A start-up phone manufacture is out to its very first adventure, it is preparing itself to launch its first smart phone the OnePhone.
It is known as the OnePlus and was founded by former Oppo VP Pete Lau. He announced that it’ll show off its “perfect Android smartphone” on April 23rd.
That is a slight clarification on recent statements which had only alluded to a launch sometime in the second-quarter of this year.
OnePlus said that the CyanogenMod team are developing a custom version of CyanogenMod with special features and tweaks.
“What’s coming is one of the most popular mobile operating systems specifically developed for the best hardware, with a unique twist. The smartphone industry is ripe for disruption, and 2014 should prove to be a huge year for the future of the market,” said Lau.
WhatsApp addicts, here is a piece of information for you; there is a woman who was hospitalized for excessive typing on the application.
This happened last year over Christmas holidays; the Lancet medical journal reported this case. A medical staff treated a 34-year-old emergency medicine physician, 27 weeks pregnant who sought treatment for severe pain in her wrists.
The patient had no history of trauma and had not engaged in any excessive physical activity in the previous days. However, on Christmas Day, she spent an estimated six hours holding a modestly weighty mobile phone while sending vast quantities of messages.
The diagnosis was bilateral extensor pollicis longus tendinitis of the thumb — or what they have nicknamed “WhatsAppitis”.
The treatment consisted of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and complete abstinence from using the phone to send messages — although she ignored that rule on New Years Eve.
A so-called Nintendinitis was first described in 1990, and since then several injuries associated with video games and new technologies have been reported. Initially reported in children, such cases are now seen in adults.
Tenosynovitis caused by texting with mobile phones could well be an emerging disease. The Lancet warned that physicians need to be mindful of these new disorders.
South Africa’s Very first animated Series ‘Supa Strikas’ is now aired in France TV. It was purchased and has been launched earlier this month on Disney France.
The animation has been rated as the number 1 kids series in South Africa and on Israel’s Zoom channel; and this year it holds the number 2 position on Disney Italy.
The France feed, which includes Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg, joins the 130-strong territories where the series has aired over the last three years. It airs on Disney across Africa, the Middle East, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Serbia and South East Asia. It will begin airing on Disney across Latin America in May 2014. It airs on Nickelodeon in India and on various free-to-air channels in Israel, Poland, Romania and across Latin America
Supa Strikas is based on the popular comic of the same name, which has 600,000 copies published monthly in You, Drum and Huisgenoot. The comic is sponsored by KFC. Strika Entertainment producer Richard Morgan-Grenville adds, “It’s fantastic that this story with South African roots continues to reach a wider and more diverse audience.”
Apple wants to bring diversity even in the emoji Cartoon characters which are used in text messaging. The current emoji hav received claims that they have been bias, in that the characters have been either Caucasian or a few Asian characters, with no representation of black or other ethic groups.
The emjois were standardized for the for first time in 2010, when the Unicode Consortium, which already manages computer fonts took on the task of ensuring cross-device compatibility.
Any company can create emojis and Apple could roll out a wider selection, but to ensure that non-Apple devices can display them, it needs the standards body to approve the designs.
“Our emoji characters are based on the Unicode standard, which is necessary for them to be displayed properly across many platforms,” Katie Cotton, Apple’s vice-president of worldwide corporate communications, told MTV. “There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard.”
Chase Bank has announced its commitment to support tech entrepreneurship in the region in an effort to spur the SME market to move with the new global market trends.
This announcement was made during the Bank’s gold sponsorship to this year’s Pivot East competition; the competition focuses on catalyzing the growth of mobile start-ups by tech young entrepreneur.
Chase Bank Head of Brand and Corporate Affairs Magdalene Mulandi disclosed that technological entrepreneurship is ripe in region with mobile innovations growing at an unprecedented rate. She noted that Chase Bank’s move to commit Kshs 3.87million ($44791.380) to support Pivot East 2014 competition is a first step to the Bank’s realization of its brand promise of investing in innovative projects that particularly augments the growth of entrepreneurial sector.
The Pivot East 2014 competition and conference, organized by m: lab East will be held this year on 24th – 25th June in Nairobi, Kenya. The competition will emphasize on; facilitating discovery and nurturing of the next wave of high potential mobile innovations into sustainable business, ensuring that mobile innovations are high in the agenda of regional governments, corporates and development agencies for amplified development impact and to raise the quality of mobile startup in the region.
“Sponsoring Pivot East 2014 and having the chance to see our youth, particularly those with entrepreneurial skills, showcase their mobile solutions and innovations and their potential in the emerging business is exciting. We at Chase Bank are dedicated to serving the SME sector in all avenues and we strive to meet this goal by engaging in initiatives such as this. We continue to gain stature and focus our business on the SME sector,” said Mulandi.
Pivot East is East Africa’s premier mobile startups pitching competition and conference held annually since 2011. PIVOT East contains a series of activities that culminates in the eMobilis, University of Nairobi and the World Wide Web Foundation. In the past years, PIVOT East has drawn applicants from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and DRC. This year, the competition has expanded the scope of applicants to Ethiopia.
Finalists of the competition, usually 25 each year, receive training, coaching and mentorship in the weeks preceding the pitching conference.
The new and updated Microsoft Office for iPad is finally out and will be free; additional applications include Office Mobile apps for iPhone and Android phones.
So how free is free for Microsoft, it appears that viewing documents will be free, editing them or creating new documents will require the user to have a subscription to the Office 365 service.
The company has also announced the Enterprise Mobility Suite, a set of cloud services to help businesses manage corporate data and services on the devices people use at work and at home.
“Microsoft is focused on delivering the cloud for everyone, on every device. It’s a unique approach that centers on people — enabling the devices you love, work with the services you love, and in a way that works for IT and developers,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer for Microsoft.
