There was a fiery exchange in an audio recording believed to have been between Ethics & Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) Chairman Mr Mumo Matemu with another party believed to have been Standard Group CEO Sam Shollei.

According to COFEK which earlier reported this, “A very emotional Mr Shollei is heard fighting on phone, over prosecution of his younger brother (at the IEBC) and his wife, Gladys (formerly the Chief Registrar at the Judiciary). He appears to be blaming EACC Secretary Mr Halake Waqo whom he refers as a “Somali getting you out of town” and wants Mr Matemu to “take charge”.”The anger is itself not an issue because it’s a family affair but questions arise on how he knew and called Matemu on the prosecution. How much power he has to bring down the anti-corruption chief apart from his media empire? Are there CEO’s using their media empires for mudslinging?

Other questions arising include how ready and sure was he to dig and expose the chief’s personal life? Is he snooping everyone’s phone in town or is he runing his own intelligence unit to know what agency is planning what? Is Standard Group intercepting Matemu’s communications or probably yours for its scoops? Will this lead to a scandal like Rupert Murdoch’s?

Get the entire story on COFEK‘s site. Standard Group is the second biggest media house in Kenya after Nation Media Group and runs print, TV and online media.

@SamShollei threatening to ‘bring down Matemu’ of #EACC if shollei’s wife is charged with corruption http://t.co/cwoAVKpwW4 @RobertAlai

— James Kunania (@JKunania) July 28, 2014

Ticket solutions provider Tickets Kenya has partnered with Safaricom to create a mobile platform for easy sale of tickets during sports, travel and entertainment events.

The new platform provides event organizers with a platform to sell tickets via M-Pesa. In return, buyers receive the tickets via SMS.

Tickets Kenya has over the recent past proven to be a responsible partner in events management. Established in June 2009, it has served over one million event goers.

The company becomes Safaricom’s main partner in mobile ticketing, a service that has made mobile phones point of sale for tickets.

Ticket Kenya designs and prints tickets with security features. It also makes customized wristbands, offers advanced sale solution, online point of sale, online event management system, Box Office management and events entry management services.

To place an order, customers can call 1511 to ask for tickets for an event of interest.

The customer care representative will reserve a ticket and send payment details via M-PESA through SMS.

The customer can then proceed to pay for the ticket after which he will receive a confirmation of purchase and a ticket through SMS that has a unique Ticket Number to be presented to a ticket agent at the event along with the SMS and ID details.

Last week, Global Micro Solutions and Microsoft partnered to boost South Africa’s cloud reseller market by providing practical advice on how to become a cloud provider and the benefits of using a local cloud partner.

The companies said opportunity exists for resellers to add cloud services to their offering and how and why they need to partner with a local provider.

Nick Keene, Cloud Sales Manager at Microsoft SA said,“The Hosting Service Provider Market is part of the Microsoft Cloud Strategy and as such Microsoft will continue to invest and support our HSP partners. Our hosting partners have many years of cloud experience as they have been providing cloud services since 2000. Recently Microsoft announced further integration between the hosting providers and the Microsoft public cloud that will allow our customers to obtain Public and Hosted Cloud from a one stop shop. Global Micro Solutions has been a long standing strategic hosting partner for Microsoft.”

Microsoft, through its Azure platform provides a cloud space for building, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacentres, like the one with Global Micro. The firm has long been promoting cloud solutions as a way to cut costs, save hardware space and bandwidth and use software as and when it is needed.

“People see one of the benefits of the cloud as being the opportunity to buy into a global framework anywhere in the world, from anywhere in the world, but this isn’t strictly a benefit,” says JJ Milner, founder and chief cloud architect at Global Micro. “In truth, you want your data in the same country as you, bound by the same laws as you,  who will support you in your own language in a familiar accent. This is why you should have a local cloud partner.”

Partnerships with local partners ensure;

1. Data sovereignty: Simply put, your data is in the same country as you and governed by the same laws as you and your business, which are understood by any local legal advisors and technology consultants you may engage.
2. Local contacts: When and if something goes wrong, you can be confident that there is a viable, real, local contact that you can get in touch with who can, if necessary, come and see you to resolve the issue.
3. Efficient functionality: You will be able to easily and quickly control the uploading or downloading of your data whenever it is needed.

The Global Micro reseller programme has been created to allow consultants, web hosting companies or service providers to leverage the company’s enterprise infrastructure and expertise, and offer value-added services that are locally relevant and robust to their customers. Global Micro provides hosting infrastructure, the administrative control panel, and the 24/7 technical support and that all exist within South Africa’s borders, ensuring all the benefits of local cloud provisioning.

“We work with two independent datacentres and two independent ISPs. We provide our channel partners with the ability to get to market faster with automated management platforms.”

