d.light has announced that it has reached sales of 500,000 financed units, providing modern energy access to 2.5 million people on a pay-as-you-go basis.

In response to this success, d.light has launched the Energy Access Accelerator, an initiative focused on integrating the company’s growing range of solar power products and services with a diversity of payment and distribution systems. Known as pay-as-you-go solar, d.light’s financed solar systems are helping to transform the lives of 1.2 billion people in the developing world without access to energy.

“As pioneers in pay-as-you-go solar products and services since 2009, we’ve learned that base-of-the-pyramid consumers can and will pay for modern power solutions—and that energy access is not a ‘one size fits all’ market,” said Donn Tice, Chairman and CEO.  “d.light’s Energy Access Accelerator will be focused on scaling distributed energy solutions for the diversity of energy impoverished geographies. Scale requires a consistent user experience, reliable energy and flexible payment options.”

d.light has sold over 6 million products around the world, impacting the lives of more than 36 million people. Pay-as-you-go products currently represent 20 percent of d.light’s sales, but are expected to grow to 30 percent in the coming year.

d.light’s Energy Access Accelerator will focus on integrating advanced product technology and service offerings for a full range of payment systems, including microloans, self-help groups, top-up cards and mobile money. The group will be led by d.light’s President, Ned Tozun, and Managing Director of Global Consumer Finance, Sateesh Kumar. Tozun, who co-founded d.light in 2006, will focus on technology enablement of pay-as-you-go.

Kenya’s NIC Bank in partnership with Visa Inc. has launched the NIC Visa Platinum Credit Card. This new product is looking for the affluent segment of its customer base with an unprecedented limit in the market.

Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Health James Macharia, who launched the card, reassured guests that the government was working to provide an ideal environment for business.

NIC Bank Group Managing Director James Gachora said: “This launch marks an important step in our quest to offer our clients a wide-range of services that enhance the customer experience in line with our core aspiration to be the most innovative financial partner. Going ahead, you will see new and innovative products from us. We will be rolling out different products for our customers and the market as a whole.”

With this card, customers are bound to enjoy added benefits which include complimentary access to airport lounges in different countries, fast track check-in at international airports, purchase protection and extended warranty for purchases made on the Platinum Credit Card.

NIC Bank has worked in partnership with Visa Inc. since 2005 and has three credit cards for the conventional banking market, each designed for a different market segment.

Visa Inc. has seen a 14.6 percent year on year growth registered by high net worth individuals in the region. There has been an increased uptake of cards in Kenya with 7.8 million of the 10 million cards in the market being Visa cards.

MasterCard and Guaranty Trust Bank Gambia (GTBank Gambia) has announced a collaboration that will broaden the acceptance of MasterCard payment cards in The Gambia. Consumers can now use their MasterCard prepaid, credit and debit cards at GTBank Gambia ATMs and Point of Sale (POS) terminals including hotels, restaurants and retailers.

“Tourists and business travelers carrying MasterCard will now be able to withdraw money and make payments in the local currency ‘Dalasi’, for the first time on our 21 GTBank ATMs and 76 merchant outlets strategically located in Banjul and greater Banjul area. We wish to thank MasterCard for accepting us as partners in our common drive of simply satisfying cardholders from around the world,” says Femi Omotoso, Managing Director, GTBank Gambia.

The Central Bank of Gambia envisions a modernized payments system for the country, which involves the increased adoption of electronic payments.

“We are proud to partner with GTBank, which is quickly growing its presence in Africa. This is the first time that MasterCard payment cards will be accepted at ATMs in The Gambia and is a great milestone for us as we aim to create a cashless society,” says Omokehinde Ojomuyide, Vice President and Area Business Head, MasterCard in West Africa. “Enabling our e-channels for MasterCard indeed opens up opportunities for business, retail and tourism for our country. The hotel and tourism industry will especially benefit from this service.”

Electronic payments offer cardholders and merchants several benefits including being protected from the security risks and costs associated with cash. For merchants, the ability to accept electronic payments means that they will increase their sales as consumers are not limited to the cash they have on hand.

Investment firm Village Capital and Pearson aim to invest $75,000 into two “Edupreneurs” in Africa in  amove to help the world’s less privileged students and solve the world’s most pressing educational challenges.

Ross Baird, executive director of Village Capital said, “We’re looking to build great companies that improve the quality of education for millions of low-income children across the world, and believe that entrepreneurs can see opportunities that larger players have overlooked.”

