46 South Africans have been invited to participate in the first ever Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) Washington Fellowship.

They will travel to the U.S. this June with over 450 other young African leaders for a six week program at one of 20 prestigious U.S. universities followed by a conference in Washington, DC hosted by President Obama.

The South African recipients were selected from almost 4,000 applicants and represent an extraordinary, diverse group of leaders already making important contributions in entrepreneurship, public administration, and community service in their communities.

“Together with President Obama, I congratulate this outstanding group of 46 young South African leaders who will represent their country on this first year of the Washington Fellowship, ” said U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Patrick H. Gaspard. “The participants from South Africa are among the most inspiring and talented young people in the country and we are excited to provide them with this opportunity to network with other leaders on the continent and in the U.S.”

“Our only regret is that because of space constraints we were not able to send all of the qualified and worthy candidates who applied this year,” continued Ambassador Gaspard. “But this is only the first year of this important initiative for our government in Africa. So I encourage all unsuccessful applicants to reapply next year and also to consider our other educational and professional exchange programs which can be found on our website: southafrica.usembassy.gov.”

Participants will be departing for Washington in mid-June and returning in August. Over the coming weeks we will be profiling the South African 2014 YALI fellows on our Social Media platforms.

Royal Philips announces its fifth consecutive pan-African Cairo to Cape Town roadshow continuing to focus on key challenges facing Africa today.

Philips is committed to significantly expand its business footprint in Africa in the coming years and enhance life in Africa with meaningful innovations. The annual pan-African Cairo to Cape Town roadshow is an important vehicle in Philips’ approach to enhance understanding of local needs and growing the market.

“As investment demand continues to grow in most of Africa, we are very positive about expanding our business footprint on the continent. In the past decade, 6 of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world were in Africa; Philips is therefore aiming for double digit growth in the coming years”, states JJ van Dongen, Senior Vice President and CEO Philips Africa. “Local entrepreneurship and talent development continue to be key in addressing the complexities of the African market and in developing locally relevant innovations that meet the needs of Africa’s growing middle class.”

Focus on Post-2015 Development Agenda and non-communicable diseases

Philips remains consistently committed to reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, linked to the current UN Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 (MDGs) . In contribution to the Post-2015 Development Agenda , Philips calls for improving universal access to healthcare and reducing the double-disease burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as additions to the current MDGs.

Figures from Philips’ latest Fabric of Africa Trends Report show that in 2008, nearly three million African deaths were attributable to preventable or treatable NCDs. That figure will rise by more than 25 percent in the next decade.

21st century technology to highlight iconic city monuments

Next to healthcare solutions, Philips will introduce its latest LED and solar innovations during the roadshow. More than 600 million people in Africa currently have no access to electricity; Philips has committed to installing 100 “light centers” to off-grid communities by 2015, over a third of these “light centers” have already been installed and more will be inaugurated during the upcoming roadshow.

Scaling innovations in technology and education

The recently launched Philips Africa Innovation Hub in Nairobi, Kenya, will be the center for developing innovations “in Africa-for Africa”. To increase the impact of newly developed solutions, Philips continues to combine the introduction of new innovations with dedicated focus on clinical education and training.

Addressing aspirational needs of the African consumer

Philips’ consumer lifestyle portfolio, through innovation and localization, will focus on the continent’s desire for healthier cooking as well as beauty and grooming solutions by introducing new products to meet the aspirational needs of the rising middle class in Africa.

Cairo to Cape Town Roadshow 2014

The roadshow brings together key stakeholders including governments, NGO’s, professional associations, and research institutions to exchange best practices, collaborate and develop public-private partnerships aimed at addressing key challenges in Africa.

“We have been in Africa for many years and have a strong installed base of our equipment, but we strongly acknowledge the benefits of dialogue during this roadshow and the need for our company to listen to the local market and understand how we can adapt our products to better serve this continent”, summarizes JJ van Dongen.

The roadshow kicks-off in Cairo on 14th April 2014 and will make its next stop in Algiers on 12th May, and concludes in Cape Town on 3rd September.

Ericsson has published its 21st Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility report summarizing its performance during 2013. The report highlights on: a solidified approach to responsible business including rigorous compliance processes; energy efficient solutions from the company’s product portfolio; and extended reach in providing access to communication for all, including refugees and students in remote areas.