According to Milner, Global Micro offers Hybrid transitioning services, Messaging and collaboration, backup and data recovery, McAfee, Flowgear Ground-to-cloud integration, a defined roadmap of services that are integrated into the cloud, which partners can choose when to bring to market, the opportunity to earn up to 30% reselling white label cloud services, sales collateral – brochures, cheat sheets and FAQs, technical training so that they can hit the ground running and the ability to leverage the Global Micro sales and marketing team.

In addition to revamping its browser for Android smartphones with a new home screen and sharing features, Firefox is introducing Firefox Account to power the Firefox Sync.

With this upgrades, users can synchronize unlimited data, including passwords, open tabs, form data, history and bookmarks, between computers and Android devices.

With the Android upgrade, users can customize the swipe-able history, like Top Site they visit to appear as default. They can also hide the pages they do not use regularly.

New icons that are also available that appear on the ‘menu bar’ for two top sharing services, hence allowing users to share content faster.

The software is now available in more than 30 languages.

The Nigerian Federal Government should consider investing intensively on close-circuit television cameras to help curb insecurity in the country, says Prof David Adewumi, the President of the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS).

Speaking last week during the opening ceremony of the 25th annual national conference of the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS) Prof Adewumi opined that the government should consider installing these devices on strategic places across the nation.

A simple technology such as CCTV would go a long in helping to check against the activities of insurgents that have taken guns against the country, he said, adding that appropriate use of ICT tools will effectively tackle insecurity across the nation.

Prof Adewumi also pointed out that as a way forward, the government needs to address and “extract functional utility from the present databases maintained by Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, Police, National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, Banks among others.”

In his view, the urgent thing government must do is establish a national biometric database programme to tackle insecurity in the country.

“We cannot be clamouring for digital when the security situation in the country is porous. Therefore it is critical for Nigeria as a nation to put appropriate security measures to secure the country’s sovereignty,” commented Demola Aladekomo, former President of NCS.

NCS recommends the immediate and appropriate use of ICT tools to tackle the insecurity in the land.

The British government’s Department for International Development (DFID) has partnered with the private sector to launch ‘Project iMlango’ initiative aimed at delivering e-learning programmes to thousands of marginalized girls in Kenya.

The integrated programme is viewed as likely to improve learning outcomes for some 25,600 marginalized girls, across more than 190 Kenyan primary schools. It is a first of its kind e-learning partnership led by global satellite operator Avanti Communications and its other partners sQuid, Whizz Education, and Camara Education.

Lynne Featherstone, International Development Minister at DFID, said: “Education is vital for helping improve the life chances of millions of marginalized girls and protecting them from harmful practices like child and forced marriage. Through this private sector partnership we are able to deliver innovative and cutting edge solutions that mean marginalized girls in Kenya get the education they deserve.”

Project iMlango is set to uniquely address the cross-cultural and economic issues that could contribute to reduced school attendance and drop outs, with electronic attendance monitoring and conditional payments to families.

At the programme’s core sits an internet learning platform, accessed via high-speed satellite broadband connectivity, where partners provide students with interactive, individualised learning tools. Project iMlangodelivers:

•         High-speed satellite broadband connectivity to schools;

•         Personalised maths tuition with a virtual online tutor, alongside digital learning content for maths, literacy and life skills;

•         Tuition and support to teachers to use ICT in their teaching;

•         Electronic attendance monitoring with conditional payments – to incentivise families to send their daughters to school – for use with local merchants;

•         In-field capacity in IT, technology and support resources;

•         Real-time project monitoring and measurement;

The programme can measure and benchmark Project iMlango’s impact in real-time. Data includes daily attendance statistics at the whole school level for over 100,000 children as well as measurement of access to the learning platform and monitoring each student’s individual progress over time.

Electronics giant Samsung is set to deploy its Solar-Powered Internet Schools Initiative in rural and remote parts of Ghana. Already, the move is seen as making the vision of digitising Ghanaian schools within reach by the end of this year.

Samsung’s Solar-powered Internet Schools consists of a shipping container fitted with desks, a 65-inch electronic board, Internet-enabled solar-powered notebooks, Samsung Galaxy tablet computers, and Wi-Fi cameras.

Internet School are specifically designed for Africa, specifically for off-the-grid remote regions in Africa. According to Samsung, the facility will ensure that children receive technology-rich education locally.

The Solar-powered Internet Schools-classroom can accommodate up to 24 students. Samsung says Internet Schools will teach students how to use computers and how to surf the internet.

Fold-away solar panels provide sufficient energy to power the classrooms’ equipment for up to nine hours a day, or one-and-a-half days without any sunlight. The solar panels are made from rubber, rather than glass, ensuring they are hardy and durable enough to survive long journeys across the continent.

Samsung is working with the Government of Ghana and the Ministry of Education, local educators, content developers, school administration and management to integrate the Internet Schools into local communities in Ghana by the end of July.