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Exclusive: iROKO Partners reportedly laying off top executives, hundreds others axed

Sam Wakoba
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0
Exclusive: iROKO Partners reportedly laying off top executives, hundreds others axed

Hundreds of jobs are being axed at Nollywood content providers, iROKO Partners quietly as the firm aims to move into profitability, cut down its operational costs and shift base to London according to sources familiar with the situation.

The sources, who asked to remain anonymous, claim iROKO is facing a very high degree of mismanagement and experimentation which is turning to be cruel to employees and hurting the name of the firm and its investors. The informants also accuse co-founder and CEO, Jason Njoku of ‘indecisiveness, mismanagement,cruelty and riding the Nollywood fame’.

“The place is abusive and investors are too negligent to the firm’s internal HR matters and over 100 people have been quietly let go in a few weeks even as Jason promises everyone a glorious future,” one of the sources told TechMoran. “In July, iROKOtv.com hired 100 people to do telesales. The firm expected them to sell free trials via phone miraculously.  50 new laptops and phones were bought and the office redesigned to fit them.”

The insider told TechMoran the move simply didn’t work, the telesales guys were devastated because they couldn’t do any magic. Shortly 96 plus people were fired from the firm consisting mostly of the telesales team.  The firm then hired 10-15 content operations guys in London to reopen the London office, one year after it was shut down. These video editors, graphics designers among others are way more expensive than their counterparts in Nigeria.

With this experiments, the insider says iROKOtv was firing in Lagos to hire in London expecting to sign up a new market for Nollywood but adds that London is expensive and makes no sense but just a sign of mismanagement.

“iROKO has fired its VP of distribution, lead of partnerships, lead of offline, lead of YouTube, its CTO and the its engineering lead plus the telesales team and content operations,” says our second insider adding that though the lay offs could be iROKO’s plan to cut its burn rate, no one talks about the 5,000 DVDs dumped at the Johannesburg office, the low revenues and poor management or planning at the firm.

“iROKO is a circle, they repeat their mistakes every time. Shut down London office because Lagos is closer to the customers then re-open London office and hire an all-white team who cost quite a lot with hope they will turnaround the company and then burn more money again,” added the source.

iROKO had an engineering team in the states, a distribution and Linear TV team in the UK. Our sources indicate it shut free trial last year for telesales which was a bad idea and shut it down in a month and fired the team. It launched offline operations and spend money on it then disbanded the team.

Then came the firm’s mobile-app only strategy which didn’t last as Vodafone Ghana threatened it with a lawsuit. The deal with telcos was they can help distribute IROKO and in return increase their data usage but iROKO decided on its own it was going mobile and downloads only without proper communication.

According to another source, whilst download was great for Africa, the West didn’t like it and that was the only market downloading the app. In Africa, those who watch iROKO watch during the day during office hours on free internet and can’t download  as most users don’t have office WiFi to download 100MB to 300MB in movies.

Many others didn’t want to store any of their downloaded movies especially when a move had part 1-4. To help increase this, the firm introduced assisted downloads and prices significantly reduced but still growth was slow. All these problems and experiments are blamed on mismanagement.

Like at one time, the firm bought movies before even signing on board linear channels. The lead Linear TV was just told to make it work and when it didn’t work she was fired.

“It’s basically a jungle run by an egoistic child,” claims another source also asking for anonymity. “They pull in talent but are unable to manage them in a humane manner. It’s an extremely hostile environment. Their ties to Nollywood are not unbreakable.”

The source adds that even raising more money won’t help save iROKO, and it would our fifth source claims it might even be hard to raise any money unless it’s from the same investors trying to protect their investments.

“More money with no direction saves no one. The head is infected, the body can’t function. They would have to ‘re-evaluate their strategy and key market. There are many loopholes from the massive madness, it is clear, a change is needed,” our fifth source said. “iROKOtv.com has very very little growth and people in the Lagos market have too many alternatives, hence focusing on Lagos in the short-term has been pursued with a poor strategy.”

The sources claim there’s gross mistreatment of staff members, it would be difficult to even have talent implement changes when there is no room for alternative opinion at the top. They add that though Jason is brilliant and an exceptional salesman and will sell a dream and even the most realistic and logical of people will fall for it as they always have, and continue to; iROKOtv still might not have a turnaround because there’s no regard for employees, new hires are given a week, sometimes a month and a maximum of 3 months to create magic or move.

It’s new YouTube strategy is fantastic even though the firm has had a lot of issues with mobile partnerships. The firm is said to have a huge HR problem. Hiring and firing at short notice exploiting Nigeria’s weak labour laws.

“With $27m in equity investments, iROKOtv’s main asset is content but the content library is worth $3.5m and subscription to irokotv.com is approx 50,000 users globally. So the question is where is the rest of the money,” asks one of our sources arguing that this might be the reason iROKOtv is firing out of panic even though the investors and board seem negligent and don’t hold management accountable or they just care less about their reputation and don’t want to intervene.

The source argues that iROKO is hated among the movie cycles and has allegedly run out of money and minus intervention, “shit is going to hit the fan”.

“iROKO is looking for credibility before it goes to market so re-opening the expensive London office and hiring new talent in London vouches for it,” says the eighth source. “iROKO might not run past December unless it raises another round or IPOs. Bastian wants financial efficiency,  Jason doesn’t know what he wants. The tech team went up in flames and the company is literally divided into two and only a hostile take over can save it.”

After a little disagreement on the need for intervention, the sources agree that Iroko as a concept is great but needs better industry relationships and the idea is potentially very lucrative but needs to take off faster before competitors like Trace, an MTG firm backed by Kinnevik is rapidly expanding across Africa.

“They don’t like to pay locals what they’re worth and they overpay the new London team. iROKO is a success story because Jason makes noise. Goes on BBC, his blog and journalists don’t ask hard questions during interviews. He’s always promoting himself but with subscription less than 50K globally and declining there’s much to worry about,” claimed a former senior employee. “Jason is a great sales guy, so brilliant but sells his dream and then when you buy it, he demoralizes you and fires you. It’s terrible, people crying and feeling low. It’s the greatest mind fuck of it all.”

However, not everyone is negative and pessimistic about iROKO.

“iROKOtv is a startup with its teething problems. The owners of iROKOtv are just MBA holders with ideas. With experienced hires, they will be out of the woods. I work for iROKOtv and I share the vision of its founders. It’s a great brand with good prospects.

Whatever challenges within the management is a navigation problem which every business faces in its formative years.” the person told us asking for anonymity.

The source added, there are quite a lot of positives about iROKOtv. iROKOtv has given Nigerian and Ghanaian local contents an international audience. The growth in those industries is not associated with the international advertising and recognition drawn by iROKOtv.

The source added that Africa is still struggling with broadband internet penetration. It’s a challenge for every internet based product and services.  That affects the service delivery. On layoffs the source says that was business decision adding that some segments of the business expected to drive growth have been cost centres for a long time adding that there are a few fundamental investments in the brand that might have been neglected but by and large the business needs to hibernate a bit and re-strategize.

“HR will be HR and Business Management will be what it is. Profitability is key and that’s what the management is trying to focus on. There might be a lack of HR process in recruitment and retrenchments but vital lessons are being learnt,” says our source. “Some professionalism is being imbibed especially at the management level. iROKOtv will be fine. Jason can drive this brand to the top. He will learn from his mistakes like most CEOs.”

Speaking to TechMoran, Jason denies all this allegations terming them ludicrous. He says he’s best friends with his co-founder and they have been there for each other through various family situations.

“We have been friends for 13 years and the notion that our relationship is ‘deteriorating’ is ludicrous. When we communicate it’s always very honest, very emotional and very direct. But we are 1,000% en-sync,” Jason said insisting that unless someone left iROKO for gross misconduct, the firm has never (ever) not honoured someone’s contract of employment or ‘severance’ agreement.