The Office 365 is already available and subscribers can add an iPad as one of their chosen devices included in their subscription, and can create and edit documents with Word for iPad, PowerPoint for iPad and Excel for iPad.
These apps are available as free downloads from the App Store.
The company said that Office for iPad apps have a familiar look and feel that are unmistakably Office but are built from the ground up for iPad, factoring in the unique nature of touch and functionality native to iPad along with what people most commonly want to do on a tablet.
In the future, the company confirmed that it will bring Office apps to the Windows Store and other popular platforms. In addition to Office for iPad, they’ve now made Office Mobile for iPhone and Android phones available for free.
PIVOT East usually has 25 finalists each each year, receiving training, coaching and mentorship and at the end battling for top positions in various categories at the pitching conference. The entrepreneurs get assistance to improve their business models and position their startups to 300-400 people including investors, industry players, government players and development partners.
In June 2012, the University of Nairobi study published a study on the outcomes of PIVOT East among finalists of the 2011 and 2012 editions.. The study indicated that visibility to the industry was the most valuable benefit among finalists (at 74%). The training and coaching sessions were rated second most valuable (at 68%) while mentorship provided was third at 62% of the study respondents
Launched in 2011, the competition has identified and supported 75 mobile startups as finalists of the competition. The m:lab has funded 15 of these startups through PIVOT East to the tune of US$120,000 thus far.
The funding awarded through the competition aside, over 15 (20%) of the 75 previous finalists have raised additional funding from angel investors, venture capital firms and impact funds after the competition worth over US$4.7 million. At least 5 of the finalists from last year’s competition have reported to be currently courting serious investors among them local angel investors and foreign venture capital firms.
PIVOT East asked its past finalists on their varied experiences and benefits of attending the training sesiions and pitching at the event. And here are some of them.
1.Kopo Kopo
Ben Lyon, Founder of Kopokopo which was a finalist in 2011 said Pivot 25 was a great platform for drumming up awareness and support for Kopo Kopo.
2.Eatout
Mikul Shah – CEO of Eatout Mobile which was a finalist in 2011 said PIVOT East gives one practice to pitch their business concept in front of an ideal audience. The training really helped. It was very high level. How to pitch was most important.
4.Ma3route
Laban Okune, the founder of Ma3Route which won the utilities category in 2013 said before getting into PIVOT finals, Ma3route was an just app by individual. Thanks to the trainings and sensitization during the competition, Ma3route is now being run as a serious high growth enterprise.
5. Uhasibu
Michael Pedersen, CEO of Uhasibu which was a finalist in 2011 and won the Business / Enterprise Category said due to PIVOT East there was exposure that meant they had paying customers when they launched via their mailing list. Early adopters.
6. Jooist
Waliaula Makokha the founder of Jooist from Kenya which was in the finals in 2013 in the entertainment category said visibility and networking opportunities that come with PIVOT East is key. Jooist acquired 50,000 new users as a result of the partnership they made during PIVOT East which was 90% of their traction last year.
7. iDaktari
Gideon Kyalo, Co-founder of iDaktari which was a finalist in 2013 said the mock pitching sessions with the PIVOT team was instrumental in raising their ambition. From the event they got to learn that opportunity is unprecedented; always come prepared.
8. TiMe
Josephat Mandara the CEO of Dephics systems from Tanzania which whose TiMe product was a finalist in 2013 said they entered the competition with just an idea and it helped them to build a product … from the connections they got just by being finalists, a number of partnerships are underway and they are very promising.
9.Ma3Racer
Mwaura Kirore from Planet Rackus whose Ma3Racer game was the overall winner of the 2012 competition said winning PIVOT East drove visibility to them. They got featured greatly in global media like Bloomberg and Polygon (gaming magazine).
10. Kola Studios
Savannah Funded Kola Studios was a 2013 PIVOT East and is a mobile game development startup based in Kampala, Uganda. Kola Studios develops games for both Android and iPhone smartphones and are popularly known for their Matatu.
11. Mshop
Alloys Mechack, CEO of Mshop Limited which was a finalist in 2011 and also won the mobile payments and commerce category said for them access to the m:lab incubation program was the biggest benefit of being at PIVOT. The exposure and validation to the industry was another benefit that came to them courtesy of being finalists at PIVOT.
12. GigWapi
– Kinyanjui Njonde, founder of GigWapi which did not make it to the finals received coaching and training as they were in the finalists waiting list in 2013 said anyone involved in a start up should definitely enter the Pivot East competition not only for the prize but also the coaching and training offered to the finalists.
SokoText, a social enterprise founded last year with aims to help mama mboga’s in slums get fresh stock of vegatables and foodstuffs via an SMS-ordering and inventory system has won the Ksh 300,000 (2.500 Euros) grand prize at the Crowdfunding bootcamp organized by Nailab, 1% Club and Accenture.
The boot camp saw 19 startups from across Nairobi with different business ideas and from various sectors pitch and upload their business on 1% Club and ask their friends and connections to fund them.
In just the 24 hours after uploading their crowdfunding campaign on the platform, SokoText raised over €3,145 of their €4,300 requirement. Impressing the judges and everyone at the event.
Speaking to TechMoran SokoText co-founder Suraj Gudka said the firm was going to use the prize money to set up an outlet in Kenya’s Mathare Slums to help reach out to more mama mbogas (vegetable sellers).
“Being at Nailab has refined our business and our pitch we couldn’t have managed without Nailab’s training, said Gudka. “This bootcamp has also given us skills. Also our idea is great and connects with people. We are going to set up an outlet in Mathare and make sure it is sustainable so that we can sell to 100 mama mbogas a day.”
Sam Gichuru, Gudka, and Anna
Other winners included Kejahunt, an online rentals listing platform with a feature to help the youth find roomates. Kejahunt ook home Ksh 125,000. The third winner was Young Freddie, a local shoe design startup using recyclable materials. Young Freddie took home Ksh 60,000.
