up to $100k per startup

• Equity will depend on the startup company valuations, which could range from $100k to $1mil

• Altogether 8 – 15 teams will receive an investment and get accepted into the 3-month program

• The teams will be noti?ed if they have been accepted to the program by August 1st, 2013

• Program starts on August 26^th at the 88mph Garage in Narobi, Kenya

• Startups in the program will have access to tech hubs in Cape Town, as well as to 88mph’s partner tech hubs across Africa

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Dimension Data To Buy AccessKenya For KES3.052 Billion

2013-05-06T15:50:09Z

Dimension Data has made an open market offer to purchase 100% of the issued share capital of AccessKenya for KES14.00 per share. Based on the 218 million shares in issue, this is equivalent to KES3.052 billion. The offer is:

AccessKenya shareholders will also be entitled to receive the final dividend of KES0.30 per AccessKenya share proposed by the AccessKenya board in respect of the year ended 31 December 2012.

The AccessKenya Group was founded by brothers David and Jonathan Somen, and was one of the first ISPs to launch in Kenya in 2000. The company, which was also the first ICT company to list on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, employs 340 staff, and provides predominantly connectivity-based data services to about 5,000 corporate customers in Kenya. These customers range from large multinationals, government agencies, NGOs, as well as a large cross section from industries across the economy.

Dimension Data currently operates in Kenya through subsidiaries Dimension Data Kenya, Internet Solutions Kenya, and Plessey Kenya and intends to merge its Internet Solutions Kenya business into Access Kenya. Internet Solutions is a leading network service provider in sub-Saharan Africa with investments in South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Ghana. The company has a network presence in a further 10 sub-Saharan African countries. Leveraging its 1,500 employees, Internet Solutions focuses on providing managed network and cloud-based services to a predominately corporate and multinational client base.

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Kenyan BAKE Blog Awards 2013 Winners

2013-05-06T14:21:18Z

Here are the winners of this year’s Kenyan BAKE Blog Awards 2013 which took place yesterday :

1 Best Business Blog

Sokodirectory.com

2 Best Political Blog

057siasa.blogspot.com

3 Best Sport Blog

superfoota.com

4 Best Technology Blog

Techmoran.com

5 Best Topical Blog

Thinkm-pesa.com

6 Best Travel Blog

Kenyatalii.com

7 Best Corporate Blog

Letsgotravelkenya.blogspot.com

8 Best Creative Writing Blog

Bikozulu.co.ke

9 Best Entertainment/Lifestyle Blog

Niaje.com

10 Best Environmental/Agricultural Blog

Rockescientist.blogspot.com

11 Best Fashion Best

Nanciemwai.com

12 Best Food Blog

Pikachakula.com

13 Best New Blog

Kenyaweddings.co.ke

14 Best Photography Blog

Mutuamatheka.com

15 Kenyan Blog of the Year

Niaje.com

Sponsors

Special Thanks to BAKE Awards 2013 sponsors

Safaricom
Samsung
NSoko
Nokia
ICT Board
Wazi Wifi
DB Agency
AccessKenya
Orange
MultiChoice Kenya
Expose Limited
Philips
Virtual City
Heritage Hotels
Microsoft

Uniglobe Northline Travel

Media Partner
CapitalFm

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Orange Mobile Internet Usage Campaign

2013-04-27T18:41:38Z

Orange in the next two months will reward subscribers with bonus on-net voice and SMS airtime as well as free subscription to its Holla tarrif for every purchase of mobile internet bundles. Data bundles ranging from 50MB to 5GB qualify for bonus airtime ranging from KSh 20 to KSh 700 while the unlimited data bundles qualify for free subscriptions to Holla.

The campaign is named ‘Opportunity Changes With Orange.’ Personified by Julius Yego, the Kenyan javelin athlete who earned the nickname ‘the YouTube Athlete’ for mastering his prowess via YouTube videos and making it to the London Olympics (2012) finals, the campaign positions the Internet as a path to achieving goals, dreams and ambitions.

According to Yego, getting to access the Internet was akin to having an online tutor. “I watched YouTube videos and it really paid off for me, to see the training techniques and skills that professional Javelin throwers use. Interestingly, it was via the Internet that Orange and I connected to tell my story,” said Yego.

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Ericsson Application Awards Competition- Apps for City Life

2013-04-27T18:34:11Z

Ericsson announced the semi-finalists for the annual Ericsson Application Awards with TeamKenya from Kenya, Team Trokxi and Team Nimdee Mobile from Ghana among the semi-finalists. TeamKenya and Trokxi are nominated in the student category and Nimdee mobile is nominated in the company category.

TeamKenya developed an application that makes it easier for electorates to know and interact with political aspirants in their location, to learn more about the laws and topics surrounding electoral processes, get the latest electoral news and also to be informed of the latest electoral events.

Team Trokxi developed an application that provides you with estimated fares to make informed decisions for public transportation. It helps you budget your trips, save money, time and minimize transport-related frauds.

Team Nimdee developed an application that enables African merchants to access bigger markets on the continent and also the global market, while allowing merchants to reach their customers on the same platform.

The three teams from Africa are competing for the first place spot with teams from China, United Kingdom, USA, Romania, Poland, Portugal and Brazil.

The purpose of this year’s theme “Apps for City Life” is to promote innovations towards the Networked Society by connecting people, things and places to empower individuals and society.

The semi-finalist apps will be reviewed by approximately 900 users representing 9 large cities from different parts of the world such as New York, Johannesburg, Sydney, Shanghai.

When this second evaluation phase is concluded, 4 finalist-teams will be selected for the finals. Winning teams will receive €25,000 in prize money in each category.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 African Launch Live Stream

2013-04-25T17:10:33Z

Samsung Galaxy S 4, African Launch is taking place in South Africa tonight, Johannesburg .The Galaxy S4 launch in Johannesburg is being live streamed to a global audience on this Facebook Page.

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Nokia Annouces Nokia Asha 210

2013-04-24T19:00:33Z

Nokia Asha 210 is the latest Nokia Asha device, designed to offer consumers more social experiences at an affordable price. The Nokia Asha 210, available in Single- or Easy Swap Dual-SIM variants. It supports Wi-Fi and ha a dedicated WhatsApp button.

The Nokia Asha 210 has a QWERTY keyboard . So Nokia is celebrating their partnership with WhatsApp and the process WhatsApp is offering their service for free on all Nokia Asha 210 devices .

The Nokia Asha 210 comes with a 2MP camera that can be accessed through a dedicated hardkey even when the keypad is locked. The camera offers a choice of image capture, editing and sharing options, including:

· Self-portrait – for perfectly centred self-portraits, even without a front-facing camera. The built-in voice guides the user to ensure they are in the frame, before taking the shot

Fast editing of images directly from the camera app and easy sharing of images to social networks

Nokia has introduced a new feature for sharing photos and other content called Slam, which comes built-into the Nokia Asha 210. It works by enabling the transfer of content such as images or videos to another Bluetooth-enabled phone without the need to pair devices.

The Nokia Asha 210 also features Nokia Nearby, a web app that lets people discover points of interest such as restaurants, shopping and ATM machines close to their location.

Other key features for Nokia Asha 210 include:

Social phonebook integration with the ability to launch WhatsApp direct from contact cards in the Phonebook

Preloaded YouTube launcher for direct video streaming
Chat screen notifications that keep users up-to-date on new conversations
Single-SIM and Dual-SIM models featuring Nokia’s exclusive EasySwap technology that enables consumers to change SIM cards without having to turn off the device
Wi-Fi On/Off control button
Nokia’s renowned long battery life: up to 46 days with Single-SIM and up to 24 days with Dual-SIM

The Nokia Asha 210 is available in yellow, cyan, black, and magenta and white. The estimated retail price for the Nokia Asha 210 is around 72 USD and it is expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2013.

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88mph announces partnership with eVentures Africa (eVA) Fund

2013-04-23T17:51:42Z

88mph, an African seed fund and accelerator based in both Nairobi and Cape Town, yesterday announced partnership with eVentures Africa (eVA) Fund that will better link the two continents and investment opportunities for both parties.

eVA Fund is a European venture capital firm investing in Sub-Sahara’s African SME’s active in digital media. The Netherlands-based eVA Fund typically invests between $500,000 and $1.5 million in digital technology companies. Unlike any other partnerships eVA fund has entered into, the one with 88mph is geared towards improving early stage web/mobile startups’ chances for success.

eVA Fund, with its access to large investors, aims to review 88mph startups for follow-on funding opportunities.

As part of the collaboration between the two companies, eVA Fund will bring its key fund investors or limited partners to 88mph’s offices in Cape Town (April 21, 2013) and Nairobi (April 24, 2013) where they’ll be holding mentoring sessions and providing feedback to startups’ pitches.

88mph’s overarching goal is to bring more investment and attention to Africa. The company has partnered with Google for Entrepreneurs and is also funded by private investors including 4Di Capital, Hannes van Renburg, Fundamo CEO and Ranjith Cherickel, Head of Sales and Business Development, Africa at Nokia Siemens Networks, among others.

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Nokia Made Promising Lumia Sales on First Quarter 2013 but a Huge Decline on the Feature Phones

2013-04-19T14:07:48Z

Nokia Yesterday released its first quarter 2013 results and there are encouraging signs on their report. Although Nokia made operating loss of $196 million, the figure is a great improvement compared to a year ago, when its operating loss was $1.7 billion. And the most interesting aspect of the report is the Nokia sales of Lumia phones.