“In most cases, if we had to say goodbye because of a change of business direction I usually overpay them. And always we appreciate their contributions.  iROKO is one big experiment. That’s the very notion of a startup. Sometimes those experiments don’t work out. But that’s not abnormal,” he added pointing to the recent layoffs by Snapchat, Twitter and others which adjusted teams to reflect new realities.

“iROKO is no different. We grow teams, on occasions we have to say goodbye. iROKO is a really tough place to work. I have mentioned it many times before but winning sometimes requires that,” said Jason.

Jason says himself and his co-founder/ best friend Bastian have the board’s full support and if they didn’t, they would be the first to know.

“Considering Tiger Global ($18b) and Kinnevik ($9b) are arguably the most aggressive and successful emerging market investors. Powerless I think not,” he concludes.

UPDATE: VP Global Talent resigned and was not fired as we had early reported.

– See more at: http://techmoran.com/iroko-partners-reportedly-laying-off-top-executives-hundreds-others-axed#sthash.Nb5FvFBn.dpuf

Cape Town’s WhereIsMyTransport raises Over $900, 000 & Launches in London

Sam Wakoba
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0
Cape Town’s WhereIsMyTransport raises Over $900, 000 & Launches in London

530136_303403689728580_1800741288_nCape Town start-up based public transport start-up WhereIsMyTransport has raised 12M Rand (over $ 900,000) and launched an office in London in a global expansion move.

The oversubscribed £600 000 (approx ZAR 12 Million) seed round was led by location-based technology firm Infotech (part of the Mertech Group, a ZAR 3Billion private investment firm) with participation from Horizen Ventures and Goodwell Investments, a Dutch early-stage venture fund.

Wim van der Beek, founding Partner at Goodwell Investments has joined the Board of Directors. Tom Boardman, former CEO of Nedbank and chairman of Athena Capital, as well as a Kim Fennell, CEO of deCarta, an Uber technologies company, have both made personal investments.

“We’ve been fortunate to have a fantastic group of investors from key industries join us,” explains de Vries. “Their added expertise and experience will be crucial as we enter a new phase of product development and international expansion.”

WhereIsMyTransport is one of thirteen companies in the Knife Capital Incubator, Grindstone, and is a member of the Microsoft BizSpark Program. They recently won the Start-Up Tel Aviv competition in South Africa, and will represent the country at the Tel Aviv DLD Innovation festival and networking week in September.  It was also named one of the Financial Times International Finalists for Transformative Information Technology, and their urban transport app Findmyway was named an African Climate Solver by the WWF.

In March, the firm launched Findmyway, an urban transportation and journey planner app for users in Tshwane, South Africa.

By moving to London, Vries says WhereIsMyTransport won’t stop serve developing cities in Africa but having an international base for operations makes it easier for the firm to reach other cities outside Africa. The expansion gives the firm more resources, credibility and access to venture capital needed to compete on a global scale.

Ex-Ushahidi Director Jon Gosier Launches New $20M Venture Capital Firm

Sam Wakoba
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0
Ex-Ushahidi Director Jon Gosier Launches New $20M Venture Capital Firm

 

Entrepreneur Jon Gosier, 34 and a former Ushahidi director (SwiftRivers) is launching a new venture capital firm called Cross Valley Capital and it will be based in Philadelphia, US.

Gosier has teamed up with RJ Joshi, a Miami-based entrepreneur and they are raising $20 million for Cross Valley Capital according to a report by Technical.ly which also adds that Cross Valley Capital has already made its first investment which remains undisclosed.

Gosier, an African-American software developer, investor, and philanthrop was a director of SwiftRiver at Ushahidi from 2009 to 2011 but he went to start MetaLayer, a big data startup and is also the founder and CEO of Kampala-based Appfrica which is behind initiatives such as Apps4Africa and HiveColab and is also a co-founder of Apps4Africa accelerator competitions.

Based in Philly, Cross Valley Capital aims to invest in pre-revenue stage companies to those in Series A. Gosier has various investments in Africa and though this fund is not primarily for Africa, any exponential startup on the continent ready to scale globally can easily get this fund’s attention.

Being co-founded by an African-American doesn’t mean Cross Valley Capital will just invest in startups with teams of African-Americans but will look for growth and not colour of the founders.

Gosier is not new to this VC game even though he is launching a micro-fund. The Philadelphia based investor and data scientist co-founded Third Cohort Capital with a friend and is a partner at Rokk3r Labs in Miami. He has made several investments via his Appfrica Fund.

Kenya’s Mawingu Networks Recieves $4 million from OPIC to Turn Expand its Rural Wireless Internet Coverage

Sam Wakoba
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0

U.S. Development Finance Institution the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) signs a mandate letter to begin financing discussions with Mawingu Networks, a provider of solar-powered wireless Internet across rural Kenya. From left: Scott Nathan, U.S. State Department, Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs ; Elizabeth Littlefield, OPIC President and CEO ; Antony Cook, Microsoft Head of Legal and Corporate Affairs for the Middle East and Africa.

Kenya’s solar-powered wireless Internet across rural areas Mawingu Networks is set to recieve US$4M (Ksh 4billion) from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government’s Development Finance Institution, a move that is set to turn around the fortunes of the internet service provider.

“This is an exciting day for the Mawingu team. The support from OPIC will really help us deliver on the potential of this opportunity to help connect millions of Kenyans to the Internet for the first time” says Mawingu Director Tim Hobbs.

Mawingu, Swahili word for clouds, is backed by Microsoft’s 4Afrika initiative, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an investment from Angel Investor Jim Forster, and early funding from Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc and provides last-mile connectivity access to areas that cannot economically access the Internet.

OPIC aims to invest $4 million (in debt/ loan) to allow the firm commercially expansion its proven model to utilize existing technology of TV White Spaces (TVWS) connectivity for off-grid Internet access. The investment was announced on Friday at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.

Elizabeth Littlefield, OPIC’s President and CEO said, “Financial support at crucial stages of a company’s business evolution can transform a great idea into a deeply impactful reality for millions in the developing world. By leveraging technology and ingenuity, Mawingu’s massive reach to connect rural African communities to the Internet is just beginning, and I look forward to the growth and scalability of this model that OPIC financing can unlock.”

Mawingu was the first of the 6 TV white space pilots Microsoft has deployed in Africa in collaboration with partners, making Africa a leader in TV white spaces.

“We hope regulators across the continent develop legal frameworks that support broader commercial deployment of the technology. It is now time to work with both local and global partners such as OPIC to go commercial and scale to impact not just thousands, but millions of lives across Africa,” Says Antony Cook, Microsoft’s Head of Legal and Corporate Affairs for the Middle East and Africa

Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc says the investment in Mawingu will help drive resiliency in African communities and grow the business.

Aaron Fu says Nest Africa to Invest Between US$50,000 to US$200,000 in Cohort One of its Startups

Sam Wakoba
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0
Aaron Fu says Nest Africa to Invest Between US$50,000 to US$200,000 in Cohort One of its Startups

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Yesterday Nest VC announced it has launched its first African office in Nairobi under Aaron Fu to help invest in innovative tech startups across the continent and help turn around their fortunes via mentorships, business model design and networking apart from just funding them.

Techmoran caught up with Fu and this is what he told us.

Why did you choose Nairobi over Lagos? After Nairobi which is your next big stop in Africa?

Guys, it’s the Nyama Choma, clearly. But before we start a cuisine war, Lagos, without a doubt, represents an extremely large market base and is home to many startups we will be looking to engage in the coming months.

We are setting up in Nairobi to participate in the city’s vibrant startup ecosystem driven by a number of factors, key to which is talent. The pace of growth of Nairobi’s quickly increasing tech talent base, driven by communities like the iHub and developer training centres like Moringa, combined with an increasingly larger population of energetic entrepreneurs, with strong experience gained from years of working with large corporates and NGOs that are headquartered here, present a very appealing recipe for startups that are both well engineered and have a developed understanding of the business environment.

The team does not have immediate plans to set-up another physical presence in Africa this year however we will be looking at building on partnerships to extend the reach and depth of the nest ecosystem in other innovation hubs on the continent.

Why now?