The startups were taken though ability to develop solid crowdfunding plans, mapping relevant networks and insight in successful storytelling. The stsartups were to look at crowdfunding as a way of validation and promotion of their businesses and as a way of showinginvestors their businesses are viable.
Anna Chojnacka, the founder of 1%Percent Club and co-founder Nailab told TechMoran that the bootcamp was inspirational and as well demanding as they had to take through the startups through the basics of crowdfunding. She said SokoText’s business is realistic and deserved to win though she also liked Kejahunt for its affordable housing for the youth and Cladlight, a wearable jacket for bike riders set to reduce road accidents and E-Lab, an e-waste recycling startup.
“Majority of them did not know that investors don’t like funding for overhead costs. Entrepreneurs should not ask investors to meet their companies salaries, rent, and travel expenses,” said Chojnacka.
Yesterday during the commencement of the event Gijsbert Koren said that crowdfunding works because the backers believe they own the project, will be rewarded and the backers have little control in the manufacturing or other risky processes but unlike banks, backers always know what their money is doing.
Sam Gichuru, co-founder Nailab also announced the launch of a pan-African crowdfunding platform dubbed Babandu, to help entrepreneurs in Africa raise money for their projects online and a Kshs. 40,000,000 fund for African enterprises.
The popular, powerful and eye-popping camera app is now available for all Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone 8.
This app was launched last year in November, and since then Nokia Refocus has proven to be a hot imaging app for Nokia. Refocus lets you take a photo first and choose what you want in focus later ‘shoot first, focus later’ photography.
Previously this app was only available with a Lumia PureView smartphone, but as from today the latest Refocus update will allow all Lumia owners sporting Windows Phone 8 to have a piece of the varifocal action.
To create a great Refocus image, move as close as possible to the object nearest you, get that in focus – between five and ten centimeters – and ensure you’ve got something defined in the background. The best advice, however, is experimentation. Just play, it’s fun!
Once you’ve captured the perfect shot, use the in-built sharing feature to show off your deep visual creation to your friends. People receiving the image don’t need a Lumia smartphone or the Nokia Refocus app to play with your photo and choose their own focal point. They can even do it via social media as well as email and messaging.
To download or update now visit the Windows Phone Store from your Lumia
HTC has a new Flagship smartphone, the HTC One (M8). The most captivating thing about this smartphone is that is has a larger screen, louder speakers and has a depth sensor that lets photos be focused again after taking them.
Its predecessor did not do quite well in the market as people preferred Apple or Samsung products. The company hopes that with the improvement the HTC One(M8) will scoop more buyers.
HTC had shipped an estimated just 6.4 million units of the original HTC One smartphone, about a fifth of the volumes of flagship models from its rivals.
Although the new handset is a generic touchscreen Android handset, the company has opted to make the phone stand out with its camera feature rather that adding the megapixels. The company thinks that consumers will be more impressed with the phones ability to refocus blurry photos after they are taken.
The effect is a digital manipulation, which can change the apparent focus of objects to blur them, or sharpen them after the photo was taken. It also includes a gamut of photo filter effects.
HTC One (M8) smartphone also boasts a 40 percent improvement in battery life compared to its predecessor, despite coming with a larger screen.
The company aims to grow its market share to more than 5 percent by the end of this year, and is targeting a recovery to 10 percent market share within three years.
It will begin its sales right away and will begin in the UK and USA, global sales should start within the next few weeks.
Microsoft has signed a patent-licensing agreement with Dell on making Android and Chrome OS devices. This agreement, unlike others that Microsoft has engaged in, is a cross-patent agreement.
It also states that the agreement is the continuation of a nearly 30-year business relationship between the two companies to deliver world-class technologies to consumers.
“Through this arrangement, Microsoft and Dell have agreed to license each company’s applicable intellectual property related to Android and Chrome OS devices and Xbox gaming consoles. Under the terms of the agreement, they agreed on royalties for Dell’s products running the Android or Chrome platforms and on consideration to Dell for a license for Xbox gaming consoles,” according to the companies.
Dell is selling the Chromebook 11, as well as several Android-based tablets.
Microsoft has signed Android and Chrome OS patent agreements with more than 20 companies over the past few years. Microsoft has not disclosed publicly on which patents it claims Android and Chrome OS infringes.
Being featured on CNN in itself is not big news, but Gossy Ukanwoke’s story is different.
Dubbed as Nigeria’s Mark Zuckerburg, Ukanwoke started a social networking site while on campus and later the network sparked a great new idea, into Nigeria’s first private online university, Ukanwoke has never looked back.
Now the 25-year-old is in business with ten instructors and about two hundred students, as well as a long list of challenges he still needs to get through. It’s an ambitious journey filled with risks and rewards.
In the feature with ‘African Start-Up’ this week, Ukanwoke, said he was motivated by the response and audience he received when he created a social network called ‘Student Circle’ which sparked his big idea to create Nigeria’s first private online university.
Ukanwoke tells ‘African Start-Up’, “higher education is needed for the development of Africa; the Beni American University is referred to as American because we are building on an American curriculum and semesters. Basically, I think in global terms, not just Africa or Nigeria and my intentions are to develop a global standard university that promotes proper education.”
The continuous advances in technology have helped encourage the introduction of different platforms of education, but Nigeria still requires schools to have a physical campus and that’s why Ukanwonke is making plans to build physical structures for B.A.U.
“Hopefully very soon we are going to see buildings and streetlights on this land with students and teachers going about their activities,” continues Ukanwonke.
Beni American University presently offers courses in Journalism, Corporate Diplomacy, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “We still have a long way to go, we have a lot of work to do, a lot of policy wrangling too, but it’s a work in progress and we are quite happy with where we are,” concludes Ukanwoke.