In term of Volumes during the first quarter 2013 Nokia shipped 6.1 million Smart Devices units, of which 5.6 million units were Lumia products and 0.5 million units were Symbian products. Two third of those Lumia devices were Windows Phone 8-based products. The overall outlook for the smartphones is weighed down by the symbian devices but the number of Windows devices is a clear indication that Nokia is the right track

While Lumia is coming up strongly there was huge decline in the feature phones shipment by Nokia. The number of shipped feature phones declined by 31% on year by year comparison and by 33% compared to the last quarter. During the first quarter 2013 Nokia shipped 55.8 million Mobile Phones units (feature phones), of which 5.0 million were Asha full touch smartphones. The question I am asking at this point is, is this a clear sign of the smartphone adoption across the globe or is it a matter of competition taking toll even to the lower end of the market for Nokia? Nokia Mentioned on their report that the sales were affected by the competition not just from the other lower end feature phones but from entry level smartphones. In Africa for example the likes of Tecno and Huawei are coming up strongly and expected to eat into Nokia’s lower end market market share. For example a simple walk along the streets of Nairobi, especially those sides of Tom Mboya street and one realize the kind of effort Tecno is making to capture the feature phones market. But at this point I don’t think Nokia and others should be worried. The rate at which people are changing their phones from feature phones to smart phones is amazing and it is just a matter of time .

The battle as I see it, especially in Africa is already at the entry level smartphones. Huawei started it off with Ideos, and then Samsung and others took over from there. Nokia Lumia range of devices are showing good signs but there is a problem especially when comes to making phones that can compete with the likes of Samsung Galaxy Pocket and Intel Yolo, in terms of the pricing. The Windows platform requires higher minimum specs for the entry level smartphone, making Lumia phones very expensive when compared to Andoid phones of the same range. For example Lumia 620, is awesome phone but selling it at over Ksh.22K, may discourage significant number of people who probably could have bought it in the first place. Time Nokia and Windows look at this keenly, so that they can give people great Lumia Phones at affordable rates

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Government Partnered With Nokia To Provide Useless Nokia Life Application

2013-04-18T09:37:14Z

Sometime last year the Government through ICT Board and Ministry of Communication partnered with Nokia to do something. Yes, something because even PS Ndemo could not answer what that partnership was meant to do . Anyway that partnership brought to us Nokia Life, an sms based system meant for the feature phones.

According to Nokia , Nokia Life is designed to address information gaps so that consumers in emerging markets can be better informed and improve their livelihood, with targeted services for Healthcare, Agriculture, Education and Entertainment. The Nokia Life content is through SMS

Ok, I really don’t understand why the Government would partner with Nokia just to bring us this crappy system. To start with during the launch Ps. Ndemo kept on preaching for people to develop local content. Now there are many local apps that by far already doing what Nokia Life is meant to do. Why the Government never thought it is wise to partner with them, as a way of promoting local content is beyond my understanding. And here is the reason why I think partnering some of the below mentioned start-ups would have made more sense:

One of the function of Nokia Life is Agriculture: – Allow the users to Access to the latest market prices, weather and agricultural tips. The problem with this , like the other functions of this system is that it does not have the content. So Nokia and others involved are waiting for someone to plug in and provide the content. If that does not happen soon then you are left with empty delivery pipe. Already in Kenya there are a number of start-ups providing the agriculture information and the famous among them is M-Farm. M-Farm already provide the price comparison, connect the farmers with the buyers and provide market data and daily updates. Partnership with the Government probably would have helped them build their capacity to provide more local content the Government is preaching about

Another function of Nokia Life is Education:- It is meant to help improve the general knowledge of the users directly from the mobile device in the local language and in this case Kiswahili. I know the use of the phrase “local language” makes people think that such a project would be attractive to the locals but what I know is that most of the Kiswahili projects have failed miserably. Google for example have Kiswahili version of their Google.co.ke but how many people use it in Kenya. Facebook abandoned the Kiswahili version of Facebook and even most Kiswahili books are only read in schools. This is an English brainwashed country. You see Kenyans laughing at Kenyans athletes who can not express themselves in English during interviews after winning races. Yes they do that , instead of encouraging them to speak the language they understand . But apart from that there a number of start-ups already working on delivering education materials to the general public and the students a like. Some of those start-ups are Mprep, Elimu Kenya, E-kitabu. The best thing about these guys is that they already have the delivery systems and the content required. A partnership with the Government would go a long way in helping them unlock some of the education institutions which are still living in the analogue age.

Another function of Nokia Life is Entertainment: Let me just say that may be the Government has never heard of Ghafla!

On top of the above I have said several times that the time is up for the Dumb phone sms or USSD applications. Kenyan people are moving with full speed to smart phones or internet enabled phones. Safaricom for example announced recently that they are phasing out feature phones from their shops and soon will be selling smartphones only. USSD applications have no money and this is not different. Nokia Life charges the user from Ksh.2 per sms. The network operators get their cut for delivering SMS, the remaining is being shared by Nokia and the content provider for the system. I am not sure about the revenue share ratio, but we know very well that network operators would never dare work with something that they are losing out from. Simply put this is a lost cost for content providers even if they want to.

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ASUS announces ASUS Fonepad – Ready to be launched across Africa in May

2013-04-17T21:55:16Z

ASUS announced the ASUS Fonepad, which will be launched across Africa in early May. Fonepad is the first android tablet that runs the new Intel processor . At seven inches, the Fonepad weighs 340g and features a 10.4mm profile.

The tablet runs on Jellybean 4.1, and added onto it a 1.2 megapixel front camera and a 3 megapixel back camera. The Fonepad has a smooth metal back. The back panel houses the usual antennae, and hidden underneath are both the micro-SIM slot and the micro SD reader which supports up to 32GB cards.

The Asus Fonepad will have the new Intel processor a 1.2GHz Atom Z2420 to be exact. This processor was specifically designed by Intel for smartphone and tablet devices.

The Fonepad is part of a range of devices created by ASUS that are targeted towards capturing the growing mobile device market in Africa, with the focus being on mobility and connectivity. The tablet is ideal for people who value both the voice communication features of a smartphone and the entertainment opportunities afforded by a tablet, but prefer the convenience of carrying just one device.

ASUS Fonepad and accessories will be available from May 2013. Fonepad prices suggested from Kshs. 24,999 (MSRP). More could be found with Kenya local Asus partners) for 8GB storage with three-megapixel rear camera.

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What is Really Wrong with Safaricom 3G Internet?

2013-04-17T14:32:38Z

So it seems Safaricom has a big problem with their 3G internet.? Slow, frustrating, heartbreaking and all that in the new world of the Fiber Cables.. In some instances the network signal is full but the internet is zero. Gauging from the number of people complaining about the same thing, the propblem is widespread. Unfortunately ,Safaricom customer care people and the engineers behind the scene are not saying anything sensible about it..

Here is the reply I got from them on 12th of April 2013

We have forwarded your issue to our network team. We will revert once we get feedback ^KM

More than five days later, I am still waiting and many people are getting frustrated like me.

So what is really wrong with Safaricom 3G internet ?

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Facebook to Roll out Facebook Home to International Markets Today

2013-04-16T18:16:27Z

If you are still struggling to understand what Facebook Home is like me, then time has come for you to experience it on your device…well, if you have the right one. Facebook has confirmed that it will roll out Facebook Home today to the International markets outside US. According to Techcrunch, Facebook VP of mobile engineering Corey Ondrejka confirmed that Facebook Home will begin its international rollout later today.

“Just today we’re going to be opening [Home] up to the rest of the world,” Ondrejka announced. “We launched in the U.S. because we wanted to make sure we could iron out any remaining bugs.”

The right devices for Home in this case are HTC One X/X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy Note II . But there is away to get Facebook Home working on any device (back door method).

So what is Facebook Home? My early impression is that it will change the unitary way of accessing mobile apps and bring in true multi-tasking. There is a great analysis here by Mark Wilson of fastcodesign.com

If you want to know what the future of mobile looks like, look no further than Chat Heads, the poker-chip-like avatars that drive conversations on Home. Because no matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, these heads can peek into the frame, quietly and coolly hanging out until you’re ready for them. And that’s a big change.

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Google Glass Specifications

2013-04-16T10:25:39Z

Google released basic technical specifications for the Google Glass and at the same time has started shipping them to the Developers and early adopters. Here are the specs:

Google Glass Pic Courtesy of Mashable

Fit

Adjustable nosepads and durable frame fits any face.
Extra nosepads in two sizes.

Display

High resolution display is the equivalent of a 25 inch high definition screen from eight feet away.

Camera

Photos – 5 MP
Videos – 720p

Audio

Bone Conduction Transducer

Connectivity

Wifi – 802.11b/g
Bluetooth

Storage

12 GB of usable memory, synced with Google cloud storage. 16 GB Flash total.

Battery

One full day of typical use. Some features, like Hangouts and video recording, are more battery intensive.

Charger

Included Micro USB cable and charger.

Compatibility

Any Bluetooth-capable phone.
The MyGlass companion app requires Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or higher. MyGlass enables GPS and SMS messaging.

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Africa App Quest Challenge for Sub Saharan Africa Developers

2013-04-15T18:56:27Z

Another chance for the Kenyan developers to make names for themselves. Africa App Quest, which is being sponsored by Visa and South African Tourism, challenges talented developers across Sub-Saharan Africa to build a home-grown travel app, specially designed for the tourism sector in Africa.

The Africa App Quest is built on the growing use of apps for travel and to capitalise on the continent’s growing popularity as a global tourist destination.

Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) Managing Director, Muriithi Ndegwa, said the Africa App Quest was a great opportunity for the Kenyan tech sector, “Kenya is widely known as one of Africa’s innovative hubs of application development. He further added: “In line with growing demands of the modern traveler, we have embraced e-tourism and recently launched our own mobile app at the just ended ITB 2013 in Berlin”.

Entries for the Africa App Quest can include anything from online safari guides and urban directories to game spotting and recording apps, online booking and shopping tools, or apps interpreting local cultures. Any application from an African company, that uses technology to improve and increase travel in Africa will be eligible.

The competition closes on the 16^th of August 2013, after which the judges – including representatives from Visa, South African Tourism Board, Betapond (an approved Facebook developer), Kenya Tourism Board and Trip Advisor – will announce the three shortlisted entries. A representative for each of the shortlisted entries will be flown to the 6^th Annual E- Tourism Africa Summit in Cape Townfor the final judging by the audience on the 9^th and 10^th of September 2013. The winner of the Africa App Quest will receive a cash prize of US $10,000.

