Huawei has launched its very first store in Africa which will be offering customers direct access to Huawei devices as well as technical support.

“We have seen significant growth in South Africa. Launching a local store is a key element to cater to the growing demand from our customers and further establish our brand in the country,” says Bruce Wong, Huawei Key Account General Manager for Vodacom.

Wong says that Africa has great potential and is a key market for Huawei. The Johannesburg-based store was opened to the public on February 12th.

“The opening of our first store cements our commitment to South Africa and the continent. We have expansion plans in place to open additional stores in other parts of South Africa in the very near future. The launch of our store in Johannesburg is just the beginning,” he adds.

In the same event, the company also launched the E5730 Mobile Wi-Fi, a high-speed packet access mobile hotspot. It is a multi-mode wireless terminal for SOHO (Small Office and Home Office), business professionals, and university students and families who own multiple Wi-Fi enabled devices.

The Huawei E5730 functions as a wireless modem, a USB modem and provides a network connection using an Ethernet port. The Wi-Fi hotspot enables you to share your connectivity with up to 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices at the same time and it supports HSPA+ up to 43.2Mbps for faster browsing.

Having a 5200mAh battery, the device will also a power supply for other devices. All one needs to do is connect then to the E5730 using a USB cable.

“We are committed to providing great technology access to our customers in South Africa. This Wi-Fi device is high in speed and connectivity, and convenient to use and carry when travelling or in the office,” said Jasper Zhan, Key Account Manager: Channel Sales, Huawei.

The E5730 is available in South Africa through Makro and Edgars stores at an approximate retail price of R999.

Having more than 100 episodes in five years since it began, the XYZ Show is just about to premier its 9^th season which will begin this Sunday at 7:30pm on one of Kenya’s TV station, NTV.

This new episodes will be available online on Buni TV’S new subscription service Buni+ at www.buni.tv/xyzshow a full day before they air on television – so look out for the premiere episode this Saturday evening. After one week, the episodes will become free for everyone to access.

Season 9 will be closely following the Government’s railway and laptops tendering processes. “This Season, XYZ will take you for a ride on the jubilee “kusema na ku-tender” train!” said Titus Maina, a writer and producer of The XYZ Show.

Watch out as well for fan favorite No Butt Nagirr’s new segment “Who Cons Kenya?”, in which he will risk his life to investigate scandalous schemes like fake title deeds, fake consumer products or fake churches.

Buni TV is the leading video-on-demand platform for high quality pan-African content. It is a service of Buni Media, a multi-media company with offices in Nairobi, Kenya and Los Angeles, California. Buni Media is the production outlet behind The XYZ Show, Africa’s first political satire program featuring life-size latex puppets. The XYZ Show reaches an audience of more than 10 million people every month through its various platforms.

The $1 million the African Story Challenge is looking to award cash prizes and international reporting trips to top twenty multimedia projects with innovative storytelling techniques using data journalism tools and production $20,000 grant.

Now in its third round, the first African Story Challenge was on Agriculture and Food Security,  the second was on Health and the latest cycle is on Business and Technology and is a project of the African Media Initiative (AMI), the continent’s largest association of media owners and operators..

Joseph Warungu, the project lead and an AMI Content Development Director and former Knight International Journalism Fellow, said, “This competition aims at encouraging and supporting African media to promote a better quality of life for our people by producing more and better stories on the issues that really matter” said Warungu, a former BBC Africa Editor. “Politics is important, but it’s not everything.”

According to AMI’s statement, shortlisted stories work on any topical business and technology angle of interest to a wider African audience. The stories have to employ in-depth research and investigative journalism and engage in cross-platform approaches and interactive applications to ensure they reach as many people as possible on a variety of media devices.

AMI Chief Executive Amadou Mahtar Ba added, “It’s widely acknowledged that Africa is on the rise and leading the way on many fronts such as mobile money. To continue telling this story of growth and innovation well, the media in Africa must be supported and strengthened. AMI is committed to this goal through the Story Challenge and by finding disruptive digital ideas for improving the way that news is collected and disseminated.”

The Knight Fellowships are administered by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).

Alcatel Lucent will now be centralizing multiple application databases used to manage the LTE network as it has won the database management contract from USA based Verizon Wireless.

Alcatel-Lucent is providing its Subscriber Data Manager (SDM), part of the company’s IMS Subsystem portfolio of technologies.

Verizon has chosen a subscriber data management solution that also includes Alcatel-Lucent’s SDM, Motive Authentication, Authorization and Accounting Server, Centralized Operations Manager, and SDM Expert products as well as the VoLTE feature set.

Steve Marino, Vice President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Verizon Customer Team, said: “Alcatel-Lucent has enjoyed a longstanding relationship that dates back to the inception of Verizon Wireless. We know the network. That Verizon Wireless selected our SDM to help streamline network operations speaks highly of their confidence in our technology, capabilities and experience.”

Financial terms were not disclosed.