Having invested in 49 companies over the last 5 years and run accelerators in 3 different sectors in the last year, we believe the time is right to grow our proven model of investing in and developing startups to the African startup ecosystem.

How will nest.vc work in Kenya?

We will be bringing all aspects of nest’s global ecosystem to Nairobi and are inviting all startups who feel they can benefit from our proven support structure of Strategy, Marketing, Funding and Network to kick-off a conversation with us.

Beyond access to direct support from our team in Nairobi and across the world, which includes access to our rigorously curated equity crowdfunding platform investable.vc, we will also be encouraging startups to apply to be part of the global cohort of startups participating in the sector focussed accelerators we co-developed with some of world’s strongest brands.

And of course, building on our experience co-developing innovation programs with global brands, we will also begin to play a key role in accelerating innovation with our corporate partners in Africa.

What value do you bring Kenyan startups? How different are you from the local VC/ angel funds around?

The startups we work with in Africa will not only gain access to active support in the region, but also access to our global ecosystem.

Our active involvement can range from deploying financial management support, to help re-focus the founder’s energy away from managing invoices and book-keeping and back onto building the business, through to digital marketing support where our team gets hands on with building the startup’s customer acquisition process.

The technical team is not left out of this neither, as we will also look to link our startups to support from some of the world’s leading agile software development and design thinking teams in the nest network.

We are also in a unique position to connect startups in Africa to Asia, where they will have access to firstly, peer-learning from the other startups in our portfolio with experience building sustainable, scalable businesses in an emerging market environment,  and secondly, market access to deploy their solutions to markets with significantly closer conditions than Europe and the US, ones where, just like in Kenya, populations are fast-growing, young and where mobile device adoption is skyrocketing.

How many and how much do you aim to invest in local startups?

At nest, we invest in the top entrepreneurs solving pertinent problems with disruptive solutions. Thus, we don’t have a set number of investments that we plan to make in the region or even globally. We are actively looking to support as many of the world’s top entrepreneurs as possible, so we will invest in as many energetic and passionate founders with great ideas as we can find!

We normally commit between US$50,000 to US$200,000 in the startups we invest in.

Do you have a specific sector you want to invest in?

Leveraging our accelerators with global corporations like AIA, Asia’s leading insurer, DBS Bank, a leading financial services group in Asia, and Infiniti Motors, Nissan’s global premium automobile brand, in the fields of HealthTech, FinTech and the Internet of Things, we intend to extend this sector focus globally and certainly into Africa.

Other sectors of interest include startups involved in riding on the exponential growth of mobile devices and e-commerce in the region, as well as EdTech, where we will begin by supporting the winner of this month’s winner of StartUp Weekend Education in Nairobi with both digital marketing capabilities as well as access to our global investor and mentor base when they are ready.

 

Do you have any experience in Africa?

We have worked with and invested in startups across the world in both developed and emerging markets spanning the US, Europe and Asia and will look to build on that experience as we begin supporting startups in Africa.

My own experience in the region comes from having worked in and with Africa for over 2 years driving digital financial solutions for Standard Chartered Bank across the continent.

Hardware is less attractive but appropriate for Africa do you aim to help invest and nurture the hardware ecosystem?

Certainly! We see a great degree of synergy here, our connections to our head office in Hong Kong allow us to support startups in this sector by connecting them to hardware and manufacturing expertise in the region.

As the costs for prototyping continue to decrease, we see this as an increasingly appealing sector with companies able to efficiently test, iterate and develop products to create the most viable businesses and find that elusive product + market fit.

Do you think Obama’s visit will have an impact on Kenya’s tech entrepreneurship scene?

President Obama is an aspirational figure across the globe and certainly, to many young Kenyans, he represents a belief that no dream is too big. His visit to Nairobi, I hope, will not only reinvigorate startup founders who are already on the path of chasing a dream but also to be a tipping point for would-be tech entrepreneurs to take the leap and fulfil their life’s purpose, to believe that the time to live their dreams, is now.

Hong Kong’s Nest VC Launches First African Office in Nairobi

Sam Wakoba
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0
Hong Kong’s Nest VC Launches First African Office in Nairobi

Hong Kong’s startup incubator Nest VC has launched its first African office in Nairobi Kenya, in a move to invest in the region’s growing entrepreneurial scene through funding, mentorship and networking.

Nest Nairobi will be based at Nairobi Garage, the home of 88mph headed up by managing partner Aaron Fu who will see the growth and expansion of Nest across Africa through partnerships with innovation hubs in Africa.

Nest Nairobi will be open for startups from across the continent will be encouraged to apply for funding and support. Fu’s primary focus will be to connect the region’s most promising entrepreneurs with Nest’s proven startup eco-system through the pillars of marketing, strategy, funding and network.

In a statement, Simon Squibb, CEO of Nest, said, “ Our unique support system can make the difference between success and failure as we give entrepreneurs access to the right tools and resources to enable them to turn their dreams into a reality.”

Squibb added that Nest Nairobi will provide mentorship, advice, space to develop ideas as well as access to shared legal and accounting experts apart from funding.

“While we are based in Kenya we will be working across Africa to find the best ideas and talent, in particular Lagos, and Accra and Cape Town where the startup scene is already flourishing,” he said.

Nest Nairobi will also connect Nairobi to Asia (Hong Kong) where Nest was founded in 2010. More recently Nest invested in HealthTech, FinTech and Smart Cities sector startups.

 

Airtel stops tower deal with Helios

Paul Adepoju
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Airtel stops tower deal with Helios

Airtel has disclosed it is no longer going ahead with the proposed sale of its telecoms towers in Chad and Tanzania to Helios Towers as earlier announced.

In a stock market statement, Airtel noted that plans had lapsed and therefore terminated.

“With reference to the Press Release dated July 09, 2014 regarding ”Airtel divests telecoms tower assets to Helios Towers Africa”, Bharti Airtel has now informed BSE that the agreements for sale of tower assets in Tanzania and Chad between the respective subsidiaries of Bharti Airtel Limited and Helios Towers Africa have lapsed and therefore stands terminated,” reads the statement.

In response to the Airtel statement Helios Towers noted the announcement by Bharti Airtel re: the agreement concerning telecoms towers in Tanzania and Chad.”HTA places great value on its business partnership with Airtel and will continue to work with them in Tanzania and elsewhere, including Congo Brazzaville where HTA recently closed a similar transaction with Airtel,” said the statement.

Implementation of Nigeria’s broadband policy would reduce reliance on natural resources – MainOne

Paul Adepoju
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MainOne’s Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Funke Opeke, believes Nigeria could become less dependent on natural resources if it fully implements its national broadband policy. She said in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, while speaking on a panel at last week’s Commonwealth Broadband Forum.

Opeke, who was represented by Mr. Temitope Osunrinde, examined the role of a national broadband policy in driving the nation’s GDP. She said that following the re-basing of national GDP, the contribution of the ICT industry in Nigeria had risen from 5.6% to 8.69%. He also referenced the contributions of ICT to the growth of the Services Industry, which showed a post rebased GDP percentage growth from 29.04% to a whopping 51.59%

She stressed the need for sustaining the policy initiatives introduced to promote open access and manage spectrum more effectively to continue to drive economic growth.

In his words “Nigeria needs to move up the value chain beyond dependence on natural resources, and into the labor-intensive service economies and implementation of the Nation’s Broadband policy will enable this”.

Accessibility is crucial for mobile payments and financial inclusion in Nigeria – Paga

Paul Adepoju
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0
Accessibility is crucial for mobile payments and financial inclusion in Nigeria – Paga

Jay Alabraba, Paga’s Co-founder and Director of Business Development, believes that accessibility has critical roles to play in the future of mobile payments and financial inclusion in Nigeria. Alabraba added that a viable agent network will finance services to become accessible to all Nigerians.

“We believe strongly that accessibility still has a big role to play in the future of mobile payments and financial inclusion. With the unique challenges around connectivity in Nigeria, having a viable agent network remains key to ensuring that every Nigerian, irrespective of their location has access to finance,” Alabraba said.