The two winners who will be offered up to USD $75,000 in seed funding will be selected through peer review by fellow education entrepreneurs and will be part of those invited to attend Pearson workshops in South Africa where they will complete tailored modules in business and education topics, and receive mentoring advice from other entrepreneurs, investors and professionals.

“We’re excited to scout across southern Africa for this unique incubation model and to continue bolstering the global ecosystem supporting education entrepreneurs,” says Ember Melcher, Program Manager for Edupreneurs at the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund.

Applications are open to ‘edupreneurs’ operating across Africa who serve students in low-income communities and intend to scale their businesses to make a positive impact on the future of learning.

Riaan Jonck, CEO of Pearson South Africa says its through programmes like Edupreneurs and their potential for success in the future that have led to small business sectors being key economic drivers in the fight against unemployment and poverty. “Enterprise Development is a key component of our transformation strategy, and we are looking forward to seeing innovative ‘edupreneurs’ emerge from this programme”, he adds.

The top two ranking companies eligible to receive up to USD $75,000 each—drawn from USD $100,000 and USD $50,000 of capital committed by Pearson and Village Capital, respectively.

The 2014 applications close at the end of August and selected edupreneurs  will be announced by the end of September. Village Capital has operated 27 programmes globally serving more than 400 entrepreneurs and had a similar program in India.

Africa needs a call centre association to promote standards for call centres says Christopher Bell, Interactive Intelligence’s Channel Manager for Africa.

Accordingto Bell, Zambia and Zimbabwe already have such associations and plans are underway to set one up in Kenya.

 Bell says businesses and governments in Africa, especially in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia, are conducting dialogues on setting up call centres and the Interactive Intelligence’s Channel is seeing increasing demand for the call centres.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in the industry in the wake of the seminars“, says Bell. If you keep the momentum going by stimulating dialogue, you make people aware. We exposed some of the participants for the first time to what a call centre is all about.”

“Call centres are helping African governments to provide efficient and effective services to citizens”, says Rod Jones, contact centre consultant. Speaking in Lagos, Nigeria ahead of an Interactive Intelligence-sponsored masterclass for stakeholders, Jones says with leading edge technologies such as speech recognition and voice commands, call centres have evolved and transcended beyond ordinary telephone calls. “As we have evolved to become a customer direction centre, we’ve moved from telephone calls into SMS text messaging. We’ve taken on the email and social media channel and for customer interaction.”

“We’ve already seen that in South Africa,” Jones mentions. The most effective aspect of the government is our Revenue Service. They have built and operate a true world class call centre and it has been responsible for tremendous improvements in revenue collection by the government.

According to Mbuela Luwawu, Managing Director of Odilum Technologies Limited, an Interactive Intelligence partner in Nigeria, telecoms companies and financial institutions, are quickly adopting call centres in Nigeria than five years ago.

“Five years ago, no bank had a contact centre but since 2009, you can pick up your phone, call your contact centre and speak to your customer service officer directly. The adoption has been quite positive.”  Luwawu says adding that Nigeria has the ability to take market share away from India; he also predicted there will be lots of contact centre outsourcing for Nigeria from Europe and America.

Jovago, has commenced an email sign-up campaign which offers customers a 25 percent discount off all Nigerian hotels booked on the site.

The company says this campaign is targeted at giving back to her customers who have contributed immensely to the growth of Jovago.com. This email sign-up campaign requires everyone to either send their email address to the company number 08178919181 or simply send an empty email to discount@jovago.com. Everyone who does this will receive a unique voucher code within 24hours, offering them a 25 percent discount off any Nigerian hotel on www.jovago.com.

Jovago.com which recently partnered with Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation as their official hotel booking partner and signed up Nigerian multi-award winning artist, Ice Prince as ambassador is poised to revolutionize the hotel booking space in Nigeria. With many more partnerships and promotions in the bag, this email sign-up campaign is just a tip of the iceberg.

“One of our strong assets is identifying our customers’ needs and satisfying them as best we can. This is why we always create more avenues for our customers to save more while booking on www.jovago.com” Marek Zmyslowki, Managing Director of Jovago Nigeria said in a statement.

Managers and entrepreneurs in Africa can now get free online courses thanks to the African Management Initiative (AMI).

The first series of the courses has been launched in partnership with AMI and top business schools, aimed at reaching 1 million African managers and entrepreneurs in the next decade.