The May 2014 commercial launch of dotAfrica has been completed in the 49th meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) in Singapore. The agreement states that the dotAfrica domain will launch early this May.
The agreement was signed by ICANN representative, Akram Atallah (President, Global Domains Division), and ZA Central Registry (ZACR) representatives, Lucky Masilela (CEO) and Neil Dundas (COO). The ZACR and African Union Commission (AUC) are partners in the drive for Africa to have its own space on the Internet though the dotAfrica geographic Top Level Domain (gTLD).
“The drive to establish Africa’s own space on the worldwide web began many years ago, but officially commenced with the submission of a formal application in February 2012. The Singapore agreement signals the morphing of the technical launch phase of dotAfrica into the commercial launch phase. We’ve come to the end of the beginning, and the beginning of great things for Africa on the web,” said Alice Munyua of the AUC and ZACR dotAfrica initiative.
“The finalization and acceptance of contracting terms from ICANN means nothing can stop the dotAfrica show. In May 2014, the curtains will rise and the first of the dotAfrica domains will become available for application. The former will seek to ensure that domain names are made available to applicants who have corresponding trade mark rights, while the latter will see generic premium domain names being made available to the public” explained the ZACR’s Masilela.
The agreement specifies that the Top Level Domain to which it applies is .africa (“dotAfrica”) and states that “ICANN designates Registry Operator as the registry operator for the TLD.
Magic Software, a South African-based global provider of software platforms for enterprise mobility, cloud applications, and business integration, has been recognized as the 2014 Product Innovation Leadership Award for its Magic xpi Integration Platform.
The recognition is based on Frost & Sullivan’s independent analysis of Integration Platforms for Business Applications.
With innovative in-memory data grid (IMDG) architecture along with a large library of certified application and technology adapters, Magic xpi Integration Platform gives enterprises the connectivity, flexibility and speed they need to securely process large volumes of data from diverse systems.
“By incorporating in-memory computing technology, Magic customers benefit from high availability, cost-effective elastic scalability, and guaranteed business continuity 24 × 7,” said Swapnadeep Nayak, Senior Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Magic’s code-free metadata-based platform and cloud deployment option also contribute to a high return on investment.”
“We’re honored to receive this prestigious Frost & Sullivan award for our advanced integration technology and the value we provide to customers,” said Udi Ertel, President Software Division at Magic Software Enterprises. “By enabling the mobilization of business processes from back-end systems such as SAP, Oracle JD Edwards, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SharePoint, SugarCRM and more, Magic xpi is also an excellent solution for enterprises looking to provide mobile business apps for their employees, partners and customers.”
Magic outscored its competitors in each of the following five key criteria Frost & Sullivan analysts use to benchmark performance, earning an average overall score of 9.0 (out of a possible 10), well ahead of the closest competitor which received an average score of 7.6.
According to information collected from the applications of this year’s Anzisha Prize, there is a potential shortage of young women entrepreneurs who are from North and Central Africa or involved in renewable energy ventures.
“We are hoping that our application data reflects weaknesses in our outreach strategy, rather than the reality on the ground. If our sample is a mirror of youth entrepreneur activity across the continent, then we are sitting with a fairly terrible situation for youth venture creation outside of some key hubs,” said Josh Adler, Director for the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the African Leadership Academy.
The prestigious Anzisha Prize, Africa’s premier award for its youngest entrepreneurs, is encouraging North and Central Africans, young women and those with renewable energy ventures from around the African continent to enter. Application information and in-country support are available in both French and Arabic.
The $75,000 Anzisha Prize, hosted by the African Leadership Academy in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, awards young African entrepreneurs between the ages of 15 and 22 who have started ventures that are making a real impact in their communities. There is an additional $10,000 grant, courtesy of the Donor Circle for Africa group of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, that is given to a young entrepreneur who is working on a renewable energy initiative.
With a week to go until the application deadline, over 200 applications have been received from more than 25 countries.
Applications from young female entrepeneurs are declining yet 55 percent of the African youth population between 15-24 is female, young women only make up 25 percent of the current Anzisha Prize applicant pool.
North African applications are low despite significantly more awareness campaigns for the Anzisha Prize.
Official documents are now available in Arabic and French and the Anzisha Prize team met with partners across North Africa in early March.
Biogas and green charcoal initiatives look to be more prevalent amongst African youth rather than solar, wind, and other alternative energy initiatives.
“We need to enlist the help of the media, gender-focused youth organizations and teachers to encourage candidates they know of for the prize to apply. Our applications team is standing by to support entries and nominations in French, Arabic and English and our country partners in every region are available to engage national media in the debate around youth entrepreneurship in different countries,” added Adler.
Past award recipients include Best Ayiorwoth, a young woman from Uganda, who began a small micro-credit services company that invests in and empowers young women in Uganda, and Khaled Shady, inventor of Mubser, a wearable belt for the visually impaired in Egypt.
The Anzisha Prize applications are now open and close on April 1, 2014. Application and nomination forms are available online on http://www.anzishaprize.org.
Finalists will win an all-expense paid trip to the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, to attend a week-long entrepreneurship development programme and awards gala.
JUMIA, Nigeria’s leading fashion store has rolled out the proudly Nigerian Fashion “By Naija” in a bid to recognize local talents by welcoming as many Nigeria brands as possible to reach their target audience online at ease as well as get the maximum exposure for their brand.
With an industry that has grown so big over the years having the most talented fashion designers making everything from clothing and accessories to shoe and beauty products from scratch, the platform will be a stepping stone for designers in their recognition across borders with the latest addition of over 50 New Nigerian brands.
Jumia has been working with some of the biggest fashion designers who have since seen success with selling their products online especially on jumia.com; CEO 24 Apparel Temitayo Eyitayo “It has been a great journey for 24 Apparel being on Jumia. Ever since we launched our clothing on Jumia it has helped increase sales by a great volume and also recognition for the 24 brands in terms of marketing and visibility.”
