The Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has accepted Airtel’s mobile money to make large-scale salary payments.

About 66,000 civil servants in the DRC received their salary of May this year through Airtel Money.

With the support from the DRC central Government and in partnership with the Congolese Association of Banks and local banks, more than 1,100 policemen received their salaries via Airtel Money in December 2012.

DRC remains one of the countries with inadequate banking facilities in Africa, but swift spread in mobile money sector has enabled the government to influence mobile money to increase financial inclusion for the underprivileged.

Mobile money G2P payments have the possibility to bring banking services to beneficiaries by ensuring that payments land in accounts which permit recipients to save and make dealings.

Airtel has been at the forefront of technological innovations. When it launched the Airtel Money services in DRC in March 2012, the telecommunications company introduced the concept of mobile banking in the Central African country. The mobile Money platform has been widely adopted by customers for the purchase of airtime, Person-2-Person cash transfers and utility bill Payments.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government has received negative reaction from the Kenyan parents in regards to the laptop project that his Jubilee government had promised during the campaign.

Musau Ndunda, chairman of the Kenya National Association of Parents said that the group thinks the money for laptops should instead go toward raising teachers’ salaries and feeding children.

The president had proposed to give laptops to 1.2 million children who start school every year as part of a wider plan to make the East African country an Internet hub. The program, which will cost the government $615 million in three years, is set to start later this year.

The country has a shortfall of 40,000 teachers while the 200,000 teachers across public schools in Kenya are currently striking over unpaid housing, transport and medical allowances promised 16 years ago.

Ndunda said Kenya also needs 42,000 classrooms. He said the money used for the laptops needs to be used to increase the number of children in the country’s school feeding program, meant to help children from poor backgrounds to stay in school and improve their health and nutrition.

Currently teachers do not have the capacity to implement the laptop project because they have not been trained and the government has not developed a curriculum for the project added Ndunda.

He said there are uncertainties that the laptops would be lost or stolen, mentioning the recent scandal in which 70 million textbooks in a free primary-school education program went missing.

Louis Otieno of Microsoft Africa Initiatives said in a statement that through the Partners in Learning Schools program in last five years, Microsoft had trained 32,600 teachers. The impact, he added, was being felt by more than 1.8 million children.

Louis alleged that the government has not reached a final agreement with Microsoft, which will implement the project.

Ugandans will now experience better government services as their government has taken up an e-governance infrastructure.

This program has been commissioned by the National Information Technology Authority (NITA). The system is aimed at guiding government ministries, departments and agencies while implementing projects.

The Information Technology project management methodology lists out the governance structures which the executing bodies should have in place before enterprising any project.

Ugandan ministries are required to defend why such projects should be applied, the expected outcomes, the project’s development processes and compile project reports to simplify decisions making.

The executive director of NITA-U, Mr. James Saaka, said that the authority had come up with this system focusing on government research and analyses from unsuccessful information technology projects which were now termed as “white elephants” where lots of money has been injected.

Mr. Saaka added that when implemented, the methodology would impose the formation and application of structured processes, procedures and practices which will ensure consistency in design, execution and governance of projects in ministries, departments and agencies.

He believed that the system, among others,  will also reduce the duplication of services among government institutions because it will develop a centralized data base which the institutions will want to use from time to time therefore minimizing wastage of resources.

“Look at banks, the National Social Security Fund, Immigrations passport control, the recent Sim Card registration, national ID project, the national census… All these need to identify the citizens but how can they do without a national databank? This forces these institutions to carry out their out identification programmes because some institutions have gone ahead faster than others,” said NITA-U executive manager.

He said the methodology does not require any changes because all projects that require computerised systems to store and process data have standard operational standard

The first, out of the seven, navigation satellites which are intended to deliver a regional positioning system was launched on Tuesday in India as Kenya struggles with teachers pay.

Related to the U.S. owned Global Positioning System,IRNSS-1A and among the first of the seven satellites planned, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) was launched into space aboard PSLV-C22 which is a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle of the Indian Space Research Organization.

The intention of the satellite is to provide position information in the Indian region and 1500 kilometers around the Indian mainland. It will offer standard positioning services to all users, and coded restricted services to authorized users. The IRNSS system is expected to be accomplished by 2016.

India wants to use the system for an assortment of procedures some of which are precise timing, disaster management, mobile phone applications, vehicle tracking and fleet management, visual and voice navigation for drivers and terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation.

Among the seven satellites to be positioned for the IRNSS project, three will be in geostationary orbit, while the rest will be in inclined geosynchronous orbit. Satellites in geostationary orbit follow the direction of the rotation of the earth so as to be in the same position relative to the earth at all times.