The first course, Managing Customers and Markets, is available on AMI’s new online learning platform at http://www.africanmanagers.org. It was developed with Strathmore Business School in Kenya.

AMI, a social enterprise established in 2012 to tackle Africa’s management capacity gap, leverages technology to empower African managers and entrepreneurs through practical, accessible and locally relevant learning tools.

“Our goal is to help African managers and entrepreneurs develop new skills and build their businesses by providing access to world-class learning tools for free or very low-cost,” said Jonathan Cook, Chairman and Co-Founder of AMI. “Our courses are practical and proudly African.  Our platform is easy-to-use, and can be accessed anytime, anywhere, on a computer or mobile phone.”

AMI has partnered with Africa’s most prestigious business schools, including leading business schools; Strathmore Business School in Kenya, the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) in South Africa and Lagos Business School in Nigeria. AMI has already trained over 1,000 managers in 25 countries.

The AMI course is free, and participants can upgrade to gain a personalized certificate on completion from AMI and its business schools for $25.The course takes approximately 30 hours of study, including a final exam and assignment. Around 3000 people from across Africa have already signed up.

AMI also provides training via offline Learning Lab workshops in partnership with organizations and businesses in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa and Ghana.

“AMI’s vision is for 1 million African managers performing effectively and responsibly by 2023. We will achieve this through accessible learning tools that embrace the digital space,” added Cook. “Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) have been used in the US and Europe to provide skills and knowledge.  We are now applying this in Africa.”

Airtel Nigeria wants a bumper harvest on subscribers, it is aiming for 30 million by the end of 2014, and to make this possible the telecommunication company will be throwing in $300 million to expand its network in the country.

Segun Ogunsanya, head of the Nigeria unit stated that: “We plan to spend about $300 million expanding Airtel’s network and services in the country this year. We have invested so much in marketing research to see what the customers want and we are delivering on those expectations.”

According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), as of the end of March this year, Airtel Nigeria had 25.5 million subscribers. Nigeria being the biggest market outside India the telecommunications company is positive that is will reach its target after the network expansion.

“I’m very optimistic that there are no encumbrances against growth so I’m sure we’re going to reach the 30-million mark. Despite the environment and the issues we face, I think we’re still giving relatively good service to our customers,” said Ogunsanya.

Airtel is the second largest telecommunication company in Nigeria, after the south African MTN Group.

Safeguard Alarms has introduced a new outdoor wireless security system dubbed the Safeguard Sentry. It will give ‘early warning alert’ in case of intrusion or burglary attempt.

The system consists of two or more “sentry” units with passive infrared sensors that emit invisible beams in a 100 degrees arc and a hand-held control station. The sensors can detect movements up to 20 metres away. They can be adjusted to monitor shorter distances.

Each “sentry” has top and bottom sensors. Both sensors have to pick up motion within half-a-second of each other to trigger the alarm. This means that the alarm will be set off if the beams are crossed by a human being but not by a pet, bird or plant.

When motion has been detected by both sensors, the “sentries” communicate with the control station, which can be up to 500 metres away, to set the alarm off and simultaneously notify the property owner where an intrusion has been detected. The alarm is also set-off whenever a “sentry” unit is tampered with.

The basic system consists of two “sentries” and a control station unit. However, other “sentries” can be added to the unit to monitor different outdoor zones. The system can take up to eight “sentries,” monitoring four zones.

The control station unit is handheld and can be carried around the property easily. What’s more, the control station monitors the battery life in each “sentry” and indicates when a battery’s power is low. The unit can also be used as a panic button to sound the alarm.

The “sentries” are powered by batteries that last for at least a year. They can however last up to two years. They send a signal to the control station every 20 minutes to verify signal, battery and operational status.

“The system can be installed as a stand-alone system or be fully integrated with an existing alarm system on any property,” explained Safeguard Alarms managing director Reason Chitiva.

The system is simple and easy to install and use. It has no wires and does not require any user code for arming and disarming it. It is simply switched on or off by means of a switch on the wireless control station.

“It is weatherproof and ideal for monitoring areas where there is a swimming pool pump, electric gate motor or car park or for just monitoring areas around the outside of a house or other building.

“An outdoor system such as this ensures that the alarm is activated before an intruder enters a building rather than when he has already broken into premises,” Chitiva said.

It looks like cloud technology is the major interruption factor in the EMEA infrastructure hardware market, accounting for a growing portion of hardware spending and exerting influence on hardware architectures and vendors, says a new International Data Corporation (IDC).