Jumia offers everything from fashion, consumer electronics, and home appliances to beauty products.
East Africa’s Leading mobile phone company, Safaricom may allegedly abandon its bid to acquire assets owned by Essar Telecom Kenya Ltd in the absence of regulatory approval.
Communications Authority of Kenya has to date not acknowledged Safaricom’s receipt of application to make the acquisition which was handed in by the telco one month ago. Safaricom plans to buy Essar’s network base stations and transmission equipment. However, the regulator has demanded that Safaricom improve its network quality before being granted a new license. Airtel, the second-biggest operator, is set to take over Essar’s 2.75 million subscribers and licenses.
Yu, the Essar owned Telecommunication Company is also yet to hear from the regulator after accumulating substantial losses over the past six years being the reason for its sale.
“For all concerned, this transaction was very time bound, we are giving very serious consideration to pulling out for the simple reason that the lack of regulatory certainty puts us in a place where the key fundamentals of the transaction have changed.” said Nzioka Waita, Corporate Affairs Director, CAK.
Essar, Safaricom and Airtel currently have a memorandum of understanding though they have yet to sign a legally binding agreement. The delay in considering the deal by the authority may become protracted its board’s term of office ends in April 2, since the process of interviewing and reconsulting the board has only “just been kicked off” by the ministry of information and communications technology.
LG Electronics has introduced a total of 68 new models in its 2014 TV lineup, Korea. The models include ULTRA HD TVs in sizes ranging from 49 to 105 inches.
The leading electronics company was the first to introduce an 84-inch ULTRA HD TV in 2012 and has now unveiled groundbreaking 105-inch curved ULTRA HD TV in addition to its smaller 65-, 55- and 49-inch curved 4K units. LG’s webOS Smart TV platform is among the new for 2014 first unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show which the company expects to set a new standard in the smart TV market for its openness and ease-of-use.
The new ULTRA HD TVs incorporate In-Plane switching (IPS) panels that offer exceptional colour accuracy and consistently superb picture quality with minimal colour distortion from practically any vantage point. Ultra HD Engine Pro offers the processing power necessary to achieve the 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) resolution and a proprietary chip works in conjunction with the engine to eliminate any visual artefacts. The HD sets all have the ability to upscale standard HD and full HD content to near 4K quality.
“We are extremely confident that our state of the art ULTRA HD and OLED TV models will establish a new benchmark this year, with our strong competitiveness in display technology including ULTRA IPS, CINEMA 3D and unrivalled simplicity of the webOS smart Tv platform, we are optimistic that in 2014, LG will be the one to watch in the TV industry,” said Hyun-hwoi Ha, president and CEO of the LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company.
The company’s leading CINEMA 3D technology offers the most immersive viewing experience in the industry, producing a convincingly realistic 3D effect minimal flicker in 4K resolution with control features that make it possible to adjust the degree of 3D at the touch of a button.
Founded in 2011 in Ghana Start Smart, is an online and SMs-based bookkeeping tool for individuals with little or no financial background to create the full set of financial statements, access advice and inspirational pieces on entrepreneurship in Africa.
The platform gives entrepreuers access to business training through a Business Plan Curriculum Series and a monthly Deep Dive training session all aimed at helping provide support services to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which have suffered inattention as focus shifts to larger corporations according to Juliana Taylor, the founder.
Taylor, its founder and CEO told TechMoran that while the both micro-businesses and large corporations both deserve attention and contribute significantly to African economies, SMEs need support to help the flourish and reach their full potential.
“Start Smart began as a cloud and SMS based bookkeeping tool which allowed SMES with little or no background in finance to standardize their bookkeeping processes. What we found though was that people were interested, but only a few went on to adopt the tool. The problem was that they lacked an understanding of why it made sense long term to adopt a tool like ours,” Taylor says.
“As a result we decided to take a step back and take a more holistic approach through which we could provide people with advice, training and tools that they could leverage throughout the lifecycle of their businesses to be successful,” she added.
Start Smart’s current product/service offering includes at the moment include consulting with a focus data, analytics, and strategy. Training through our publications and online course and Bookkeeping using its cloud and SMS based financial management portal.
“Even though we’ve been able to strike a good balance, the learning process never ends and we look forward to being able to continue to serve as a trusted advisor to businesses in Ghana and across Africa.
Armed with a Bachelors of Arts in Economics from Princeton University and a Masters in Management from Duke University and a team of five, Taylor says SMEs in Ghana are definitely a force to be reckoned with.
According to the Oxford Business Group’s most recent report on Ghana, they make up 90% of the economy and contributed nearly 50% of the nation’s GDP. While they are doing well, there is still a lot of room for improvement particularly within the realm of growth and sustainability of their businesses. Recently there have been a number of government and private sector initiatives to support entrepreneurs such as the founding of the Ghana Center Entrepreneurship, Employment and Innovation and a few venture capital/angel investment firms. Taylor believes though that there is still a great deal of work to be done in order to fully develop the potential of Ghana’s entrepreneurs.
Taylor also sees access to adequate business knowledge/training as one big challenge in Ghana.
“Whether it’s pricing strategy or customer segmentation it’s really important to understand these things because they are the concepts that feed into successful businesses. Sometimes I think we understand them intuitively, but it would really helpful to formalize this type of skill based education and make it more widely available to entrepreneurs,” she says.
Additionally, financing is a significant challenge; however it depends on the kinds of entrepreneurs that one is talking about. PWC recently published a report on the banking sector in Ghana which she thought was a really strong indicator of the state of the financing for entrepreneurs. According to the report, banks are meeting the needs of large corporations and multinationals, and micro lending institutions are meeting the needs of microenterprises; however, SMEs are largely neglected. In the report they referred to this group as the “Missing Middle”.