As a lead telecom partner in the Millennium Villages project, Ericsson began a long-term commitment to demonstrate that connectivity could play a decisive role in fighting poverty in Africa

Hans Vestberg, President and CEO, Ericsson, says: “Sustainability is increasingly integrated into our business strategy. I firmly believe that our commitment to sustainability and CR enhances our competitiveness, and the actions we take today will enable positive business outcomes in the future.”

The emphasis on conducting business responsibly takes a full value chain perspective.  It begins with supply chain and extends through Ericsson’s own operations including the sales process, where the sales compliance board examined more than 200 cases during 2013.

Elaine Weidman-Grunewald, head of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility says: “This area continues to gain importance to all our stakeholders and we are focused on building a strong foundation for corporate responsibility within the company. This does not mean incidents can never happen, but it means when they do, we have strong operational processes in place to handle them.”

In energy and environment, Ericsson reports improvements in its own activities and products in operation. Ericsson set a target to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent per employee by 2017. The full-year reduction for 2013 was 10% per employee.

Connect To Learn has expanded steadily to positively impact some 40,000 students in 14 countries.  In 2013 Ericsson focused on establishing a baseline for measuring impacts, and published the report called ICT in Education.

Ericsson has set an objective to positively impact 2.5 million people directly through our Technology for Good initiatives by 2016.

Cisco has introduced a new video and collaboration solutions designed to put high-quality video for everyone in the organization, regardless of the sizes.

When it comes to great experiences, Cisco promises to give great HD solutions with the Cisco TelePresence® MX200 is optimal for smaller rooms, the Cisco TelePresence MX700 and Cisco TelePresence MX800 for the medium-and large sized rooms respectively.

The company will has no compromises between price and performance; because costing less than the price of a PC, The Cisco TelePresence SX10 Quick Set builds upon elements many companies already have in smaller meeting spaces to create incredible video meeting spaces.

Sabrina Dar, Cisco General Manager, EA said: “Previous attempts to deliver collaboration have been incremental and good. But the cold, hard truth is that today’s collaboration tools are forcing users to do today’s jobs with yesterday’s technology. It is time for a change. The industry is ready for a great leap forward, and Cisco is making that leap. These new products represent the first phase of a multi-phase roll-out in how Cisco is re-imagining collaboration and setting the foundation for a revolution in the industry; stay tuned for more.”

Technology makes t easier to connect and collaborate with a number of employees as well as other participating partners in a organization from any location’ as opposed to a web-cam video.

But there isn’t enough of this technology: industry statistics show that more than 93 percent of meeting rooms globally aren’t equipped with high-quality video. So, many times we have to do without.  In this era of the Internet of Everything (IoE), Cisco believes video needs to be available everywhere: from the browser to the boardroom to all the spaces in between, including the other 93 percent of meeting rooms.

The company says that all of this products will be available by the end of May this year.

Word is on the street that Facebook wants a push to its mobile services and in just afew weeks it will be having its own mobile license money license in Ireland, and from there we are sure that it will spread like wild bush fire.

Now it will be a cae of finding your friends and ending them money, how cool is that? The license would be valid throughout the European Union, and would enable the company to offer a mobile money service to its subscribers.

It has been reported that Facebook has also discussed partnerships with at least three London start-ups that offer international money transfer services through smartphones: TransferWise, Moni Technologies and Azimo, according to three people involved in the discussions.

It can be expected that if the service launched, Facebook will be able to tap into the vast international remittances market and leverage its sizeable customer base in developing countries.

However, it could also end up being seen as a direct competitor to the mobile networks own mobile money services, and Facebook has been heavily reliant on the mobile networks offering free access to the Facebook website to build its customer base.

Facebook, once a company struggling to do anything with mobile is fast becoming a mobile-first organisation that is barely investing in its desktop services.

Rocket Internet‘s property listing site Lamudi has secured $7 million in a new funding round from Tengelmann Ventures, in a move to stir its operations in Asia.

The new round of funding will help Lamudi expand in its five Asian markets namely Myanmar, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

With operations in over 21 markets in Africa, the Middle East and South America, and Asia,  Lamudi global says it has over 200,000 property listings.

Paul Philipp Hermann, co-Founder at Lamudi said: “The announcement of this substantial funding for our Asian operations is very welcome and will be crucial in helping us to make better and faster progress towards our goal of becoming the market leader in online property in Asia.”

Lamudi’s expansion is Asia will intensify competition in Asia’s property listing market with players such as iProperty, PropertyGuru and Property24.