Speaking on the success of Paga as an online/mobile payment company in Nigeria, Tayo Oviosu, Founder and CEO of Paga, disclosed the company now has more than 3 million users, signifying a significant rise in the adoption of its services, and users are making use of its agent and online/mobile payment channels to send and receive payments.

In a statement, he attributed the rapid growth to understanding the unique challenges faced by Nigerians looking for a simpler way to make payments.

He said: “For my team and I, the issues around payments are far reaching. It goes past being able to move money from point A to B. In six years Paga has been in operation, we have developed a relationship with our customers. We hear their stories and we know that every transaction that occurs on our platform is more than just money. It’s someone trying to pay for something in a less stressful way.

“Whether it’s paying for a TV subscription; child’s school fees; a visa; people buying airtime to stay connected to the ones they love or a new business finally being able to accept payments from its customers.”

Paga was founded in 2009 with focus on building a payments ecosystem that can be leveraged by banks, businesses, and consumers. Paga now has over 8,300 agents in 35 states – making it the largest and most active network in Nigeria.

JUMIA Côte d’Ivoire unveils first ambassador

Paul Adepoju
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JUMIA Côte d’Ivoire unveils first ambassador

Ecoemmerce giant JUMIA this evening unveiled its first ambassador for Côte d’Ivoire, he is musician Serge Beynaud.

In Côte d’Ivoire, Serge Beynaud is a real phenomenon. Since 2009 the artist has become one of the main leaders of an urban culture whose musical genre “Coupé-Décalé” is the anthem. With the famous replica translated from French as “less talk, more smile” Beynaud has popularized a motto for an entire generation. This is surely why, for the first time since it arrived in Côte d’Ivoire, JUMIA is teaming up with a musician in a new campaign launched Monday June 15th through a video posted on YouTube. “Less talk, more orders” is one of the many linguistic twist used in the song specially crafted for the campaign, as a reference to the famous replica of the artist.

Speaking of the partnership, Sheryn TOIFL, Head of Public Relations and Communications at JUMIA Côte d’Ivoire said: « Throughout this partnership and new campaign, we seek to encourage a new target to adopt e-commerce, but also to show JUMIA’s support for Ivorian urban culture, throughout a campaign honoring Ivorian music, notably “Coupé-Décalé”».

The unprecedented collaboration is taking shape through a wide promotional campaign engaged Monday, June 15. It also includes an exclusive sales agreement of the clothing brand OP + T, standing for “On Parle Plus Trop” created by Serge Beynaud. The brand once distributed during the artist’s concerts and sold primarily in France, is available since March 2015 on the entire Ivorian territory through JUMIA. OP+T boasts a unique cultural identity. The first collection Men and Women unveiled in December 2014 is composed of eight t-shirts, which come in black or white. The ultra-chic streetwear t-shirts are tagged with the three-letter symbol of the brand name or a provocative logo of a censored lip. Some of the models ingeniously conceal the map of Côte d’Ivoire or Africa. The t-shirts from OP+T by Serge Beynaud are available on JUMIA at the price of 7,500 FCFA through a dedicated Shop in shop directly accessible by the following link https://opt.jumia.ci/ .

This daring move by JUMIA sends a strong signal in which digital culture meets urban culture. In the very captivating video posted on YouTube Monday (watch the video here : JUMIA OP+T – By Serge Beynaud), the artist accompanied by his dancers use phrases such as “click, buy, it’s delivered” or “facilitate your shopping”; words that subtly evoke the simplicity of the purchasing process on the first online shopping website in Côte d’Ivoire.

Ghana announces new deadline for digital migration

Paul Adepoju
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Ghana announces new deadline for digital migration

The government Ghana has set March 2016 as the new deadline for migration from analogue to digital broadcasting. Deputy Minister for Communications, Hon. Ato Sarpong, explained that the new migration would enable all broadcasting houses transmit on one free platform instead of broadcasting on different platforms which would help reduce cost, time and energy.

Sarpong said the first phase of the project, installation of digital infrastructure in the Greater Accra and the Ashanti regions, would be completed by October 2015. He added that phase two of the project would be completed by November 2015 and would cover areas including the Volta, Northern, Upper West and Upper East regions while the remaining regions would experience the data installation by the end of March 2016.

According to Sarpong, after the completion of the installation of the infrastructure, government would allow a one year period to enable the public purchase the required facilities for the migration.

A statement issued by the Ghanaian government and made available to TechCityNG revealed there would be an intensive educational campaign to educate the public on the new data migration.
Commenting, Oscar Nchor, Director of Technical Services, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), urged all stakeholders to embrace the project as it would come with enormous benefits for the country.

Ericsson and Smile Telecoms extend service management deal across Africa

Paul Adepoju
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Ericsson has signed a five-year multi-country managed services agreement to manage Smile’s 4G/LTE networks across all its operations. The agreement covers the operations of Smile – a 4G/LTE operator – in Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Under the agreement, Ericsson will provide a fully managed end-to-end service that includes network operations, performance, optimisation, field support and maintenance.
The contract is an extension of Ericsson’s relationship with Smile in Nigeria, where Ericsson is Smile’s sole vendor for 4G networks.
Tom Allen, group chief operating officer of Smile Communications said, “We regard Ericsson as more than a vendor, we are long term partners focused on delivering on the Smile promise to be the broadband provider of choice in Africa and to ensure that our customers fully benefit from the internet world.”

Fredrik Jejdling, president Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa added, “We are excited to be delivering this service to Smile as it further extends our partnership with the operator in the region. Bringing with us our expertise as global HSPA and LTE leaders, this partnership enables Smile Communications to focus even more on the core business of delivering superior products and services that cater to the needs of its subscribers, whilst at the same time improving operational efficiency.”

Jovago is paying Nigerians to watch TV, online adverts

Paul Adepoju
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0
Jovago is paying Nigerians to watch TV, online adverts

Hotel booking platform Jovago has announced it will be paying Nigerians to monitor its advert.

“Nigerians N500 per hour to watch or listen to our new advert,” the company said in a statement.

To participate, follow the guideline below.

  1. Send an email to zmyslowski@jovago.com with subject: Media Monitoring
  2. State which type of Media you want to watch or listen (you can choose all): DSTV Channels/Terrestrial Channels/Radio.
  3. For each day you are available, state the hours when you can monitor the media.

Days to choose from (You can choose all): 18th June – 5th July

Hours to choose from (You can choose all): 6am-10pm

  1. Write your bank account number
  2. At the end of each day, send a report with the number of Jovago spots you have seen/heard during your duty hours.

Each Channel is monitored by at least 5 people. If the number of spots you send is the same as numbers of at least two other – you get your cash the next day.

CEO Weekends: Innovation Edge Giving $82,000 to Top South African Edtech Focused Startups

Sam Wakoba
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0

home-bannerLed by Sonja Giese, South Africa’s Innovation Edge is a new social innovation fund that seeks out and funds bold ideas and innovations that have the potential to impact the early childhood development (ECD) and learning space.

Innovation Edge aims to support innovators to move creative ideas through the innovation process, help them build new partnerships and as well fund them to up to R 1 000 000 each ($82,000) over a period of up to 24 months and a further amount of up to 15% of grant value for project evaluation.

According to Giese, Innovation in early learning may take the form of new or adapted products, services, processes or systems. These innovations can be levers for change by improving access to early learning opportunities for children who are currently not being reached, improving the quality of early learning experiences to ensure positive child outcomes and increasing the range of stakeholders engaged in promoting early learning.

Giese adds that the innovations have to promote access to and use of information for planning, provisioning and monitoring of early learning as well as focus to radically change paradigms or mindsets in support of early learning, open up new or additional human and financial resource streams for early learning and address key constraints within the early learning eco-system.

“We are open to exploring new ways of thinking, processes, systems or products from all sectors provided that the project or idea demonstrates innovation, has the potential for large-scale impact at an economic cost within marginalized communities, is aligned to the Innovation Edge Conceptual Framework, focuses on children between the ages of 0 and 6 years and/or on the period of development during pregnancy and is implemented in South Africa,” Giese says in a statement.