Ground stations for the generation and transmission of navigation parameters, satellite control and satellite ranging and monitoring have been set up in 15 locations across the country.

Europe is also setting up a global navigation satellite system called Galileo, which will inter-operate with the U.S. GPS and Russian GLONASS global satellite navigation systems.

The IRNSS is expected to provide a position accuracy of better than 20 meters in the major service area. The mission life of the satellites is 10 years, ISRO said.

UPDATE: Kenya was at the same level of economic development as the Asian tigers but has long been left behind due to governance issues.

LekkeSlaap has publicized a new refined search tool where guests can filter their results for accommodation across South Africa. This comes just three months since LekkeSlaap, the Afrikaans first accommodation booking site, was introduced in South Africa.

Guests can search where to go in accordance to specific criteria such as “Pet Friendly Establishments”, “Braai Facilities”, and “Secure Parking”, to name just a few. Users just need to enter their location, tick the desired filter, and hit search.

Since their launce LekkeSlaap has been a great deal of assistance for Afrikaans on the internet and has proved to be a success with the clients internationally and locally.

The company has constantly been monitoring requests from guests and quickly found that South Africans have a check list of certain specifications that ensures a great holiday.

“When guests enquired about accommodation, we found that travellers had specific criteria that were the deal makers or breakers. These included things like, if their pets can travel with them, if there is a braai area, or if they will have secure parking etc.” says LekkeSlaap’s Marketing Manager Denise Neethling.

The company’s marketing director added that LekkeSlaap listens to the users requests, so when a guest books an accommodation on LekkeSlaap.co.za, they will get precisely what they are looking for without having to go through long lists.

The official facebook app for the Windows Phone 8 has just singled out a major revamp and is now known as the Facebook 5.0 for windows 8.

It comes with absolutely new features  such as a restored user interface, better navigation, support for high-res pictures, post sharing, Facebook timeline view and another Facebook Beta app that can be downloaded separately among others.

The Beta app is available as a limited release for the past few weeks; it has now been released to the wider public on the WP App Store, but only for users of WP8 software.

In a statement, Microsoft said that the new update will bring a ton of new features and improvements that many of the consumers have been asking for.

The company added that it is also working to bring these features to the windows 7 version of the app later in the summer.

Nigeria has increased its mobile subscription by 7 percent since the beginning of this year,this percentage equates the total number of connections to 120 million. This is is confirmed by statistics released by the country’s communication authority, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

The statistics states that there has been an additional 6.2 million subscribers between December 2012 and April 2013 which have pushed the current total active mobile subscriptions in the country to 119.3 million.

Informa Telecoms and Media predicted that Africa will have the highest rate of growth in mobile subscriptions among major world regions. They also predicted that the number would grow by 17.5 percent by the end of 2012 which is a higher than the major world average of 10.75 percent over the same period.

This growth has seen various applications being launched in the market to their success. Products like mobile money transfer have become a big innovation even in private banks.

NCC believes that the telecoms firms should continue to invest heavily on network expansion to accommodate more subscribers on their networks.

The commission further said that the networks can accommodate 72.6 million additional subscribers, despite all four operators being heavily fined last year for poor quality of service issues.

Nigeria’s mobile market is dominated by 4 Global System for Mobile (GSM) operators (MTN), Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat.

 Ideco, Southern Africa’s biometric technology firm and  distributor of Morpho fingerprint biometric solutions, has released the MorphoIDent™ handheld mobile identification solution to help strengthen law enforcement in the region..

 MorphoIDent™ handheld mobile identification solution is designed primarily for public safety agents and officers, and enables real-time identification based on Morpho’s fingerprint recognition technology and is fully certified by international regulators such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

According to Marius Coetzee, CEO at Ideco, what the developers have focused on is ease-of-use, accuracy and practicality. “The device features an intuitive user interface and large colour screen that is clearly visible outdoors. This makes the technology and the solution ideal for the law enforcement environment, particularly from a local point of view”

MorphoIDent™ offers the user the benefit of field-proven Morpho biometrics technology – incorporated into the most widely-used optical fingerprint sensor on the market.

The solution is not only a mobile biometric device, but when integrated via Bluetooth™ can serve as a complete solution for on-the-spot, anywhere identification in the field.

All data managed by MorphoIDent™ is transferred, via Bluetooth™ or USB, to a PC, smart-phone or PDA running the MorphoMobile application. This application provides a secure connection to AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System), in addition to configuration and device management.

“If one thinks about the need for safety and security in the country, and the value that instant, reliable identity verification offers law enforcement officials, then we can already see a demand in the market and immediate opportunity for application,” adds Coetzee.