More information on the competition, rules and entry forms can be found at www.e-tourismfrontiers.com or on the E-Tourism Frontiers Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/etourismfrontiersltd

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Seacom Launches Pamoja Cloud Services Using Africa Hosted Data Center

2013-04-12T09:21:00Z

Ok, now we have the market places for almost everything….the latest one being Cloud Services Market place which has been launched today by Seacom. Call it diversifying or taking a new route ,Seacom is trying out to do something entirely new from what they have been known for in Africa. Pamoja, the Cloud services business unit of SEACOM, want to take advantage of the evolving local Cloud services market, characterised by the rise of Telecommunication and ISPs over traditional IT service providers.

Pamoja Cloud Services Market place is targeting the Small and Medium sized enterprises in the region which offer cloud computing based services to their customers. With access to dedicated SEACOM bandwidth, Pamoja Cloud Services will be able to deliver Cloud services from any of its data centers in Africa, thereby bringing the Cloud to Africa. To start with, Pamoja is already offering the following services

Hosted Microsoft Exchange and other mail related services
Staorage, archiving services and online backup
Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Hybrid Cloud services (integration of Public Cloud Services with Private Cloud Services)
Server Virtualisation

AccessKenya will be among the first super resellers of the Pamoja Cloud Services.

I like the fact that they have their data centers in Africa. Most of the Cloud providers in Kenya and in Africa generally have their Data Centers based outside Africa. There are a number of advantages in having the Data center based in the continent as opposed to being in Europe or US. The first one being the Cloud providers need not to worry about the cable cuts within the Sea joining the content from the other continent. For example, recently we had Seacom and TEAMS Cables cut at the sea near Egypt. The act made accessing most websites in Kenya almost impossible due to slow internet or delivery of the content. And that is a problem right there… most websites in Kenya including this blog are hosted outside the continent. If there is a problem with the connectivity between the continent, then we are completely screwed.

Another advantage of local Data center is the issue of Latency. Latency , is amount of time or the delay as the data packets move over the various networks between the end user’s computer, the cloud provider’s application platform, and any storage networks. A Data center based in US for example means, someone accessing the service hosted there in Kenya will have to wait for the communication to go to US though Europe most likely and back to Kenya through the same route. . How fast the data is transferred from one location to another, depend not only on the speed of the internet but also on the distance within which the data has to travel. A data center closer to where end users are located makes a huge difference in solving the issue of latency. That is why African hosted data center should be a great news to all around here

At this point one would ask how far is the country in terms utilizing the opportunity provided by the Cloud Computing?

Many people in Kenya still don’t understand what the cloud computing is, but in one way or another they use it. Mr.Brian Longwe who presented during the Pamoja launch said the greatest thing about Cloud Computing , is that the cloud service providers build the infrastructure where the SMEs just plugin into them. The cloud enable the small businesses to enjoy the computing services on the world class platform at affordable rates. At operational level the Cloud Computing allows the SMEs to concentrate in building the business as opposed thinking about the infrastructure.

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Google Maps Navigation (Beta) for Android and iOS now available in Kenya

2013-04-12T11:30:15Z

At long last Google is getting serious around here. Google has announced the next step for Google Maps for mobile in Kenya. If you have a phone running on Android 2.2 (or above) and iOS 5.1 (or above) then go to Google play store or Apple App store and get Google Maps Navigation (Beta). Google Maps Navigation (Beta) is an Internet-connected GPS navigation or ‘satnav’ system that provides turn-by-turn voice driving directions as a feature of Google Maps for mobile.

Google Maps Navigation (Beta) uses phone Internet connection to give the latest maps and driving directions with a free application. Google’s navigation tool is regularly updated with the most recent data from Google Maps, which means users will not be required to purchase map upgrades or manually update their devices.

Google put forward the following as some of the benefits of Google Maps Navigation (Beta) :

Easy to use: Google finds your destination: Just type — or say your destination — and Google Maps Navigation (Beta) finds it, just like when you search on Google Maps. No need to know the address. Misspelled queries are corrected, and ambiguous queries return multiple results so the user can choose the right one.

It’s always fresh: No updating or downloads — always the most recent maps, businesses and traffic. Being connected to the Internet means you’re always using the latest data from Google Maps. You never need to buy map upgrades or manually update your device. Where traffic data is available, Navigation can even automatically route you around bad traffic.

It’s free with your smartphone: Like the rest of Google Maps, Navigation (Beta) is free (Note: carrier data plan charges still apply). Additionally, since it’s part of your phone, you don’t need to carry an extra device.

Turn-by-turn, voice-guided navigation: You no longer have to look at your phone screen to follow the route, you can simply listen for indications.

To get Google Maps Navigation (Beta), search for and download the newest release of ‘Google Maps’ in Google Play or the Apple App Store.

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Digital State House- Kenya State House Facebook and Twitter Accounts

2013-04-10T12:14:45Z

Good start for the Digital Team. State House now has Facebook page and Twitter account. According to Capitalfm the State House Kenya Facebook page was created a day before Uhuru was worn in as the fourth President of Kenya. At the time of writing this state house Facebook page had 38,186 likes while Twitter account had 5740.

The way to go and I hope the team will now convince the Parastatals heads to go digital too. The country would save a lot of money from them especially the ones they are using on the Newspapers congratulating the President. I mean they can still do the congratulations by posting such messages on their website, Facebook page or even on Twitter.

The President Twitter Account is @UKenyatta’s while his deputy Ruto’s account is @WillimsRuto

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Nokia rolls out new Camera extras to the entire Lumia Range

2013-04-08T16:55:38Z

So far Nokia has been very innovative when comes the cameras on their phones. And they are not about to stop…they are in the process of rolling out new camera features on the entire range of its Lumia smartphones.

Some of the features being introduced include Cinemagraph digital camera lens and updated Camera Extras with object remover. The features, which are already available on Nokia’s latest Windows Phone 8 smartphones, will now be available also on Nokia Lumia 900, 800, 710, 610 and 510.

The new Camera Extras is now available for everybody. Cinemagraph is already available for Nokia Lumia 900, 800 and 710 smartphones. Nokia Kenya says Lumia 610 and 510 customers will have the update ready for in the coming weeks.

The consumers are advised to check out for the Windows 7.8 software update which is being rolled out to users. Keep an eye for software update alerts on Nokia Lumia and accept the update which will also enable the new camera features.

The other feature being introduced is the Camera Extras app, which offers Smart Shoot, Panorama, Action Shot and a self-timer. The updated version uses burst mode to take a sequence of photos so you can choose your favorite shot and then remove unwanted objects.

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Girls in ICT day By AkiraChix

2013-04-08T10:15:04Z

Akirachix, the all young women and girls tech networking platform will be hosting Girls in ICT day event this month, on 27th April 2013. From AkiraChix Website:

AkiraChix will be hosting a Girls in ICT day event, aiming at exposing these young ladies to some of the career opportunities available to them in the tech industry. They will get to interact with girls who have benefited from the mentorship program in the past, as well as women working in the tech industry, both locally and globally. This event(in partnership with Google Kenya and ITU, who are the brains behind the Girls in ICT initiative) will be held at the iHub on 27th April 2013, between 9 a.m and 4.30 p.m.

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Nailab to Host Chipuka Forum by ICT Board

2013-04-10T10:50:49Z

You remember the Chipuka Software Developer Certification by ICT Board? The Nailab will play host to a forum by the ICT Board on the Chipuka Software Developer Certification on Thursday 11th April 2013.

Chipuka is meant to:

1. Identifying job candidates with the programming skills of entry-level software developers.

2. Demonstrating the presence of a well-trained software workforce in Kenya and elsewhere.

3. Providing guidance to educational and training institutions.

The program consists of an authentic examination that tests an individual’s ability to perform tasks that entry-level developers routinely encounter on the job. Test takers write, compile, debug, and test real software to demonstrate their abilities in a secure, proctored exam.

Here are the objectives for the Chipuka forum:

To appraise the ICT community on the progress of the project.
To allow for discourse on how all stakeholders can participate.
To allow interrogation of the process and the methodology.
To share the vision and the opportunity for Kenya by executing the project.
To elicit feedback on improving the project outcomes.

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The End is near for Most ISPs as Swift Global shuts down

2013-04-07T08:05:52Z

According to Cio.co.ke Liquid Telecom is shutting down Swift Global.

“Liquid Telecom is shutting down Swift Global. This comes after acquisition of the firm in late 2012 as part of its acquisition of Altech’s assets in East Africa. The firm has reportedly sent letters to about 85 employees notifying them of termination of their employment. The firm’s clients will be merged into Swift Global sister company, KDN”.

There are two ways to look at this. One is, this is the normal tech companies’ bad tendency of acquiring the upcoming startups and then shutting them down after a few months or years. We have seen that happen to many promising startups around the world and may be Africa has now caught the bug. Unfortunately I don’t think that is the case here which brings me to the second possible scenario. The bad shape of Kenyan ISPs….

The reality is many Kenyan ISPs are in trouble and it is just a matter of time before we see them shutting down unless they change the way they do things. Kenya has unique consumers and unless understand them fully like Safaricom did, they will keep on slipping away. In the case of ISPs, they are facing a problem of their own making. When the fiber cable landed in Kenya, they all promised that the internet prices will come down to affordable level to common man and woman but that has never happen so far. One would understand the problem they are facing with the last mile connection thing but even with that I still think it is stupid not share resources to sort out the issue. For example Instead of Jamii Telkom laying cables in the same street as AccessKenya and Wananchi Online, they should just simply zone out the city, lay the cables on their respective areas and share the pipes

The mobile network operators like Safaricom, Orange will continue to take over the space selling data bundles. The more network operators improve their signal to different regions of this country the more the iSPs will lose out. For a consumer, it is easy to buy a modern of Ksh.2000 and buy bundles whenever one wants to access the internet. Compare that with a situation where ISP tell you to pay to Ksh.15000, for the connection and then you have to pay in the excess of Ksh.4000 every month with a threat of disconnection if you don’t pay in time. On top of that they are not able to connect most places with high population like Eastleigh because of resources in laying the cables. Even those who are willing to be their clients can not help them sometime!!!