The fund is for innovations at any stage although the Innovation Edge does not fund the scale up of innovations per se and supports organisations and individuals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CEO Weekends: Nigeria’s Heels.com.ng Revamps Site for Mobile | Launches One Click Checkout

Sam Wakoba
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0
CEO Weekends: Nigeria’s Heels.com.ng Revamps Site for Mobile | Launches One Click Checkout
1009772_401597076616494_1392389978_nWith thousands of orders of shoes made from the site across all styles, Heels.com.ng which raised funding this year January, has upgraded its site to rake in more mobile users and double down on sales.
Speaking to TechMoran,Heels.com.ng CEO and founder Ikenna Okonkwo said, “The site upgrade was made due to the low conversions we were experiencing from mobile shoppers. Since the upgrade, we have experienced 44% increase in mobile e-commerce conversion rate and a 40% increase in the number of transactions processed for the period considered. Accordingly, revenues attributable to mobile devices grew by almost 50%. We also noticed that people spent 15% more time on their mobile phones after the upgrade. “

Founded in August 2013, Heels.com.ng aims to be biggest online retailer for female designer shoes plus a a hand-picked selection of trendy shoes for the fashion forward female in Nigeria. The online female shoe megastore has collections of shoes from top designers in the world such as Enzo Angiolini, to collections from sites such JustFab among others.

Okonkwo says though most customers make purchases  across all styles but the fashionable work shoes sell the most followed by party shoes and then wedding shoes.

The firm has also launched a new feature to reduce the time customers take on the site and allow them to check out real quick.

Heels.com.ng Upgraded
“One of the new features we introduced is the “One Click Checkout” that allows customers to check out all in one page, no more lengthy checkout steps,” Okonko told TechMoran. “Also with the new website, you do not need to log into the website anymore after an initial registration, simply enter the same email you previously used to open an account and we will automatically add your order to your account. Log in when you fee like to check out your order history.”
The firm has also introduced dicsounts on a shopper’s every purchase. For every purchase a shopper makes, he or she automatically gets a 10% coupon towards their next purchase. The firm says the discounts are a way of appreciating its repeat customers who account for almost half of its monthly sales.
Heels.com.ng delivers to all states in Nigeria and offers cash on delivery (COD) services in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. Heels plans to unveil an online marketplace for local shoe designers to sell their shoes to anyone in the country and as well help them deal with logistics and payments via its platform.

Mo Ibrahim’s Satya Capital & TPG Growth Partner to Invest Over $1B into African Startups

Sam Wakoba
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0
Mo Ibrahim’s Satya Capital & TPG Growth Partner to Invest Over $1B into African Startups
Imagecredits:www.mrfcj.org
Imagecredits:www.mrfcj.org

With more than $7 billion of assets under management TPG Growth and Mo Ibrahim’s Satya Capital have partnered in a move to identify and invest over $1 billion in companies in Africa.

TPG Growth has investments in various emerging markets such as Vietnam, Myanmar, India and Brazil while Dr. Ibrahim and Satya know Africa. The deal will see them invest between $1m to as much as $400m into healthcare, TMT, consumer and financial services firms on the continent.

In a statement Dr. Ibrahim said: “The African economy is just starting to realise its potential, and there are businesses and entrepreneurs across the continent that will thrive with the right operational support and access to global markets. I believe this partnership will give African entrepreneurs a very powerful platform.”

Satya Capital aims to invest between $300 million to $400 million in the deal and the rest will be footed by TPG Growth. The firm’s will also give the firms the same operational support and focus across the continent to fuel innovation and entrepreneurism on the continent.

The African investment team will be led by Jide Olanrewaju, Samir Abhyankar and Frederick Antwi.

 

New internet Data Centre to propel Tanzania to ICT hub status

Susan Mwenesi
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0
New internet Data Centre to propel Tanzania to ICT hub status

The government of Tanzania is set to put up an Internet Data Centre (IDC) at Kijitonyama, in Kinondoni municipality, Dar es Salaam worth ICT million (nearly 200bn/-) , a move that is widely seen as able to propel the country to ICT hub status.

The country’s Minister for  Communications, Science and Technology Prof Makame Mbarawa said: “Cellular network companies will soon no longer depend on other country’s data centres thanks to this centre, which will also be used by other East African countries.”

The Daily News Tanzania, the move will come in the wake of the country signing an agreement with Huawei  Company to facilitate it realize its development Vision 2025 through ICT. Huawei will act as an ICT advisor to the government within the agreement.

“Huawei will provide the government with advisory service on ICT. The company will also facilitate training, education, summit and exhibitions on ICT,” said Prof Mbarawa shortly after signing the MoU.

Huawei Managing Director, Mr Zhang Yongquan said:“We are thankful to the long lasting trust from the government and our telecom customers for the continued support they give us.”

Emerging cyber risks to take centre stage at Insurance conference

Susan Mwenesi
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0
Emerging cyber risks to take centre stage at Insurance conference

Cyber-SecurityInsurance leaders and experts will next week converge in Nairobi at a major conference that seeks to stimulate growth in the industry and among the major topics will be insurance emerging cyber risks and application of analytics in making investment decisions among others.

The African insurance and re-insurance conference, which brings together different players from across the continent, will be held on June 22 and 23, at Crowne Plaza Hotel.

The life insurance industry in Africa continues to be marked by low penetration rates with half of the countries either lacking a life industry or having a marginal market with extremely low penetration. Participants will explore the challenges hindering the penetration levels and solutions that can be offered through effective products, delivery and distribution channels.

“The themes for this year’s conference pick up on the increasing optimism
as the insurance sector now more than ever positions itself to play a key
role in supporting the unprecedented economic growth the continent is
witnessing,” says Naomi Njoroge, Managing Director of Aidem Business
Solutions, the event organizer.

She says to fully realize this potential; operators, must carefully rethink their strategies especially in areas of product innovations, business diversification and investment options.

“These fundamentals will be critical in determining who will be best placed to take advantage of this growth,” she says. “AIRC 2015 provides a platform for the operators to get practical insights on how to chat their
way forward and capture this growth.”

Cyber risk has become a significant enterprise threat and proactive risk management means identifying the risk and implementing appropriate risk mitigation strategies. With the threat landscapes evolving due to such
liberating technologies as cloud computing, successful enterprises must adapt fundamentally new approaches to managing the complexity and risk introduced by these new technologies and business services.

“Players need to understand their organisation’s vulnerability to cyber-attacks and also the importance of protecting their enterprises by having proper security controls in place within their IT infrastructure,”
she said.

South Africa’s Upforit.co.za Wants to Help You & Your Friends Get Fit Quickly

Sam Wakoba
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0
South Africa’s Upforit.co.za Wants to Help You & Your Friends Get Fit Quickly

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South Africa Upforit, a social wellness, nutrition and exercise community wants to help you and your friends get healthier with your friends.

Co-founded by Gary Willmott and Keith Elli​ott, Upforit draws from both a depth of wellness expertise and digital know­how by the co-founders as  well as a deep understanding of the role of nutrition in wellness. The platform creates health & fitness challenges which are fun, easy to take part in and open to as many people as would like to join via its simple web­interface and social media.

“Upforit is not another weight­loss fad it is a Start­up,” says Willmott. “But is rooted in social psychology and articulated through digital technology”. ​

His co-founder Elli​ott adds, “We’ve seen a very high level of receptivity and traction in the market. The platform provides us with massive scope for product and brand development all aimed at assisting people in their quest to get healthier and fitter.”

Upforit provides motivation, prizes, health tips, product information and expert advice. New challenges are created all the time and members even have the opportunity to suggest challenges.

“Everyone knows that you should eat healthily and exercise regularly, but we all seem to find any excuse not to do it,” the co-founders say. “There is no shortage of help either; from eating plans and fitness routines through to the latest technologically advanced gear and equipment, we have it all at our fingertips. Yet, we don’t seem to achieve those health and fitness goals we set ourselves. ”

The two say that Upforit is not a programme, plan or routine but a platform that ​highlights motivation, challenges and friends as insights to help individuals focus on their health and fitness goals.