So with all the details, she didn’t just venture out but spent a year working with a global tech company in Ghana on their SME outreach initiatives in Ghana in order to gain insight into what entrepreneurs were going through.
“I would like Start Smart to meet at least some part of this need by helping entrepreneurs to understand and adopt the best practices for to not just be profitable in the short term, but also build the structures necessary to make them sustainable and scalable in the long term,” Taylor said. “And even though I founded Start Smart almost 3 years ago, I didn’t officially launch it until just about two months ago because I wanted to better understand the environment in which I was operating and align my idea with it”
According to her, there’s no replacement for hands on experience so it was really important for me to test my idea, see how it faired and adjust accordingly.
As the internet gains popularity in the country, with penetration rates of around 13%, it is making things a lot more convenient from banking all the way through retail but Taylor says there is still a long way to go.
“I think there is still a great deal of suspicion around the transparency/authenticity of the internet and a lot of Ghanaians still have challenges around accessibility,” she concludes.
IBM named recipients of its Smarter Cities Challenge for 2014, a competitive grant program that sends teams of some of IBM’s most talented experts to select cities and regions worldwide to provide expertise on the most critical issues faced by communities today.
IBM teams invest months studying a local issue chosen by a winning municipality. They then spend three weeks on the ground in the region gathering and analyzing all relevant data and reports, while meeting in person with dozens of members of the government, citizen, business, and not-for-profit communities.
At the conclusion of these studies, IBM presents comprehensive recommendations for addressing the issue in line with recognized “best practices.” This is followed weeks later by a more detailed, written plan for its implementation.
Given that effective local governance today relies on the coordination of multiple municipalities, IBM made regional governments eligible for the grant program this year, not just cities. With the previous participation of 100 cities, the Smarter Cities Challenge program now also offers winning municipalities access to fellow leaders with whom to consult on similar issues.
IBM will work with municipalities this year that seek its input on projects such as the following:
Improving transportation options by connecting roads, bikepaths, sidewalks and rails
Protecting the environment with better water quality
Collecting revenue, lowering costs and managing budgets more efficiently
Leveraging local industries and natural resources for tourism and economic development
Making more nutritious and affordable food available in urban neighborhoods
Harnessing the sun and converting waste products into electrical energy
Preserving public safety during dangerous weather and man made events
Decreasing high crime impacts in blighted neighborhoods
Following are cities and regions that IBM is today announcing as winners of the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grants for 2014:
Abuja, Nigeria
Ballarat, Australia
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Brussels, Belgium
Dallas, Texas, United States
Dublin, Ireland
Durban, South Africa
Jinan, China
Mombasa County, Kenya
Niigata, Japan
Perth, Australia
Suffolk County, New York, United States
Tainan, Taiwan
Vilnius, Lithuania
Zapopan, Mexico
Smarter Cities Challenge is an elite program, having picked only 116 municipalities out of more than 500 applicants over the last four application cycles. Strong applications propose projects designed to address high priority problems of critical importance to citizens. The city or region must be able to share detailed information to help the IBM team analyze the issue. Leaders must also guarantee face-to-face access to city, regional, civic and business stakeholders for interviews with IBM team members so that they may comprehensively assess a given problem and recommend solutions.
IBM dispatches IBMers on these engagements who hail from all over the world, and who offer diverse perspectives and skills in the areas of marketing, communications, technology, research and development, government, human resources, finance, business, legal matters and specific disciplines such as transportation, energy and health.
Jennifer Crozier, IBM’s vice president of Global Citizenship Initiatives, and whose team directs the Smarter Cities Challenge, said, “Congratulations to all of the cities and regional governments that have secured IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grants for 2014. If history is any guide, these municipalities can look forward to tapping a treasure trove of skills and knowledge from some of IBM’s best and brightest. By collaborating with our experts, local governments will be receiving valuable counsel that could very well influence the success of issues that are foremost on the local agenda. We hope to be a useful resource to the winning cities and regions and be a catalyst for progress.”
Equity Direct, a ten second international money transfer service from UK to Equity Bank customers in Kenya is the Bank’s new move to reap from diaspora remittances and increase its customer base.Equity Direct has a focus on the UK market, one of the key remittance corridors for Kenya and Equity Group says it has invested heavily to create infrastructure for diaspora remittances, and banking and transaction processing by connecting to all global payment systems.With a control of 16% of all Diaspora remittances, Equity Direct is a move to democratize money remittance by enabling cheap and instant money transfer direct into the beneficiaries account. Equity Direct connects through UK’s VFX’s digital payment gateway which enables instant credits in customers accounts in Equity Bank. The system will make it possible for Kenyans in the Diaspora to open and manage Equity Bank diaspora accounts from the UK. Those importing goods from Kenya into the UK can also use the accounts to pay for the goods using local currency into their supplier’s Equity Bank accounts. Friends and family living in the UK can send money home to their loved ones, or to their own bank accounts in Equity Bank in ten seconds.According to Dr. James Mwangi, Group CEO Equity Bank, “Equity Bank is a key player in facilitating remittance to Kenya. We want our customers in and out of the country to have the different options of remittance that is most convenient to them.”The online service www.equitydirect.co.ke will cost only 4GBP to send USD 10,000 from the UK to Kenyans and will allow users to send money in EUR, GBP and USD and users can send even lower than £10.
Nick England, CEO of VFX said, “The uptake of Equity Direct during the pilot phase has been very high. UK residents have been able to remit millions of shillings in the last three months of piloting. We therefore are positive this is what the market has been waiting for. A low cost remittance solution.”
Transaction fees start at £1 with a maximum fee of £4, and there are no deductions or charges on arrival at the Equity Bank account.
Huawei Kenya has condemned hacking of its parent company’s servers by US National Security Agency, after obtaining sensitive information and monitoring the communications of top executives late last week.