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Nokia to Introduce Operator Billing in Kenya and Nigeria- Is this the Key to Developers Success

2013-04-04T23:17:16Z

For many years and months the tech community have been pushing Nokia to introduce Operator billing. The reason for this has always been the fact that the developers and tech bloggers believe that this one way that will help Kenyan developers to make money. Many great apps but not much to write about in terms of financial success.

Well, at long last Nokia has made the big step to introduce operator billing solutions for the Nokia Store. Nokia has partnered with Airtel to announce the upcoming availability of integrated billing solutions for Nokia Store in both Nigeria and Kenya. Customers will shortly be able to download top local and global paid content, including apps and games, from Nokia’s mobile application store and pay for their downloads as part of their monthly mobile phone bills or have the amount deducted from their pre-paid balance. Another advantage is that customers will pay for this content in local currency. This is also great news for developers whereby paid for apps can soon be enjoyed by a broader base of consumers through operator billing, in addition to the existing credit card purchase mechanism.

With this it is time to look at the type of content that might enable developers to make money:

1. Gaming Apps… Looking back at the last Pivot East Competition and the winner was a gaming app… Ma3 Racer. Another look at the Safaricom App star Challenge and the winner was a gaming app…. Tough Jungle. That should tell you something about the current apps trend in Kenya. The last time I was at an event where the developers of Ma3 Racer were presenting, they talked of having over 800k downloads by then. Yes, huge part of that number is coming outside the country but the local downloads are still significant. Introducing charges will probably reduce the rate and the number of downloads but it is the best way for the developers to make money. Gaming apps in view could lead the way for the developers.

2. Dating Apps. A huge number of writers and bloggers are doing Personal love and dating stories in Kenya. I have not seen any love and dating app out there, but I think developers are missing an opportunity here. I think there many people out there who would not think twice before buying any Quality Love and dating content.

3. Gossip and Entertainment Content: The gossip sites like Ghafla, Muchene, and VibeWeekly have show how popular the gossip content can be in Kenya. I believe many people would buy Ghafla app just to keep update with what the likes of Vee and Huddah are upto.

4. Politics and Propaganda Content: May be , it is because we had election the other day but the propaganda sites like Daily Post and Jackal news are riding high. Having seen how people like to hear and read about some of the news item on those sites, it would not be far off to think that people would buy the apps version of those sites

5. Business News and Analysis: I think it is the category with the highest potential buyers. The people looking for Business news and analysis are not as many as those on the other categories but I think they would be more willing to buy quality content.

6. Rare content from neglected areas. Areas like Agriculture which I still think is not well covered, Climate change, Wildlife protection and others.

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What do Consumers In Kenya Look For when Buying A phone?

2013-03-31T20:54:52Z

Whenever there is an event to launch a phone in Kenya, journalists and bloggers usually ask whether there is a plan to customise local apps. It usually a great question until you start thinking about Kenyan market and what people look for when they go to buy a phone. For start, the only app which could make a consumer choose one phone over the other is MPESA. I think if MPESA is missing from a phone a Kenyan would think twice before buying the given phone. But with time it has become common to all phones that I don’t think there is any consumer who think that mpesa might be missing from a given phone. So why do journalists and bloggers keep on thinking that local apps usually affect the choice of consumers when they are buying phones?

To be honest local apps are missing from the conscious of many consumers, and those who have them on their phones just do so for curiosity sake and not that they are using them. Yours truly has quite a number on my phone because I review them but that is all. This post came up due to the action of Tecno which recently partnered with Zalego to have customised apps in their phones for Kenyan market. Read the story here.

Practically what Kenyans are looking for in a phone from my experience are the following:

1. Is it trendy:

Many people ended up buying Samsung Galaxy phones because they are the in thing despite the the fact that LG had some cheap options and almost of the same quality. In fact, the people who have used HTC phones believe that they are of better quality than the same version of Samsung. The same applies to the people buying Apple iPad instead of Samsung tabs. Credit to Samsung as they do a lot of marketing and try as much as they can to connect with Kenyan market as compared to the likes of LG and HTC. When comes to iPad then there is no explanation apart from it being Trendy. Apple’s presence in Kenya is next to zero.

2. Price Level:

The first question people ask whenever they hear a phone being launched is the price. Majority would want to know the price before asking what else is good with a given phone. Because of that Kenya is thought of as a price sensitive market. What I have noticed is that the price sensitivity depend on what level you are talking about. Ideos took Kenyan market by storm two years ago and the thinking then was that because of its price level . That made sense then but looking around now, then not many people have ideos phones as it was back then. The successor of the original Ideos, Ascend Y 100, was a big flop despite the fact that it followed the same channel. Same pricing level, same distributor in the name of Safaricom . Ideos retails at Ksh.8K with addons from Safaricom, while the other phones like galaxy Pocket, Intel Yolo, which took over go for 10K and above. In a way you may think that the quality has started to matter to people than just the price.

3. Specifications of the phone / Quality

The reason why Kenya was a Nokia country for a long time until recently when Samsung took over, was because of the quality of their phones. At each price level you would go to a shop and get a quality phone. But in between the perception what a phone should be changed and Nokia is now playing catch especially on the world of smartphones. It worth noting that Nokia did quite well with Asha 305, marketing it as a music phone, under the banner “break the beat”. Their success actually provoked Samsung to design a new phone named Samsung Galaxy Music, which they introduced to the market recently. It will be interesting to see how Galaxy music fare on in comparison with Nokia success with Asha 305. Talking of specifications, Galaxy Music and especially Intel Yolo came to the market with much better specs than many other phones retailing at the same level. I think that what has made Intel Yolo an overnight success in the Kenyan market.

4. Social Media sharing Tools

The ability to share on the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter matters to Kenyan more than the local apps would be in the near future. At the moment many people like the Android platform, because there are many third party apps for sharing on Facebook and twitter. On the same line people are still evaluating Nokia Lumia series in Kenya because they still can’t see a better way that they can share with their friends on social media. That might change with time for Lumia, as new apps roll in for Windows platform. It is important to note at this point that there is a new great Twitter App for Windows.

Please tell me what you look for when buying a phone?

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Tecno, Zalego, Reward 13 best Kenyan mobile apps and games

2013-03-31T20:49:09Z

Looking for local apps on your phone? You are in luck with the Tecno phones. Tecno mobile phones now have a range of apps customised for each African regions, including applications in Kiswahili for Kenyan users. The apps range from utility to information apps and even gaming apps, and are a result of Tecno’s partnership with Zalego, which will result on the millions using Tecno phones having access to high quality localised apps.

The handset manufacturer has partnered with Zalego in Kenya, who train developers in mobile application development for Java (j2me) apps, HTML5 (web) apps, BlackBerry apps, Android and other mobile technologies. In preparation for the app challege, Zalego trained 180 students at no cost, who had an opportunity to develop applications for Tecno devices, for which they won cash prizes and Tecno Android handsets.

On Saturday, Zalego and Tecno awarded the top 13 applications in Kenya’s Afmobi challenge at an event held in Kenyatta University and attended by top Tecno and Zalego staff. The Afmobi challenge is being run by Tecno in Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia and will lead to apps that will continue to distinguish Tecno as the top mobile phone brand in Kenya and across Africa.

13. Bonyeza by David Kirui.

The Android application has integrated Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) codes for top mobile operators in East Africa into an app. USSD codes are commonly used in the region to provide a range of services including purchase of teclo products such as data bundles and to provide information including airtime and data bundle balance. The apps provides USSD codes for Yu, Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, Orange Kenya, MTN Uganda and Vodacom(Tanzania).

12. Newsblast, by Joshua Mankone

Enables users receive real time content updates from online services such as My Yahoo!, Newsgator, Bloglines, and other news feed aggregators.

11. Betxuduku by Jonathan Kibet

A Sudoku mobile puzzle solving game

10. Kenyan Somali Fight Game by by Bhakitah Tech Solution

It capitalises on Kenya’s entry into Somalia to fight the Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen terrorist group (HSM, commonly known as Al-Shabaab or movement of the youth). The game simulates a battle in the warfield

9. Breaking News by Daniel Thuranira.

News aggregator. The app aggregates breaking news in sports, politics, science and technology, and business.

8. Kenya Basketball by Shem Tuti

An app dedicated to tracking and keeping up to date with local basketball leagues in Kenya.

7. Directory Kenya by Startappzke.

The app helps list places such as hotels and restaurants, cab hire agencies, tour and airline agencies, supermarkets, banks and other locations based on information from Yellow Pages.

6. Real Estate Finder by Kavata Everlyne.

Is an app which provides information of properties for lease and purchase.

5. Campus Guide by Steve Mbuvi

The app gives information that helps prospective students looking to take courses in higher education institutions. The developer says the app is able to give more clarity on what colleges and courses to pick, based on the career path the student wishes to take after study.

4. African Flags by Paul Kirugu Chege.

The app shows flags of African countries, the history behind the flags and also information on the country capitals, their sizes and currencies used in those countries.

3. Jmavuno by Joy Nyamai

The app assists farmers to query the export companies databases to compare the prices offered by various firms for their produce. The information is supposed to help farmers cut out middlemen who are notorious for purchasing produce from farmers at quite low prices and reselling them to firms at huge markups.

2. Tour Africa by Ndiangui Kinyagi.

The app acts as your guide to major African cities, providing information such as key attractions, local weather, currency rates and tips on hotels and restaurants.

1. Idaktari by Gideon Kyalo.

The winning app is an android app. The app is an utility app that enables medical staff to schedule and organize patient appointments. The app is developed

All 13 finalists received a Tecno Android handset. The top three also walked away with cash prizes, with third place taking home KSh. 100,000, second place KSh. 150,000 and first place KSh. 200,000.