“Sustained motivation is most often the Achilles heel of any undertaking. We set off with gusto, but somewhere along the way, the motivation fades and we never achieve what we set out to do. Upforit creates a ‘motivation loop’ by leveraging the power of friendship and social media to keep you focused and motivated,” they say.

The platform also creates challenges that pursue health, wellness and fitness objectives that allow users to align and achieve their personal goals and allow users to share them with friends. Upforit is at the moment self­funded.

 

 

DEMO Africa Pre-pitch Event to Go Down at the Hypercube Hub Zimbabwe

Sam Wakoba
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0

hypercubeThe DEMO Africa pre-pitch event is set to go down at the Hypercube Hub in Harare on June 24th to meet and give feedback to all the startups participating.

The best start-up will get a direct nomination to DEMO Africa with ticket and accommodation fully paid for. Start-up teams can now register to interact with the DEMO Africa team in Harare.

In a statement, Rinesh Desai, Director at Hypercube Hub said, “Interacting with various entrepreneurs provides an amazing platform to unmask the gaps challenging the growth of entrepreneurship and this way various players are able to chat on various interventions and how best to put them in place.”

Zimbabwe is the third stop for the DEMO Africa team after Accra and Nairobi.

If you have a startup and haven’t applied to DEMO do it right away here before the June 30th 2015 deadline.

DEMO Africa 2015 edition is scheduled to take place between 21st and 25th of September at the Eko Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria. Delegate registration is already open and those wishing to attend can now register.

This year’s event is being organized in collaboration with the LIONS@FRICA partners (which include Microsoft, Nokia, US State Department, DEMO, USAID, African Development Bank, VC4Africa among others) and Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies.

Stakeholders chart course for development of mobile banking in Nigeria

Paul Adepoju
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0
Stakeholders chart course for development of mobile banking in Nigeria

At a Mobile Banking Masterclass held in London for partner banks (Commercial and Microfinance) of eTranzact, stakeholders chart a course for the development of Mobile Banking in Nigeria.

At the Masterclass, eTranzact demoed their newly designed Mobile banking architecture with new interfaces and touch points that would accelerate adoption and integration into consumers lifestyle. New features were unveiled around onboarding, personalization, communication; introducing person to person messaging as well as other.

The Masterclass aimed to provide a platform to discuss new innovations in mobile banking targeted at making mobile banking more about the customer and launching new innovations to make the customer on-boarding process easier.

Topics discussed ranged from how to improve the mobile banking experience for customers and innovations in providing support for customers, to unveiling eTranzact’s improvements in the onboarding process and mobile architecture of the mobile banking application.

With over 15 million smartphones currently in circulation in Nigeria and with efforts by the OEMs to increase this number by making smartphones even more affordable, mobile banking adoption in Nigeria has also increased, leading to the need to scale up technology resources as well as think up new ways to make the process easy for customers, and eTranzact has been heavily focused on building the infrastructural backbone of what is required to take mobile banking to new heights.

Participants at the Mobile Banking Masterclass spoke extensively about some trends they had identified among their customers as well as possible ways they could improve the process.

Speaking about what the banks and their customers should begin to see immediately after the Masterclass, Mr Valentine Obi, CEO of eTranzact International PLC said: “To us, every product we build is ultimately about the customer whether at the corporate or individual level, and we want to ensure that we are meeting their needs both locally and globally, pushing ourselves every day. We understand the part we play in the growth of mobile banking and payments as a whole and through constructive feedback from our partners and innovation; we want to continue to play this role now and in the future.

At eTranzact, we believe in using the power of technology to build bridges across continents and we will continue to invest in research and build up our capacity to achieve these goals”.

In his remark, Mr Adeyemi Adeyemo, Group Head, Business Development said; “We are excited about the steps we have taken to improve the overall experience of our partner banks and for their customers. We have a key role to play in driving innovation and we are ready to embrace it.

We come with major improvements in the mobile banking applications for all our partner banks and hope we can begin to roll out the changes as soon as possible. The changes not only cover the user interfaces of the different banks, but also try to merge the user’s lifestyle and improve the signup process for the application.  We are also working with all our partner banks to help them enjoy the full capability of the USSD platform for mobile banking.

As mobile banking becomes more segmented, the next step is to achieve greater personalization, and we want to make the user’s habits and needs focal points of the newly redesigned apps.

With our new onboarding process, we want to eliminate visits to bank branches so consumers can begin using mobile banking applications, while still maintaining the security of the platform”.

The End of an Error: Stephen Elop Out, Nokia Smartphones Coming, Death of Lumia & Other Stories From Microsoft

Sam Wakoba
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0
The End of an Error: Stephen Elop Out, Nokia Smartphones Coming, Death of Lumia & Other Stories From Microsoft
Imagecredits:Doid-life.com
Imagecredits:Doid-life.com

Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has retired from Microsoft as part of he firm’s huge reorganization process, just weeks to the firm’s huge July 29 Windows 10 launch.

In an email to all employees, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “Stephen and I have agreed that now is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft. I regret the loss of leadership that this represents, and look forward to seeing where his next destination will be.”

Elop was running the Microsoft Devices Group which was responsible for Lumia devices which according to insiders are not part of the greater planner Satya has for the company. In facr last year, he wrote a 3000 word email saying the firm’s core focus was on mobile first and cloud first thereby moving into cloud services and entreprise productivity services and not devices.

Though Microsoft is not entirely killing Lumia devices on Elop’s exit, there’s a high probability that the firm doesn’t need the devices to showcases its Windows ecosystem we are enjoy on PC. Microsoft’s suite of appications are already available on every operating system and even work better on Android and iOS than on Windows Phone itself.

Having a market share of just 2.7 percent is not competitive and Microsoft should have let Nokia just die than buy for the $7B. Microft under Steve Balmer wanted devices, to not only showcase its Windows ecosystem but take on Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s device family but the entry of Nadella changed everything.

“When Stephen Elop returned to Microsoft, he oriented MDG to create the best Microsoft experience through its devices, inclusive of hardware, software and services,” Nadella said in the email. “He has been a strong advocate of the need to drive focus and accountability around the delivery of these experiences and has helped drive tighter alignment toward the ambition of more personal computing.”

Though Nokia was an error to Microsoft, the firm is not totally killing devices, the Lumia will be around for sometime, say two or three year, the Surface tablets, Xbox and Microsoft’s HoloLens are here to stay.

“I’m certain that matching our structure to our strategy will best position us to build products and services our customers love and ultimately drive new growth,” said Satya.

Other executives leaving with Elop include Kirill Tatarinov, the former head of Microsoft Dynamics, Eric Rudder, a 25-year old Microsoft veteran who led the Server and Tools business, Microsoft Research, and recently Education services. The third is Mark Penn who’s leaving to start his owm private equity fund.

“We are aligning our engineering efforts and capabilities to deliver on our strategy and, in particular, our three core ambitions,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “This change will enable us to deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace.”

Microsoft’s Executive Vice President Terry Myerson will lead the new Windows and Devices Group (WDG) which is focused on enabling more personal computing experiences powered by the Windows ecosystem. The firm says the new team will support the Operating Systems Group and Microsoft Devices Group.

Another group will lead the Cloud and Enterprise team focused on building the intelligent cloud platform that powers any application on any device as well as high-value infrastructure and business services key to managing business processes such as data and analytics, security and management, and development tools. The third group will be the Applications and Services Group (ASG) focused on reinventing productivity services for digital work that span all devices and appeal to the people who use technology at work and in their personal lives.

Meanwhile, LG Electronics yesterday signed a royalty-bearing smartphone patent license agreement with Nokia. LG will have access to over 60 licensees for Nokia’s 2G, 3G and 4G mobile communication technologies. Nokia’s CEO Rajeev Suri also yesterday told Germany’s Manager Magazin that the firm plans to start designing and licensing handsets again in 2016 and will work with suitable partners to make the smartphones.