Huawei Technologies offers hardware and software support to a number of Kenyan IT firms including Safaricom, Telkom Kenya and has also secured lucrative telecommunication infrastructure contracts with the government.
Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK) however denied knowledge of spying on Kenya said to be a top target. It is said that NSA was interested in getting information on key Chinese customers including high priority targets; Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya and Cuba.
In this digital age, corporate networks are under constant probe attack from different sources. Huawei said it has affectively countered any threats and disagrees with all activities that threaten the security of networks and is willing to go a step further in collaboration with governments, stakeholders and customers to jointly address the global challenge of network security.
“The security and integrity of our corporate network and our products are our highest priorities,” said Huawei Kenya Office
The government should however be very wary of what is termed as “technical support” on critical national communications infrastructure from super powers which could be allowing installation of backdoors spy software and hardware systems.
At a crucial time in the elections, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s website was inaccessible Sunday, the official start for campaigning for Algeria’s 17 April election. His people said that it was a cyber attack.
Before the website went down.according to another website, El-Watan2014 set up for the residential election, there was a message written Ali Benflis will be our future president” had appeared on the site.
Benflis is the main challenger to Bouteflika, who is seeking a fourth term in next month’s poll. The incumbent president’s Facebook page said his website was being temporarily suspended because of a cyber attack which had altered its “graphic and editorial contents”.
Campaigning opened on Sunday amid mounting criticism of Bouteflika’s bid to clinch a fourth term in office despite concerns over his health.
He rejected such concerns in a message to the nation on Saturday, insisting he was fit to govern and had decided to stand in response to persistent calls from Algerians.
Basis Science now fully belongs to Intel, as it has announced that it has now completed the acquisition of Basis Science, a privately held company and a leader specializing in wearable device technologies for health and wellness applications.The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Basis Science is also the creator of the Basis band, an advanced health tracker. The wrist-worn device and Web and mobile service captures physiological metrics such as heart rate.
Intel is actively pursuing a range of products and initiatives with the goal of accelerating wearable device innovation. The company’s strategy is to create wearable reference devices, SoCs and other technology platforms.
“The acquisition of Basis Science provides immediate entry into the market with a leader in health tracking for wearable devices,” says Mike Bell, Intel VP and GM of the company’s New Devices Group. “As we accelerate our position in wearables, we will build upon this foundation to deliver products that bring people greater utility and value. I’m confident that our collective resources and expertise positions us well for the future.”
“Intel is a great fit for Basis products, employees and consumers,” says Jef Holove, former Basis Science CEO and now a GM in Intel’s New Devices Group. “The acquisition brings access to Intel resources, expertise and global scale as we work together to explore new possibilities of wearable technology. Meanwhile, keeping our existing team intact ensures we can remain focused on our mission of improving the health and well-being of people.”
The Basis band will continue to be sold through existing retail channels. The team will continue to work on its product roadmap and serve its existing Basis band users.
Orange Kenya has launched a low cost wireless Internet solution at the Kenyatta University’s main campus; this service will provide the varsity’s students with reliable and affordable Internet access.
The Wi-Fi solution gives students the convenience of accessing high speed Internet, despite the SIM card in their Internet enabled devices. All that is required is for the user to switch on the Wi-Fi functionality on their devices and then purchase Internet bundles using Orange Mobile top up cards.
The minimum bundle offering on the volume based billing will be 20 MB at a cost of KSh20, and the maximum will be a 500 MB bundle at KSh500.
All who use this service are bound to enjoy 100 percent bonus on the purchase of any data bundle over a three month period, ending May 2013, while every new user logging in for the first time will enjoy free browsing for the first ten minutes.
“Apart from being the most affordable Internet bundle in the market, we are ensuring that the students’ cost of entry is kept low since there is no need to purchase alternate devices,” says Company CEO, Mickael Ghossein.
This is the second Internet related project that Orange has engaged in with Kenyatta University, the first being the powering of the University’s new library with free Internet connectivity in 2011.
The Rockefeller Foundation has given the Ghanian government a $3.8 million grant to help it launch world class facilities that will attract IT and IT enabled firms, including Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms to the country in a move expected to attract ICT jobs for Ghanaian youth.
The Ghanaian government has been working with World Bank under the eGhana Project, part of the $100 million Foundation’s Digital Jobs Africa initiative launched in 2013 to improve 1 million lives through ICT skills and jobs for the youth.
After the foundation realized that real estate was the barrier to the implementation of the project, it has given the two the grant to set up a new mini ICT Park in Accra by August this year for direct and indirect employment to over 10,000 people, primarily youth, who have few alternative job opportunities. The ICT park is expected to move Ghana up the ranking among the Tier 2 countries, and attract IT and IT enabled services (ITES) sector which is deemed most likely to absorb large numbers of unemployed and disadvantaged youth.
“As the Rockefeller Foundation enters its second year of our $100m Digital Jobs Africa initiative, we applaud the commitment of the Ghanaian government for steering the hiring at this new state of the art ICT Park towards poor and vulnerable youth – which will help to achieve our ultimate goal of impacting the lives of 1 million people through digital jobs for disadvantaged youth. This project will transform the landscape of Ghana’s IT /ITES sector while ensuring that disadvantaged youth are the ultimate beneficiaries. When young people are empowered economically, the entire nation will benefit,” said Mamadou Biteye, Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation Africa Regional Office.
The Digital Jobs Africa initiative is being implemented in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Morocco.
The grant follows on from the Foundation’s 2012 support to the Ghana ITES Secretariat, a World Bank seeded implementing agency under the Ministry of Communication, to train and employ 150 youth to digitize government records. In September 2013, the World Bank approved the $97 million eTransform project which builds on the earlier eGhana project. Both projects seek to use ICT to improve the reach and efficiency of private and public service delivery and create jobs. The ICT Park is an important piece of the World Bank’s support of Ghana’s ICT strategy.