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Kenya Tech Status and The Lessons Learned From The Election Process

2013-03-31T20:53:49Z

Time to go back to work after that long protracted Political Process. The greatest thing about is that there was no time when people felt like the country is going to collapse again. When police issued warning against the demonstrators, many people were simply asking what they know that the public don’t. Yes there were reports of rioting in Kisumu but reliable sources in Kisumu confirmed that everything is back to normal after Raila accepted the Supreme Court Ruling.

First thing first, much respect to Raila Odinga for keeping his words and respecting the Supreme Court Ruling. That was simply a ticket to peace in Kenya as Mutahi Nyunyi observed on Twitter yesterday. You don’t need the passage of time to understand what Raila has done for this country, and by being graceful in defeat I bet even his critics with time will come to appreciate who he is. For those abusing him , well, the Freedom of speech which he fought for has allowed them to do that, so let them continue but I hope they would save what they are saying now, and read it in 10 to 20 years times. God bless Raila and we wish him well.

On the same breath I congratulate the President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy Willim Ruto. My main hope is that they will continue with their quest to be digital and move the country forward. They made Many promises during the campaigns, among them being laptops for the kids, Free WiFi and Building of the mid level Technical Colleges in every county. As someone whose interest is on ICT in this country I will keep keen eye to see the progress on the above . Sasa ni Wakati wa Kutenda.

Here are some of the lessons learned from the process:

1. Failing to test is planning to fail

I know emotions will blind many people, and the fact that cord petition was thrown out would make many people to just think that everything was ok with iebc. The ruling of the court does not mean iebc was success. In my view iebc failed and a lot should be done to make it a respectable institution again. Technology was meant to make everything transparent but that did not happen. The IT system failed and I know some have argued that BVR Kits worked and that only the identification of voters and transmission of the results that failed. When you talk about system, you are talking about the entire process: the input, the process and the output. Yes the data entry part(input) through the BVR kits worked, but then what happened with the processing part (where the votes were being multiplied by 8)? It is also important to note that the identification component failed, the same as the transmission of the results. In other word iebc spent Ksh.9 billion plus on a system that did not work at all.

How did this happen? They failed to test the system before the election. A simple test with like five polling stations starting from the voters’ identification, the results transmission to the tallying would have confirmed some of the problems. They should have also tested all the voters’ identification devices before distributing them to polling stations. Then the money they spent in hiring choirs, should have been used to hire the security experts to protect the system from the hackers. You see we appreciate that we are religious country but among us there many people with bad intentions and God help self help. Just bringing the choir and prayers and hoping that the system would not fail or wouldn’t be hacked was simply stupid.

At this point we should not just sit back and say that the public money was spent well. I think iebc should start by demanding the refund of the money they paid for those devices. The Digital Government should know better than me on this and I would like to see them working on the iebc short comings.

Lesson: The fact that we survived this time should not be taken for granted.

2. Iebc Tech Failure has nothing to do with Nairobi tech status

I have seen many people questioning the status of Nairobi as a leading tech destination in Africa on the wake of the massive failure by iebc on that front. I must say that this is the most misplaced argument. What happened with iebc was human component of the tech failure and not the tech itself. Everything that went wrong happened because the managers did not do their work properly and not because we have bad programmers or computer scientists. Yes, we are still a technology nation although lacking in the field of individual transparency. Systems are only as good as the level of honesty of the managers..

Lesson: Always remember GIGO…Garbage In Garbage Out

3. Facebook Hate speech and Propaganda

I have said it before but then I would repeat it here. If you did not know some of your friends well, then Politics have shown you what some of them are. Some are true tribalists just hiding behind the fake smiles. When I was doing the Mind the Gap Analysis during the tallying process, many inboxed me, others commented on it and I could tell what each of them were thinking. It is tragedy that we have many young people who are more tribal than what we have known in the Kenyan history.

Still I appreciate the freedom of the speech in Kenya and it should continue. People should continue to express themselves freely the way they have done. The great thing about this, is that you simply know what type of people we have, where the country is in terms of cohesion and living together. Talking of which, I think the Kibunjia’s commission should be disbanded and the money they are using put into some other good use. Very useless. By the way, I am not saying that based on the fact that they have not arrested anybody or charged someone…no, it is based on the fact that they don’t understand the meaning of National Cohesion. You can not threaten people to love each other; you cannot govern people into loving each other. The commission should device ways to help the communities understand each other. By arresting or threatening a few, what they doing is to make people start questioning whether they are being used to target a few people or even communities. That will never go well for a commission meant to have people live together in harmony. Let the law take its course and if someone break it through hate speech, then let the police and the court take over

Lesson: Politics bring out the worst in Kenyan young minds

4. K24 Twitter Account Goof and Social Media Lessons for Brands

In the heat of the moment people make mistake on social media and mostly as individual you probably get away with it without much ado. But the same cannot be said about a known brand and especially a media house. On Friday after the Supreme Court ended its hearing, K24, a media house associated with President Uhuru Kenyatta was in the receiving end of the #KOT daily dose of outrage when their twitter account tweeted the following

“Supreme Court ends hearing…FINALLY Tomorrow in their judgement they will uphold the elections – April 9th holiday”

From the look of it, it sounded like they had already known the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling. That was bad at the time but I think they are lucky that the Supreme Court did exactly what they were saying. Not many brands would be that lucky and you have to appreciate the fact that even if they knew what the ruling would be tweeting it was both careless and dangerous. Such should always be left to Jubilee propaganda websites like Daily Post and Jackal News or individuals like Ole Itumbi. Having said that, this was a case of honest mistake by an individual who manages that account. The likely explanation is that he/she wanted to tweet above on his/her personal account but ended up doing it on K24 account. That is a mistake that anybody who has managed several accounts on the same computer or phone would understand.

The bigger mistake k24 made was on the kind of the explanation they gave, as to what happened. The first explanation through the tweet that followed the goof was that the tweet was not meant for the official k24 account but for an individual account. That was a good enough explanation but somehow they thought that people would not believe them and went for the hacking story.

The hacking story could have been more than good, but coming straight after saying the tweet was meant for another account, made it sound hollow and dishonest. Also It was not possible to regain the control of the hacked account within 2 minutes unless the hacker was from within.

Lesson: As a manager, if you find your brand in such a situation, just apologize and give an honest explanation. It works because some of these things have happened to most people on social media… In other words just be human….

5. Trying Time for the Journalists, both local and Foreign

Kenyans journalists had everything going for them until people started questioning whether they were preaching peace instead of telling Kenyans what is going on across the country. It is true that they recorded many interviews and press conferences that were never aired. It reminded people the days of Moi when KBC used to air only church going messages and blackout all the messages from the opposition. In the last few days Journalists have come out to strongly deny the accusation that they did not do their work properly…

Kenyan journalists defend election coverage

Wrong is wrong

As a watchdog of the society, it is not good when people start doubting their credibility. I read many comments where people were suggesting that in case in future the government goes for their heads as we have seen before, the public will remember what they did during the election period.

Then there ware foreign journalists who rubbed the public in the wrong way before the elections. The problem with foreign journalists were their love for using 2008 Post Election Violence, the as their baseline reference for any story about Kenyan election. There was also the use of the word machetes on all their stories which made Kenyans feel like they are suggesting that Kenyans are primitive. Kenyans learned a lesson in 2008 and still are ashamed of what happened. Anybody who was here to only talk about 2008 Violence in all their stories was not going to remain friends with Kenyan public. And so it happened that the public made their mind about the Foreign Journalists and did not want to hear anything from them even if they were right about the iebc and other issues. The Government as usual took advantage of that to even threatened them with deportation.

Lesson: As journalist, you need the public on your side all the time.

The post Kenya Tech Status and The Lessons Learned From The Election Process appeared first on Kachwanya.com.

BAKE Announces Kenya BAKE Blog Awards 2013 Nominees

2013-03-27T15:20:30Z

BAKE has announced the nominees for the Kenya BAKE blog Awards 2013. Voting is now live on www.bloggers.or.ke/voting and will close on midnight on the 1st of May 2013. The winners will be announced at a gala event to be held on the evening of the 4th of May 2013 at the Southern Sun Hotel in Westlands.

1. Best Business Blog

http://kariobangi.wordpress.com

http://www.sokodirectory.com

http://fenesi.com

2. Best Corporate Blog

http://pambaboma.com

http://blog.batakenya.com

http://letsgotravelkenya.blogspot.com

3. Best Creative Writing Blog

http://www.bikozulu.co.ke

http://mwendethedreamer.wordpress.com

http://crazynairobian.com

4. Best Entertainment/Lifestyle Blog

http://niaje.com

http://hoodjunction.wordpress.com/

http://knoxnation.com/blog

5. Best Enviromental/Agricultural Blog

http://rockescientist.blogspot.com

http://emmiekio.blogspot.com

http://yagrein.blogspot.com/

6. Best Fashion Blog

http://nanciemwai.com

http://www.thisisess.com/

http://ksmithdiaries.blogspot.com

7. Best Food Blog

http://pikachakula.com

http://yummy.co.ke

http://www.pendolamama.co.ke

8. Best New Blog

http://kenyanmom.com

http://www.kenyaweddings.co.ke/blog

http://eafricaenergy.blogspot.com

9. Best Photography Blog

http://mutuamatheka.com/blog

http://mwarv.click.co.ke‘

http://stevekitots.wordpress.com

10. Best Political Blog

http://kenopalo.com

http://057siasa.blogspot.com

http://oleshitemi.wordpress.com

11. Best Sports Blog

http://superfoota.com

http://katamiwrites.wordpress.com

http://www.michezoafrika.com

12. Best Technology Blog

http://emmanuelchenze.com

http://techmoran.com

http://tommakau.com

13. Best Topical Blog

http://mummytales.com/

http://actors.co.ke

http://www.thinkm-pesa.com

14. Best Travel Blog

http://kenyatalii.com

http://www.enchanted-landscapes.com/el_travelogue/

http://outwetembea.wordpress.com/

15. Kenyan Blog of The Year

http://megaprojects.co.ke

http://niaje.com

http://therarechamp.wordpress.com

http://www.bankelele.co.ke

Now it is time for the public to decide the best blogs in Kenya …please vote for your favorite blogs here www.bloggers.or.ke/voting

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Microsoft Unveils Strategic Cooperation With iHub and m:lab to Accelerate Innovation in East Africa

2013-03-21T22:28:40Z

As part of Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative , Microsoft has announced a strategic cooperation with iHub and the m:lab to enable startups, innovators and the developer community of East Africa to grow their skills and build businesses with Microsoft technologies. The cooperation aims to offer these communities increased access to software, skills development opportunities.