Nokia aims to only design the smartphones for its partners and license the brand name to them.  Suri was particular that Nokia will not literally build the smartphones on its own as that violates its agreement with Microsoft.

Why was Nokia an error?

After buying Nokia’s handest business for $7.2 billion, Microsoft could only claim a 2.7% smartphone market share and making losses for the firm.

Nigeria’s Wennovation Hub accepting applications for pre-acceleration program in Ibadan

Paul Adepoju
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0
Nigeria’s Wennovation Hub accepting applications for pre-acceleration program in Ibadan

One of Nigeria’s major innovation hubs, the Wennovation Hub has announced it is accepting applications for its WennoKICK Pre-Acceleration Program – an all-inclusive 6 weeks pre-acceleration program  that helps participants to build strategy to validate their business model/idea.

The hub said its WennoKICK is suitable for idea stage and early stage entrepreneurs who need a ‘little kick’ to forge ahead.

The 6-week WennoKICK program  has been designed to guide impact, lifestyle, and social entrepreneurs unto a path of sustainable revenues, whether it is for-profit, non-profit, or a hybrid model.

Here are what participants will benefit.

  • 6-week Incubation at the Hub
  • Access to Experienced Mentors
  • Access to Experienced Business Consultants
  • Access to 6 months Office Space (T&C Applies)
  • Access to Seed Funding

Click here to apply

1 million free web passes for MTN subscribers in Nigeria

Paul Adepoju
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0
1 million free web passes for MTN subscribers in Nigeria

Naij.com, a news,  jobs and entertainment portal, is helping to bring free mobile internet to Nigerians via the MTN network. This has been made possible through Opera’s Sponsored Web Pass, which allows operators to package their data in a user-friendly way. At the click of a button, users can get online and explore what the mobile internet has to offer.

A first-of-its-kind initiative in Africa, Naij.com is sponsoring a massive one million days of internet for subscribers on the MTN network between from June 17th. MTN users will be able to activate their free day of internet and will be able to browse all websites using Opera Mini.

“As a company committed to providing engaging online content for Nigerians, we’re thrilled to also provide them with a day of mobile internet,” said Goke Olaegbe, Country Group Head at Naij.com.

Working together to boost Nigeria’s mobile internet usage

With over 20 million Opera Mini users in Nigeria, 140 million MTN subscribers and more than 12 million monthly Naij.com readers, the collaboration is a unique opportunity to bring mobile users online for the first time. Whilst Nigeria’s mobile penetration is rapidly expanding, mobile data usage is still low at around 38%. This initiative aims to give users the opportunity to get a ‘taste’ of the internet and understand how it might benefit them.

“Connecting more people, wherever they are and helping them to do more with their data will always be in the forefront of what we do at Opera. Partnerships like this are key to achieving our goals,” added Richard Monday, VP Africa for Opera Software.

Tsola Barrow, Acting Chief Enterprise Solutions Officer at MTN Business, further supported the initiative, stating, “This initiative is not only in line with our vision to deliver a bold, new digital world to our customers but also underpins our mission to make the lives of customers on Africa’s largest network a whole lot brighter. We also truly believe in the power of bringing people online via the devices they use every day. Opera’s Sponsored Web Pass helps take the fear out of using mobile internet for the first time.”

Get access to a free day of internet by going to webpass.opera.com using Opera Mini on the MTN network, but hurry – there are only 40,000 passes available each day!

  Kenya’s Open Data to have more user-friendly data

Susan Mwenesi
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0
  Kenya’s Open Data to have more user-friendly data

 

 From July this year Kenyans can expect a more robust, user-friendly and intuitive Open Data portal the ICT Authority has said.

Chief Executive Officer Victor Kyalo said: “ We now have a solid team in place made up of diverse professionals from data experts in Geographic Information Systems, analytics and coordinators whose work will ensure the portal meets its objectives.  With this team, we are able to strongly focus on data supply initiatives to bring more government data to the portal for easy access by the public.”

The Open Data team is currently conducting a government-wide data survey that will ascertain the availability of datasets and readiness of the various government ministries in opening up data. This is also in anticipation of the Access to Information Bill and the Data Protection Bill that are currently in parliament.

During the course of the year, the team will host workshops that will engage civil society, academia, media, and entrepreneurs to raise awareness and engage with them on their data needs, while creating demand for the already available data on www.opendata.go.ke

Image Credit: responsys.com
Image Credit: responsys.com

The first workshop, to be held in late June, will focus on needs and demands from Civil Society.

New regional innovation fund to contribute to World Bank’s PASET programme

Susan Mwenesi
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0
New regional innovation fund to contribute to World Bank’s PASET programme

The newly launched ‘Regional Scholarship and Innovation Fund’ for Africa launched on 13th June 2015 is now going to contribute to the World Bank ‘Partnership for Skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (PASET)’ programme.

The latter seeks to award 10,000 African PhD scholarships over ten years, to strengthen research and innovation in applied science, engineering and technology.

The launch event was led by the President of the Republic of Senegal HE Macky Sall, and representatives of the Heads of States of Ethiopia and Rwanda.

The African Governments involved committed to the Fund alongside a new group of prominent business figures, the ‘Africa Business Champions for Science’, to raise a total of $5million during the launch. The ‘Africa Business Champions for Science’ group is chaired by the Angolan businessman Dr Álvaro Sobrinho, also Chairman of the Planet Earth Institute NGO (http://www.planetearthinstitute.org.uk). Additional funds will now be mobilised from African Governments, business leaders and other developmental partners, to operationalise the Fund by June 2016.

His Excellency Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal said :”Increasingly, Africa sees the need to depend on science and technology to increase industrial and agricultural productivity, guarantee food security, tackle diseases, ensure a safe water supply, and reduce the energy deficit. While these may seem like insurmountable challenges, the continent cannot waste any more time.”

We must launch a sustained campaign to train and employ a great number of scientists, engineers, and technicians to achieve the structural transformation that Africa needs, and that is exactly what this programme is designed to help support.”

Dr Álvaro Sobrinho, Chairman, African Business Champions for Science and Chairman, Planet Earth Institute: “As Africa continues to make great strides forward, we must also continue to recognise the importance of investing in our future generations. This investment must go beyond access and enrolment to develop excellence, too, especially in science and technology. Excellence in science and technology will equip Africa with a workforce ready to compete in the 21st century, where we can lead the world as scientists, engineers and innovators.”

OLX Nigeria Struggling to Clean its Name After the OLX Nanny Saga

Sam Wakoba
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0
OLX Nigeria Struggling to Clean its Name After the OLX Nanny Saga

OLXAfter acquiring TradeStable, which OLX Nigeria says was big competition, the firm has said that though they have many competitors, the closest one is Jiji.com, a firm run by Naij.com and with no relation to eBay’s Kijiji.com.

In an Interview with The News Nigeria, a popular local news site, Lola Masha, OLX Nigeria country manager said, “I think the best way to gauge our market share right now is to look at our competitor. Of course, we acquired Tradestable Nigeria platform, which means we are here to stay. In terms of specific share, we have significant market share, Compared to our competitors. I think number two now would be jiji.com.”

That’s not the only issue though, OLX is also struggling to clean its name after the alleged OLX Nanny saga. According to reports, a Lagos family contracted one Mary Akinloye as a nanny after they found her profile on the OLX platform and she ended up kidnapping its 3 kids.

In the interview Masha says: “Also the issue of safety is a big challenge. You must have heard about the unfortunate ‘OLX Nanny’ saga or some reports that are not pleasant. All these stories sometimes tend to hold back some people from wanting to even try to use the platform. So, the whole work for us is to convince those users. We admit some of those challenges are there but we are working so hard to reduce it.”

Masha’s work at hand is to convice people to use the platform  even with such reports. Her duty is to educate the public how the platform works and how OLX like any other market is open for everyone to post or buy from anyone and it doesn’t own any inventory and neither does it have any partnership with the sellers on the platform.