The Rockefeller Foundation support of the mini ICT Park leverages the World Bank funding and is designed to catalyze additional funding to support Ghana’s potential to employ disadvantaged youth in the digital economy.
Dr. Edward K. Omane Boamah, Ghana’s Minister of Communications commented, “We were pleased that the Rockefeller Foundation shared our vision around Ghana’s ICT potential. Not only can we transform the ICT sector, making Ghana internationally competitive, we can provide opportunities for hundreds of disadvantaged young people who have the skills and drive to work in the digital economy, but are only lacking the access and opportunity.”
Even after Rocket Internet’s Jovago announced expansion into Kenya and Senegal.Hotels.ng founder Mark Essien believes Rocket Internet’s quick exit model might not succeed in Africa especially for its hotel booking platform Jovago.
With a team of 6 people sitting at phones and internet around the clock daily receiving calls and internet bookings from Nigerians, for its over 3600 hotels on the platform, Hotels.ng says they are in the country to stay, unlike Jovago their competitor.
“The Rocket Internet model is to build something that they can sell as quickly as possible. We are building to stay. Hotel booking is about the hotel managers knowing you are here to stay and that they can trust the partnership to still be around in two years,” Mark Essien, Hotels.ng founder told TechMoran.
Essien says he is not worried of Rocket Internet’s Jovago which has slightly over 2000 hotels in Africa as it might soon be sold to a third party,unlike Hotels.ng which is here to stay. Essien says at the moment, the firm is has partnered with many online payment providers such as Interswitch to power its online payments and is aiming at being everywhere in Africa booking hotels for people.
Hotels.ng’s other competitor is WakaNow, which is an all-round travel agency, unlike them, a field Essien says he has no plans to venture in. Another competitor, NiteStay is perharps Hotels direct competitor. Hotels is focusing on hotels and will not be distracted by venues or airline booking, even with growing demand as Africa’s middle-class grows.
Launched in Jan 2012 by the Nigerian-born and Berlin trained robotics engineer, Hotels raised a $250,000 seed funding from Nigeria’s Spark is not looking for new funding yet as its operating at a small profit.Essien says technology has always been his passion, and he’s excited about the impact that this can have in Africa.
Raising capital is not as easy at it looks especially for startup entrepreneurs in Africa, where investors put their money into fast moving consumer goods, oil and real estate among others apart from upcoming entrepreneurs.
To help solve this, Nailab, a tech business incubator in partnership with 1%Club, a Netherlands based crowdfunding platform and Accenture a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company are conducting a 2-day crowd funding boot camp to take the local entrepreneurs through the process.
The boot camp will see 7 start-ups in different business sectors create a crowdfunding campaign that will demonstrate their start-up’s ability to develop solid crowdfunding plans, display a map of relevant networks and show insight in successful storytelling. The winning campaign will be awarded a grand prize of Ksh. 300,000 on Thursday 27th March at 4:00pm. The funds will help boost their venture on start- up capital.
Speaking at the event Gijsbert Koren, a Netherlands based Crowdfunding Researcher said,”Crowdfunding is a way of validation and promotion of a business as it shows investors your idea is viable. It helps investors to believe in your product however, one should launch a crowdfunding campaign after proof of concept.”
Koren adds that crowdfunding works because the backers believe they own the project, will be rewarded and the backers have little control in the manufacturing or other risky processes but unlike banks, backers always know what their money is doing.
Nailab which has over five startups participating also plans to launch a pan-African crowdfunding platform dubbed Babandu, to help entrepreneurs in Africa raise money for their projects online. TechMoran has not learned yet, how different Babandu will be but believe it will address the payments problem many entrepreneurs face in Africa by integrating mobile money payment options, which are becoming so popular in Africa since the launch of M-Pesa in Kenya in 2007.
MainOne, Nigeria’s leading provider of innovative telecom services and network solutions for businesses in West Africa, has opened its branch office in Abuja as part of its strategic business plan to give a better broadband experience.
Folu Aderibigbe, MainOne’s chief sales and marketing officer, said that the branch was opened to fulfill the company’s long-term plan to provide cost-effective broadband solutions for the seat of government in Abuja.
He added that MainOne is poised to deliver its world-class solutions and unique broadband services to the city of Abuja for improved e-governance, productivity and profits.
“Our competitive solutions offer Abuja customers a reliability advantage, as well as, the opportunity to obtain enhanced value added solutions,” said the Marketing Officer.
MainOne has transitioned from an undersea cable company to become the leading provider of innovative telecom services and network solutions for businesses in West Africa within a space of four years since its landing of undersea cable system in 2010.
The Abuja office is an addition to its growing presence in Nigeria and West Africa.
The Company, with headquarters in Victoria Island, Lagos also has presence in Alausa, Ikeja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Accra, Abidjan and the United Kingdom.
Aderibigbe stated that the company is committed to giving African and Nigerian businesses the MainOne Advantage that would enable them operate more efficiently and compete favorably in the global marketplace.
It appears that the innovations in Cameroon that were to happen by this year have reached a ‘ripe’ stage because the Director General of Income Taxes (DGI) Modesta Mopa Fatoing has made it crystal clear that companies should now start making their tax payment through Mobile Money from MTN.
“This service will allow companies to pay their income taxes without leaving their offices or having to contact tax office agents,”said Fatoing
He added that this will be effective in time saving as well as increasing the number increase the number of users of the cell-phone-based payment system being promoted by mobile telephone operators.
On January 28, 2013 in Douala, Orange Cameroun’s senior management had revealed that the Orange Money service, previously launched in September 2011, already had 700,000 users nationwide. This figure is likely to explode now with the number of promotions recently offered by mobile phone operators to get their customers to sign-up for cellular phone-based payment services.