Microsoft will cooperate with the iHub and m:lab network on multiple projects spanning these countries, including the following:

Supporting the startup community with Microsoft BizSpark memberships, trainings, participation in events, and access to business networking and capital investment opportunities. BizSpark is a global program that helps startups grow into successful businesses through software support and a vibrant ecosystem that delivers exceptional business advantage. BizSpark has supported 625 African startups since the program was first introduced in 2009.
Enabling developers to access the latest events and workshops on Microsoft’s newest development technologies through iHub and m:lab community events, including trainings with the iHub UX lab.
Establishing a physical presence in iHub and m:lab facilities at which Microsoft devices, including Windows Phones and Windows-based tablets, will be available for testing applications and other software developed by the local IT communities.
Establishing a connection between the iHub Research team and Microsoft Research to enable access to research tools and collaboration on mutually beneficial projects.
Enabling collaboration between the iHub Consulting team and Microsoft Consulting Services on joint customer projects.

The Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative is designed to help Africa improve its global competitiveness. By 2016, various efforts under the 4Afrika banner spanning the continent, such as this new collaboration with iHub and m:lab, will help place tens of millions of smart devices in the hands of African youth, bring 1 million African small and medium-size enterprises online, upskill 100,000 members of Africa’s existing workforce, and help an additional 100,000 recent graduates develop skills for employability, 75 percent of which Microsoft will help place in jobs.

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StartupKenya- Start-ups CrowdMap Site

2013-03-22T11:26:40Z

Sometime back I wrote an article listing all the Apps and Start-ups starting with the letter M. Call them M-Vitus or M-something. The reason for doing so then was because I thought they the make the biggest number of Kenyan apps and start-ups but with lame names. Well, that was great but with time I still got people asking me about great Kenyan apps, the problem is, most of the time I find it hard to remember most of them.

With the above small problem, I was excited when Roger Gichuhi, still a student at Strathmore University, introduced me to his current project StartupKenya. Startupkenya works in a way that it allow startups to apply for inclusion on the map. The process is simple, start-ups are required to fill in a form, submit, and if approved, their start-ups would be on the map within 24hrs.

According to Roger:

Startup Kenya is crowd sourced. Any start-up, incubator, accelerator, co-working space or investor can list themselves. This is done by submitting details through a form on the site. The listing will be verified before appearing on the map.

The main aim of the site is to help new investors in the country to easily find opportunities and follow what others are doing. On top of that Roger want to connect the tech community as they will know which start-ups are where in Kenya and what they are doing.

At the time of writing this, there were 27 start-ups listed, three accelerators, two incubators and two coworking spaces in Kenya listed. Before leave here check the site out and add your start-up or that of your friend

Great idea , great site , the next thing which I think need to be sorted out is the money matters? Call it the business model. I mean I have seen many start-ups come up and end up dying after a year or two because the business is not making money. That is something I would not like to see happen to great new ideas.

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Oracle PeopleSoft 9.2 Application

2013-03-20T22:59:33Z

Oracle is set to release second generation PeopleSoft application on Friday. ‘PeopleSoft 9.2’ provides comprehensive business and industry solutions, enabling organisations to increase productivity, accelerate business performance, and provide a lower cost of ownership.

Oracle has included more than 1000 new features, functions and enhancements in this new application that can be employed in human capital management, financials, supplier relationship and enterprise services automation.

Oracle will simultaneously provide upgrade scripts as well as the multi-language version of this product, a first for PeopleSoft applications. This enables their customers around the world to immediately begin implementing PeopleSoft 9.2 and reap its benefits sooner.

Building upon advancements in mobile technology, PeopleSoft 9.2 also includes new mobile capabilities for requisitioning for purchasing users via eProcurement, which enables users to place and approve orders from their mobile devices.

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On Top: -Samsung Galaxy S IV preorders 446% Better than Galaxy S III

2013-03-20T23:11:36Z

Just imagine that Samsung Galaxy S4 price is not yet known and the phone is not scheduled to be available until 26th April but the pre-orders are already out doing the S3 four to one. The Galaxy S4 pre-orders are already 446 percent of S III levels

Here are the main specifications according to zeenews.india.com

Specifications:

Display: 4.99″ 16M-color Super AMOLED HD capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels (441ppi)

OS: Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)

Processor: 1.6 GHz Quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and 1.2 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 / 1.9GHz Krait 300

RAM: 2GB

Memory: Internal storage of 16/32GB/64GB with a microSD card slot

Camera: 13 MP auto-focus; 2 MP front-facing. It also has face detection, touch focus and image stabilization, Dual Shot, Cinema Photo facilities.

Video: Full HD (1080p) at 30fps

Dimensions: 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9mm, 130 gm

Battery: 2600 mAh

Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, standard microUSB, GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS, NFC, Infrared port

Source

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Microsoft announces the availability of Office 2013 in Africa

2013-03-20T17:32:40Z

Microsoft has announced the availability of Office 2013 in West, East, Central Africa and Indian Ocean Islands. Office 2013 has been designed to work with both touch and a mouse, and works seamlessly in the cloud.

“Office 2013 makes the end user more productive in both a work and home environment,” says Marc Israel, Office Division Group Lead for Microsoft West, East and Central Africa and Indian Ocean Islands. “With Office you can continue working offline, while the integration with cloud technologies allows you to sync your documents seamlessly allowing you to be far more productive.”

Office 365 Home Premium, one of the offerings within Office 2013, is a cloud service designed for busy households and people juggling ever-increasing work and family responsibilities. The new offering includes the latest and most complete set of Office applications; works across up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs and Macs; and comes with extra SkyDrive storage and Skype calling — all for US$79.00 for an annual subscription, the equivalent of less than US$7.00 per month.

Microsoft also announced it will now deliver many new features and services to the cloud first, transforming the company’s traditional three-year release cycle. Now, new features and services stream to subscribers as soon as they are ready, keeping subscribers always up to date while eliminating the hassles of upgrading.

Office Home & Student 2013, Home & Business 2013, Professional 2013 and Office 365 Home Premium are available as of March 19th in all Microsoft Resellers and Retailers across West, East, Central Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands. All editions come with a DVD with the exception of Office 365 Home Premium that requires a download from http://www.office.com. With new streaming technologies and application virtualization, Office applications are ready to be executed on the user’s machine in minutes.

Here are more facts about Office 365 Home Premium

Office 365 Home Premium is available in 162 markets in 21 languages and includes the following:

Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access
One license for the entire household to use Office on up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs or Macs, and Office on Demand available from any Internet-connected PC1
An additional 20 GB of SkyDrive cloud storage, nearly three times the amount available with a free SkyDrive account
60 free Skype world calling minutes per month to call mobile phones, landlines or PCs around the world2
Future upgrades, so you always use the latest time-saving technology

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The Value in the Sexy Information Vs the others like Water for Developers

2013-03-19T18:16:04Z

So I attended the event at the iHub about M-Governance Research project. iHub Research’s M-Governance project team were presenting their findings on how people use mobile technology in promoting transparency in water governance. The findings of this study have been documented in their report here:

After the event I got to discuss with Hilda Moraa , one of the researcher about some of the challenges they faced while doing the research. It came out clearly that iHub Research do such research hoping that at the end of it all the developers will take over, interpret the data, do nice apps to help the community at large. The problem is, so far the developers are not interested and they are left wondering why is that so. For a start my basic question to Hilda was, as much as they want the developers to get interested on this, the big question will always remain, are there money opportunities for developers when talking about the mobile and water. Yes there is problem of water, everywhere but a simple mobile app showing the same will not necessarily help the situation and any smart developer would see that there is no money in doing that. So unless a developer can come up with smart way to increase accessibility, people expected to spend money on such app will not see the connection between the use of mobile technology and water.

Does that mean that this is a wrong type of research which needs to be dropped for some other more sexier stuffs? I don’t think so. Actually it is one of the most important research which I think this country needs, as it touches on what one would describe as the foundation of life. According to iHub Blog:

Water is life. Did you know that Kenya is classified as a water scarce country? Sustainable access to safe water is around 60% in the urban setting and drops to as low as 20% in the settlements of the urban poor where half of the urban population lives. In 2007, findings from the National Water Services Strategy indicated that the water sanitation situation is poor with only 57% of households using water from sources that are considered safe. Even though use of mobile is widespread across the country, very few people have access to water related information.

The problem here is the same as the dilemma facing the Media houses in Kenya. Media houses understand the great importance of covering crucial topics like health and water, but they can not do it because the readers and viewers are not interested. They are forced to cover Politics 24/7, because that is where they get the highest traffic.

I think there is hidden opportunity for the developers in such stories but they need to open their eyes wider than they have done so far. Let us go with the story of Mpesa, and its core functionality. Mpesa helps people to transfer money from one location to another, and Safaricom makes money out of helping people to transfer money and charging the commission . We know that getting water is a problem in many places and people end up buying the same. In the process of buying there is always a way to make it easy for people to transact. At the end I think water business is a multi-billion business but I wonder if the developers could see past the water itself?

As for the iHub Research, I think they are doing a great job and they need to continue, even further into most of those areas which a number of people might consider not sexy enough. I would also like to see them targeting broadcasters with their findings to help them get the information out to the general public. The developers will naturally follow once they realize that there are opportunities in such stories.