“Trust is definitely one big challenge,” Masha adds, “In all the 40 different countries that OLX is operating, Nigeria is the one exception where this question is actually so prominent. When we launched the business in Nigeria, we knew about the perception that here you can’t trust anybody. But then we decided not to get involved in the assumption or to bug out courtesy of the negative stereotype about the market. We said ‘let’s launch and see if Nigerians are actually trustworthy or not.’ But what we learnt painfully and unfortunately is that we do have that problem here. It is a reality. But again, it is very unique to Nigeria. We don’t see this extent of trust and safety issue elsewhere.”

Masha says that 99 per cent of all cases that go wrong are were users paid advance so the firm is educatingusers on how to use online classifieds by not paying in advance and making sure they meet the seller in a secure place and as well go with company just in case anything goes wrong.

“Consequently, trust is a top priority for us. We are taking the issue very seriously. We are open to innovative ideas and can test new things that will help to build trust and safety,” she says.

OLX Nigeria says it has a team working around the clock to review all the ads and ensure they meet its safety criteria and as well has features to allow users to report fraud or submit their complaints.

The Naspers’ backed firm is also present in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania and 35 other countries around the world. Thousands of users across the continent still don’t understand how OLX works and the firm has embarked on heavy media campaignsto teach users on safety precautions.

Last year October, OLX Kenya launched Kaa Ridho (take pre-caution) campaign focused on user safety.
Read the entire interview here.

ICT Authority, KNA partner to digitize Kenya’s history

Susan Mwenesi
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0
ICT Authority, KNA partner to digitize Kenya’s history

typing at a keyboardKenyans who want to go down memory lane of their country from the comfort of their homes will soon be able to do so by browsing photographs and audio clips of Kenya’s history.

Kenya News Agency (KNA) holds more than 500 thousand copies of images and audio clips that are now being digitized. The ICT Authority and KNA are in the process of digitizing the photo library collection dating back to 1936 documenting Kenyan life through the decades.

 “The ICT Authority is working with KNA to digitize all the images, by December 2015.We toured the digitization center recently and found the team busy sorting out the heaps of photographs in preparation for the task of digitizing.”

“Easy access to these historical photos will especially benefit the creative industry and researchers. From fashion designers to filmmakers–access to visual history of Kenya will serve to inspire and enrich their creations. For personal family research or professional cultural research, the online catalogue will be an invaluable reference source,” said ICT Authority Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Victor Kyalo.

Kenya News Agency (KNA) was established on December 5th 1963, a week to Kenya’s Independence. It specializes in news gathering across the country and news dissemination for local and international news agencies.   KNA provides the most widespread news network in the East African region.  Its photographic library was established twenty years earlier, in the early 1940s.

The  project is expected to grow revenue for KNA,  Increase the visibility of KNA assets,  Improve KNA staff ability to fulfil requests for information  and  Archive standard secure physical storage for KNA multi-media assets.

Over the years, the Agency has documented all the key events in Kenya—from the emergency days to independence, the growth of Kenya from a newly independent country to its modernization. As of 2014, KNA has managed to use its limited resources to scan approximately 6,000 images out of a collection of approximately 500,000 photos.

IT Meets Business as IDC Hosts Latest East Africa CIO Summit

Susan Mwenesi
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IT Meets Business as IDC Hosts Latest East Africa CIO Summit

 Around 100 of East Africa’s most influential IT leaders yesterday gathered at the Villa Rosa Kempinski in Nairobi for the second annual installment of International Data Corporation’s East Africa CIO Summit.

Among the guests were Victor Kyalo, CEO of the ICT Authority of Kenya, whose keynote speech delivered on the  ‘Where IT Meets Business’ theme, while a roster of expert speakers were on hand to drive home the importance of closely aligning IT and business functions at a time when the region’s IT leaders are coming under mounting pressure to enhance operational efficiencies through the implementation of transformative new tech solutions.

Onesmus Mbogo, IDC’s country manager for East Africa, got the day’s proceedings underway by stressing the need for ICT chiefs and line-of-business executives to invoke the spirit of cooperation as they embrace ICT in their quest to facilitate key corporate objectives.

IDC“There can be little doubt that the 3rd Platform of computing is now in full swing, with cloud, Big Data, mobility, and social business set to account for one-third of all IT spending in 2015 and 100% of the market’s growth,” said Mbogo.

“The focus of CIOs across the region is already beginning to shift to the new wave of disruptive technologies that are heading their way, with unprecedented opportunities to drive innovation and value creation across all facets of the organization. This will not only require a new breed of CIO leadership, but will also demand a whole new era of collaboration right across the CxO value chain.”

Mike Jennett, IDC’s vice president of mobile strategies, followed with an in-depth assessment of IDC’s top decision imperatives for the 2015 CIO agenda. Aimed at helping CIOs step up to the next stage of leadership, these decision imperatives provided the strategic context required for them to transform their enterprises through the creative application of technology to everyday business challenges. Next to take the stage was Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC’s group vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East and Africa, who addressed the need for businesses to sense and respond to their customers and markets faster than ever before, enhancing their efforts towards driving cross-functional agility.

“The CIO is perfectly positioned to help facilitate the state of cross-functional agility that is now undoubtedly required,” said Lalchandani. “This can be achieved by ensuring that all departments have access to data and are able to collaborate efficiently and effectively, as well as by creating high levels of transparency and disassembling unproductive and ineffective silos. By facilitating true cross-functional agility, companies and their employees are able to achieve better levels of performance, and it is crucial that the IT department is seen as the enabler of this shift in organizational culture.”

The delegates in attendance at the East Africa CIO Summit 2015 were drawn from a diverse range of industry sectors, with senior IDC analysts from across the globe available for private one-to-one meetings throughout the course of the event, offering strategic advice on the most pressing concerns of the region’s business and technology leaders. The event also played host to two exclusive workshops based on IDC’s IT Executive Program, with Mike Jennett discussing the implementation of effective mobile applications strategies and providing timely advice on leveraging collaboration to achieve optimal business outcomes.

Consumers now driving content in Kenya’s Broadcast Industry

Susan Mwenesi
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Consumers now driving content in Kenya’s Broadcast Industry

With the advent of the digit migration processes in the country that saw its fair share of challenges, it is clear that the broadcasting sector is evolving and among the notable changes is the consumer driving content as opposed to yester years when it was the other way round.

Speaking at the stakeholder consultation forum on broadcasting regulations held today in Nairobi, ICT Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiangi said that the consumer is taking centre stage in an environment replete with an ever-expanding array of channels, platforms, devices, experiences and choices. This in turn is positioning consumers to dictate the future of television content preparation and delivery.

“It is imperative that we discuss critical issues and concerns that touch on the businesses and the interests of the audiences or consumers of those services. These include exclusive premium content, ‘must carry’ provisions rule for the pay TV operators, intellectual property rights, and self-provisioning licensing, among others.  Let me reiterate here that the overarching principle should be what is in the best interest of the public much as we debate on these issues,” said Matiangi.

Matiangi also said that it was necessary for stakeholders to ensure that the policy and regulatory frameworks are also up to date.   Broadcasters, too have to keep up with the fast-changing pace of technology and audience behavior in order to stay relevant in the marketplace in the face of these changes.

“As we witness the end of analogue broadcasting era and enter a fully digital broadcasting era, the media and entertainment industry is undergoing a seismic shift.  It shouldn’t be a surprise therefore, that even after the review the regulatory framework in 2010, we are seeking to review broadcasting regulations again.”

“We still find it necessary to ensure that we stay alive to the changing environment and align ourselves accordingly.  This for the greater part informed the decision to establish a taskforce that would lead the review of the broadcasting regulations,” he added.

Matiangi also said that there was need to maintain the focus to create a pluralistic and diverse broadcasting landscape.

video-insider-pay-tv-sub-losses-in-2013--amazons-video-gadget--boxfishs-raise“As the industry harnesses the technological developments, I also urge that we critically think on how we can also harness the local talent, creativity and the attendant economic opportunities.  The local broadcasting industry has a lot of potential to be one of the largest contributors to the GDP of this country,” he said.

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