The study represents the usage of infrastructure hardware elements in different types of cloud environments in EMEA, including on-premises private clouds, hosted private clouds, and hosted public clouds. It includes historical data for cloud hardware spending in 2011 – 2013 and forecast data for 2014 – 2018.

People will be investing in hardware for cloud environments in EMEA worth more than $4 billion by the end of this year, with a strong 19 percent annual growth. 15 percent of the infrastructure spend in EMEA will be related to cloud environments in 2014, against only 8 percent in 2011.  It is expected to increase to more than 22 percent in 2018.

“Along with Big Data, social, and mobility, cloud represents one of the four pillars of IDC’s 3rd Platform vision – the new paradigm of IT usage that is revolutionizing the way technology is adopted in commercial and consumer environments,” says Giorgio Nebuloni, research manager, IDC EMEA Enterprise Server Group.

“The rise of cloud has triggered a revolution in the hardware market. While white-box and few large OEMs fight to absorb the surge in demand for public cloud, most incumbent hardware players invest heavily in offerings enabling on-premises and hosted private cloud environments, such as integrated systems, high-end networks, and high-performance storage.”

“In the longer term, IDC expects greater adoption of hybrid cloud with benefits for both private and public consumption. Hybrid cloud allows customers to retain sensitive data behind a corporate firewall while still taking advantage of cloud-related lower costs,” says Mohammed Hefny, senior research analyst, IDC EMEA systems.

The study also says that the cloud  hardware penetration will vary mainly by country, and it is more advanced in Western Europe than in emerging EMEA markets. In northern Europe, hosted private and public cloud deployments have been accelerated over the past two years, driven by large multinational providers especially in business to consumer environments.

Energizer South Africa and Mxit took advantage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and ran a one week campaign; and this made the app grow from zero base to 33,789 followers.

The campaign was know as ‘Making the Game Last Longer’, the main idea was that Energizer is the longest lasting battery. The promotion was centred on a on-pack competition, where consumers could win one of 100 DSTV Exploras. The campaign was amplified on Mxit with splash screen advertising, sponsored content and an ‘upload your team’ photo competition that encouraged consumers to sign up for the app.

Mxit reports that the campaign delivered 749,688 impressions and over 27,500 clicks at a high click through rate of 3.68 percent.

Andrew Kramer, Mxit VP sales said: “The response to the campaign has been phenomenal. We received 780 competition entries via Mxit. The concept of uploading photos to qualify for a prize demonstrates just how interactive the user is and highlights that becoming a content creator is a marketing strategy that resonates with consumers.”

In partnership South Africa’s foremost for-good marketing agency, [dot]GOOD, Energizer sponsored content within Every1Mobile’s MAD4SOCCA Mxit app, encouraging consumers to download its app from each page of the MAD4SOCCA environment.

Michael Baretta?MD of [dot]GOOD said: “The sponsorship was a natural fit for us, as it brought the campaign to life in a relevant way. Mxit provides a unique platform to engage the mid to lower market and all the campaigns that have run to date have yielded high click through rates and consumer engagement.”

Android users already have had the ability to shop on JUMIA Kenya using the JUMIA mobile app for Android, and in yet another move to further enhance the customer shopping experience, the e-commerce company has moved to announce the free Jumia Kenya shopping app for Windows 8.

The app, currently available in five African countries (Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt and Ivory Coast) enables you to browse and shop for products from Electronics, fashion, home appliances, read reviews, compare prices and order items right from your smartphone or tablet at the best prices and have them delivered to your doorstep or office at your convenience.

The mobile app also allows users to rate products, write reviews and be updated on  the latest products, deals or offers by the swipe of the finger left or right and is absolutely free to download on the Windows app store.

Parinaz Firozi,MD for JUMIA Kenya, commented: “Thousands of Kenyans are buying online through the mobile applications.The search bar allows you to find whatever products you desire on www.jumia.co.ke, sort by brand, lowest price, highest price, most popular, new in, colour or best rating andplace your order. It’s easy and convenient from wherever you are.”

The E-commerce company, which celebrated its first anniversary in Kenya in May this year,was established to provide customers with a shopping experience that is safe, convenient and stress-free. With unbeatable prices and brand new products, the company delivers to your doorstep anywhere in Kenya and offers a free return policy of 7 days. Products can be purchased using a range of payment options including cash on delivery, mobile money transfer (MPESA) and credit card.