Note: Hilda Moraa is also the Founder of Myorder Startup

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Kenyan Learned Facebookers- A Lost Generation Which Needs Divine Intervention

2013-03-18T22:56:29Z

Just a few days before the election I wondered aloud on Twitter what had happened to some my friends especially on Facebook to the extent that I could not recognize them anymore. They turned to tribal monster ready to pounce on anybody who is not from their tribes. Hate speech, right, left and centre. After the election a friend of mine took a pause from social media and explained to me that she could not stomach her friends anymore too. The last few days I have been thinking and looking closely at the demographic profiles of the Kenyans on Facebook. I found out that the largest age group is currently 25-34 and almost all of them have at least some Secondary education and above. Three facts, 1 They are well educated . 2. They are young. 3. Every Sunday they post bible quotes and do updates from the church…so they are religious.

A few things that we thought we knew about this group

That they are not Tribal and don’t believe what they sometime hear from their fathers and mothers
That they transcend tribal tags and make friends across the country
That they are smart and far above the tribal politics
That they know what is good for the country and the only people that let them down is the lower class masses who have no idea on what kind of the leadership this country needs
That they are the thinking lot that cannot be cheated by the politicians or be bribed
That they are the real middle class, and they really care about this country, you remember when some of them congregated to bury the 210 MPs…..including Uhuru Kenyatta , Raila Odinga , Peter Keneth, Martha Karua, Musalia Mudavadi….and Mzee Kibaki himself…..Yeah they were buried…if you get what I mean here
That they are honest and will always demand accountability from the Public officials…
That this is a Religious nation with religious young population

Guess what, whoever convinced us that these young, educated, religious Kenyans contain the shades of all the above in their DNA was wrong and need to come back and explain to us what really happened.

Yes……..

If you still believe that number one is true …Go to Facebook now and tell me what you see, what do you hear, what do you read from any wall where political discussion is taking place…on a scale of one to ten,.. measure the tribalism and the level of hate speech displayed on those walls!

If you still believe that the number two is true… Then login on Facebook and pretend or just say the side of you the two competing coalitions (Jubilee or Cord ) you support and rationally explain why you do so….then move across the aisle and pick a few weaknesses about the other candidate…log out of the Facebook and come back after 20 minutes, tell me, what you hear from some of the people who have been pretending to be your close friends from the other tribes but hold the opposite opinions….

If you think that number 3 is true …then you need to visit Oleitumbi’s Facebook wall, Gor is not club but a way of life page, Nation Media Facebook page, and other Media houses Facebook pages

If you think that the number four is true then, you have not met them justifying the actions of their tribal thieves…Maize, Kazi Kwa Vijana, Anglo Leasing, Funders of the PEV, The Land Grabbers, iebc waste of Ksh.8 billion and clearly flawed elections.

If you think that the number 5 is true ..then you have no idea where the daily propagandas on Facebook are coming from, …currently they are after the Supreme Court Judges… God help them

If you think that number 6 is true…then you don’t understand why Peter Keneth lost badly in Places like Nairobi where you would have expected him to do well with the high number of the so called middle class

If you think that number 7 is true…then ask Uhuru about land issue, and Raila about Kazi Kwa Vijana, Ruto about the Maize, Kalonzo on what he had done for his constituents in the last 20 years..come back and tell me the reactions from your dear honest friends…..

If you think that number 8 is true….then you need to talk to Dida, he publicly wondered during the debate why a country of almost 100 percent religious population will have signs of mganga in every corner. But if you look at the hatred displayed by some of the church going Facebookers, you will understand why the name of the Lord is normally being mentioned in vain.

So what it is next..if you ask me, honestly I have no idea. In ideal world Election is a process of electing Leaders to take a country to the next level but in Kenya it is a different animal. I always wonder why Politics and elections make Kenyans more tribal than anything else.

The next question is what happened and why is it that the hate speech is at its highest currently on social media? Many people including my friend are wondering how can normal learned people suddenly turned to be openly tribal and started to hate anybody else from other tribes who do not hold the same political views. My own personal view is, I don’t think people turned or started to be tribal with this election. This is something which has been happening for many years online and on living rooms. It used to happen online under the anonymous names and what I call underground blogs or forums. The forums like Mashada , blogs like Daily Post and Others used to be the home of the tribalists using fake names but then the Government and Dr. Ndemo came up with their crackdown on online hate speech. The Forums like Mashada were forced to close down and then the remaining blogs started to moderate the comments to avoid being shut down by the Government. So tribal hate mongers had nowhere to go but to use the platforms that Ndemo and the likes cannot shutdown.. FACEBOOK and to some extent TWITTER.

The above action by the Government has complicated everything for the people who love social networking sites like Facebook . Actually it sounds to me like a double edged sword for the Social Media users. On one hand it has exposed the fact that majority of Kenyans online are as tribal as it can be but used to hide it behind the fake names. On the other end it has made Facebook unbearable and shocking for many.

So will the Government succeed with their crusade to crack down on online hate speech? I don’t think so and I don’t think you can legislate or govern against the tribal thinking. It is culturally inbuilt in people and the Government telling people not say what they are think to me is not going to work. To start with the Government shutting down mashada for example did not solve anything, as people easily found new forums where they use to say the same things. The best way to go about it, is what Mark Kaigwa mentioned on the Trend with Larry Madowo: “Get the Online Community to police itself”. The best solution is for the Kenyans online to find a way to raise the collective consciousness about what they do and say online.

I always give an example of the evolution of Kenyans On Twitter #KOT, since the very early days in 2009. At the beginning there were very few people on twitter, the ones who are commonly referred to as early adopters. Back then the kind of issues people used to discuss on Twitter were high quality, top notch and beyond the simple minds. Then came the influx and Twitter became kitchen sink…worst than the famous gutter. Many would still remember Titty Tuesday and the likes but then there was a group called #TeamMorals which did not want to see that nonsense go on. They put it plain English to the newcomers that the gutter stupidity was not allowed. At long last the new #KOT emerged, ready to discuss national issues and defend the country whenever necessary. That was a simple example of a community policing itself. The few good people should not keep quiet to avoid arguments with the crazies from both sides…………I believe Team Morals can do the same with tribalists on Facebook.

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The new Orange Reverse Charge Call Service

2013-03-18T05:23:56Z

Orange, has launched ‘NiSort’, a service that enables reverse charge calls within its network. ‘NiSort’, will enable customers make calls when the calling party’s credit balance is zero. The service will request the call recipient to accept the charges, before completing the call.

Previously, reverse charge calls were possible only as operator-assisted calls and, typically, only on a fixed line network. The introduction of computer-based telephone dialing equipment now makes it possible to initiate a reverse charge call without having to go through an operator.

NiSort will also allow customers to effect a pre set ‘white list’ with a maximum of 10 mobile numbers, whose ‘NiSort’ requests will be accepted automatically.

To access NiSort, an Orange subscriber will simply dial 128 followed by the intended recipient’s mobile number. To follow a voice prompt, a subscriber will dial 127 and listen to the instructions. An Orange subscriber can also dial #123# to access the USSD menu and select the service.

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Zuku to announce USD$4.6million investment

2013-03-18T03:42:49Z

Zuku will today announce USD$4.6million investment. The million dollars investment will be used to upgrade its Zuku satellite services to a bigger capacity Satellite, well known as SES 5 from the current NSS 12.

The advanced SES 5 satellite will provide Zuku with more capacity to accommodate 17 new additional channels on its bouquets. Among the channels include Zuku Movies Max HD, Zuku Sports HD, One Music, VH1, CCTV9, CCTV4, CCTV News, DW (Deutsche Welle) News, Swahili Movies, Setanta Action, UTV, Shorts Movies and Zee Khana Kazana.

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Google Reader To Be Closed On July 1

2013-03-14T00:06:15Z

Time to say bye to Google Reader . Google has announced the service is closing on July 1. I feel sad about this, use the service regularly but it seems now I have to use for the alternative. According to Google blog:

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

I say rest in peace…….

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Samsung to Launch Galaxy SIV Today

2013-03-14T04:09:52Z

Rumours , rumours and rumours and that is how they do it these days. But finally the date the whole world has been waiting for is here with us. Today Samsung will be launching its new flagship smartphone Galaxy SIV, which many analysts expect to shatter all the known Smartphone sales records in the next few months after the launch. Just a day before the launch Apple Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, Phil Schiller came out swinging to rubbish the Android ecosystem, calling it fragmented, lacks integration, and offers poor experience. As you can see Apple is in defensive mood and that should tell you more about Galaxy SIV.

Android is often given a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn’t as good as an iPhone. [...] When you take an Android device out of the box, you have to sign up to nine accounts with different vendors to get the experience iOS comes with. They don’t work seamlessly together.

I think Apple is right to fear this given the fact that for the first time Samsung has chosen Apple’s backyard of New York, US to launch its new flagship phone. On top of that they have created hype about the phone which for the first time, I think has overtaken Apple’s own version. It will be interesting to see the rate of sales of the S4 compared to the earlier Galaxy S series.

Back to the magic of the Galaxy SIV and the consensus is, S4 looks like a Note II and S3 fused together. According to Bloomberg the phone will sport a 5-inch screen, slightly larger than the one on last year’s S3. The version to be sold in U.S. will use Qualcomm Inc.’s quad-core chip while for the other markets, it will rely on Samsung’s “octacore” eight-core chip.

Galaxy S4, is expected to run on the latest Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1. And the camera is also getting better, with Galaxy SIV expected to have 13-megapixel camera, up from 8 megapixels in the S3

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Samsung partners with e-kitabu to deliver Learning Content to Students in East Africa

2013-03-13T15:33:14Z

Samsung announced an exclusive deal with e-kitabu to deliver learning content to students in East Africa through Samsung devices. The e-katabu app is available and downloadable from Samsung Apps Store.

eKitabu allows student to search for books they want , buy them using MPESA or a credit card. Through the this deal

Source Techweez

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Call For Application for Pivot East 2013:- Here are the Details

2013-03-13T10:33:32Z

Call for application for Pivot East 2013 is ongoing. Pivot East is East Africa’s premier mobile start-ups conference that has been held annually since 2011. It is an initiative of m:lab East Africa aiming to bring focus on the Mobile developer and entrepreneur community in East Africa. This year Pivot East will be held between June 25th – 26th 2013 in Kampala, Uganda.

For you to participate in the competition you must meet the following;

“Entries will only be accepted from legal trading entities.These include:business names,public or private limited companies and other legally recognized entities.
Entries to the competition will be considered to be startups* as per the universal definition of a “startup” or a startup company
Participating startups must be domiciled in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia or DR Congo
Participating startups must indicate details of at least two members of their team in their application profile
Companies that reached final 25 lists of Pivot 25 in 2011 or Pivot East 2012 may not compete with products/services previously submitted for the competition, the judging panel will have discretion to disqualify entries in breach of this requirement.
Decisions of the judging committees at all competition will be final.

Pivot East 2013 will be held in Kampala Uganda on 25th -26th June 2013. The deadline for submission of applications is on 15th April 2013

For More information on the program read and/or Apply HERE

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ICANN President Announces Major Expansion in Africa

2013-03-12T17:57:51Z

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is moving ahead immediately with plans to have six new ICANN representatives on the African continent. According to ICANN President Fadi Chehadé.:

“ICANN used to say if you want to participate in Internet governance come to ICANN. We’ve changed that, now ICANN is coming to the stakeholders. We’re not waiting for you to come. We’re coming to you.”

We will have ICANN staff, at least one, in each of the 6 regions of Africa. North, South, East, West, Central and the Indian Ocean. I want African on-ramps into the ICANN structures. I will give you the on-ramps, but you need to climb them.”

The ICANN leader also said he would like to see a dramatic increase in the number of accredited Domain Name Registrars on the African continent. Currently there are only five accredited Registrars in Africa among more than one thousand worldwide, but Chehadé said he wants to see that number increase five-fold in less than two years.

Chehadé made his comments during the Africa Multi-stakeholder Internet Governance meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The two-day meeting ended Friday after drawing Internet leaders from across the continent.

During the event the implementation of an African Strategy for better engagement in Africa was discussed in detail. This strategy was prepared by representatives from the African community last summer and announced during the ICANN meeting in Toronto in October. Fadi Chehadé reiterated ICANN’s commitment to help implement the three-year strategy in coordination with our global and regional partners in Africa.

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Clarification on Safaricom’s Role in 2013 Elections

2013-03-06T12:05:24Z

Here is the statement from Safaricom about their role in the elections:

Following numerous queries from the media and in response to public concern, leading integrated communications service provider Safaricom Limited wishes to clarify its specific role with respect to the conduct of the historic March 4th, 2013 General Elections.

Safaricom was one of several service providers contracted by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission “IEBC” to provide network connectivity for the electronic transmission of electoral results.

In accordance with the terms of our contract with the IEBC , Safaricom’s responsibilities were twofold, the first was to provide the virtual private network (VPN) for the conveyance of the results from polling stations across the country previously identified as having sufficient mobile coverage to the IEBC’s constituency, county and national tallying center infrastructure. The second was to deliver 17,900 original manufacturer warranted handsets to the IEBC for use by polling staff for purposes of transmitting electronic results. Safaricom was neither involved in the supply of the software to be used on the mobile handsets nor the distribution and storage of the devices.

The observed traffic on the VPN provided by Safaricom did not exceed 3.5 Mbps at any time. When put in to context this is a small fraction of the 3,000 Mbps traffic we observe at any time in our network.

The total number of mobile devices provisioned to be used by the IEBC polling staff to relay results on the Safaricom VPN were 32,000, this represents only 2% of the 1.5 million devices connected to our data network at any given time.

Further, it must be clarified that during the entire election period

Safaricom’s role was simply to provide connectivity between the mobile devices and the IEBC tallying centers. Safaricom did not and does not have any role in the technical design, management or specification of the servers, the mobile software application nor the graphic presentation of the results data used by the IEBC.

The Safaricom mobile and virtual private network has remained robust with 100% uptime in all areas where coverage was to be provided.

Safaricom has provided unrestricted access to representatives of the 8 presidential candidates to assess and monitor its network performance. All of them were and still are confident in our network quality.

As a responsible corporate citizen, Safaricom appreciates and takes seriously its assigned responsibilities and will continue to play its part to support the IEBC in its duties.

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Time to Vote And Keep Peace But Be Aware Of The Dangers of Social Media

2013-03-04T08:19:02Z

It is decision time for Kenyans and we all hope that whatever the outcome, Kenyans will accept the winner and move forward. It is great to see the effort being put in place to achieve peace and avoid what happened in 2008. I must caution people that the battle is not yet won. If you remember in December 2007, people voted peacefully and many of us were shocked at what transpired three days later. For that I will urge all the people involve to ensure that the elections are free and fair to the extent that nobody would say anything to the contrary. At the same time, Kenyans should realize that we need this country stable and no matter what, killing each other is not the way to go. Elections come and go but the beautiful people killed can not be recovered forever. Having said that I wanted to talk a little bit about the dangers of Social Media and why all Kenyans should be alert of what they see online.

ODM and TNA Supporters in Town before the Final Rallies

Out there , there a number of organizations checking out for hate speech online or what now being called Dangerous Speech. The government have indicated that they will arrest two bloggers for the spreading hate speech. I will wait to hear what they have been charged with exactly before I can comment on their cases. But here is the definition of Hate Speech:

“that which advocates or encourages violent acts against a specific group, and creates a climate of hate or prejudice,
which may, in turn, foster the commission of hate crimes.” The current definition of “hate speech”, according to the
National Cohesion and Integration Commission Act of 2008 is speech

As for Dangerous Speech according to Umati project run by Ushahidi:

Dangerous Speech is hate speech with a potential to cause violence. (Professor Susan Benesch, American University)

Being on social media and having witnessed what happened in 2008, I realised that sometime there are some speeches which on the face value can not be called hate speech or dangerous speech but have the potential of bringing down a stable society. I call them the intentional wrong information and Social Media is becoming a darling home for such.. Social Media as it is and the people who use it have one thing in common, they don’t verify or research whether the information they see on their TimeLines are True of False. A tweet or status update is taken as it appears and very few go back to try and understand the origin of any given info.

For example the first day of the party nominations in Kenya, (that Thursday) when both TNA and ODM were meant to do their nominations, voting did not take place in many places. In places that people voted, the ballot boxes arrived late, so the voting resumed the following day. But on Social Media , on that night, people were celebrating that candidates X, Y, and Z have lost the nominations. It is sad that most guys knew that the voting had not taken place in most of those constituencies and counties but continued to share the wrong info about the candidates losing .Through the social media the ground was poisoned and many people were not ready to hear that the candidates they support might lose. Clearly the winners and losers were already been declared on Twitter. Of course the party nominations were, let me borrow the Kenyan Media house term, “shambolic” but there was no need of spreading the wrong information. It was evident that some former Mps were/are really hated by Kenyans on twitter, but again that does not excuse the spreading of the wrong information. After voting today please watch out for the rumor mongers, they are more dangerous that what is typically known as hate speech in Kenya.

You must also have seen a lot of propaganda on Facebook by the so called experts. Well everyone is in one way or another is an expert on Facebook. The problem is majority of the experts have evil intention of bringing down their imagined enemies, who are basically candidates or supporters of the opponent for their preferred candidate . The Facebook experts are experts at twisting what has been said by a given candidate. The only way to avoid being conned by these people is not to take anything you see on Facebook as the gospel truth unless verified.

Finally, the journalists covering the elections should be careful with what they tweet or post on Facebook. Again during party nominations, one journalist seating at a tallying center kept telling people that he has nothing to report as the counting had not started but on his timeline on Twitter he was tweeting about a certain candidate winning with a given margin. Yes he clearly indicated that the figures given are from the candidate himself but given the nature of twitter, people don’t want to understand otherwise, especially if they hate the guy losing. It is worth noting that most people these days don’t watch TVs but they are always on twitter and Facebook. The journalists covering the elections should tweet and facebook what is verified and leave the speculation to others.

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KCSE 2012 Online Results

2013-02-28T05:23:06Z

KCSE 2012 results are to be released today. I think it is a good move to release the results today before we get consumed with the election news starting Monday next week.

Here are the options for checking the results once they have been released:

SMS Index Number to 5052 to get 2012 KCSE Results on SMS

Go to the Main KNEC Website
Or go to the Knec Results website

At least for the first time after the release of KCPE results in January, the knec results website did behave. It was up most of the time . I hope the same will be the case with the KCSE results. Congrats to the KCSE winners in advance

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A Boost for Kenyan Developers as Intel Partner With iHub To Support Mobile App Development

2013-02-27T18:45:07Z

Intel has entered into an agreement with iHub to foster and grow the developer community in Africa through targeted investments in mobile app development, online developer resources, university training programs, device seeding programs and expansion of technology hubs.

This is a great news for the developers who have been working at iHub. There has been a lot of talks about there being a lot of money within Kenyan tech space but somehow I have not seen it trickling down to the developers which need it the most. This should be a chance, for the developers to get the long needed boost to move forward.

The amount involved is not disclosed but the speculation around is that it is a big sum of money by the Kenyan standards. I hope this will bring in the much needed transformation within the Kenyan tech space. Intel intends to provide broadly available developer training through iHub and Intel’s Developer Zone, an online developer resource that enables the creation and porting of Android apps. Intel will also distribute Intel Android devices to the tech hubs, and will collaborate with select universities across the continent to enhance the ability of developers to create rich user experiences on Intel hardware with Android.

Danie Steyn, general manager of Intel East Africa, said the company’s goal was to enable applications from Africa for the Android market place in 2013, with the primary areas of focus being education, rich media, and gaming.

“Our engagement will not only be around educating the developer community, but we’ll also run a series of hackathons across Africa network in partnership with iHub. We’re extremely excited about the growing developer engagement in Africa, and we’re deeply committed to helping the African software ecosystem grow and thrive.”

Erik Hersman, the Founder of the iHub said:

The software development scene in Africa is active but still nascent, we’re excited to partner with Intel to grow it

iHub will work with 10 universities in Kenya, and host 30 events targeted at software associations, independent software vendors and in the first year.

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