By Vicky Ojo

An expert has declared that in order for government to promote transparency and accountability they should establish information databases that are easily accessible to the public. This declaration was made by the Executive Director of Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training, Michael Gurstein.

He said this while speaking at a two-day training workshop for public officials on how to disseminate information to the public, organized by Society for Democratic Initiatives (SDI) in Freetown.

According to him, government can promote transparency in the country by informing citizens about their activities, which would promote the rule of law and strengthen citizens’ participation in governance.

By making information available to citizens and to the rest of the world, he said it would allow information sharing on agriculture investment and various economic sectors, to showcase to the world progress and lapses in the country.

He commended the passage of the Access to Information Bill into law, describing it as a step towards development in the country

“In India they found it difficult to pass the Freedom to Information bill into law but when they finally did it helped them greatly and they are now saying that it is the most important bill they had ever passed to law in India because it gives their citizens the power to know about the activities of their country,” he said.

Pamoja Africa has partnered with Symantec in order to dispense Symantec’s suite of cloud services in sub- Saharan Africa.

The alliance will ensure that Pamoja’s expanding channel and service provider ecosystem has access to these services.

Mark Smissen, cloud services manager at Symantec, said that the partnership will provide Symantec with the opportunity to address an exciting new route to market for its cloud services. It is delivered by the next generation of specialist partners and service providers that are positioned to capitalize on the exploding demand for cloud security services.

“It’s an opportunity for Symantec to address under served and unmet needs of customers and partners in Africa, and to do this quickly,” he said.“These enterprise class cloud services have typically only been accessible by larger organisations – these changes with the Pamoja partnership in that SMB and corporate customers can enjoy the same level of protection and service.”

Pamoja Africa is the cloud services business unit of Seacom that was started in 2011 by Brian Herlihy (Seacom’s founder) and Stanfford Masie (former GM of Google South Africa). It is a provider of wholesale cloud computing services via telecommunication companies, ISPs and other service providers in Africa.

Through a new data peering arrangement between Seacom and Symantec these services are delivered via the shortest and fastest route to the Pamoja cloud datacentres in South Africa and Kenya.

 Japanese company, Toshiba has donated 12 AT300 tablets to the University of Zambia Language Centre in Lusaka.

The company made its donation to encourage the expansion of the centre’s capacity to teach foreign languages to its students. The centre’s main focus is to teach Japanese language which will liaise with Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

“The Toshiba tablets are the first and single most important use of technology for teaching at the Language Centre,” says Dr Sande Ngalande, acting assistant Dean of the university’s School of Humanities and Natural Sciences, and its Department of Literature and Languages.

He added that they are using the tablets as a teaching and learning tool as well as for identifying online resources.

“This has allowed us to use our time more efficiently and, importantly, to attract more young people to our language programme,” he said.

Apart from the local languages in Zambia, The University of Zambia Language Centre teaches Japanese, English, American Sign Language, Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Swahili and Spanish to the university’s students, government and foreign ministry officials who engage with foreign nationals in the course of their working day.

“Our donation of the 12 Toshiba AT300 tablets, facilitated by Hokkaido University and the Japanese Embassy in Lusaka, is part of Toshiba Corporation’s commitment to skills development in Africa,” says Chika Yamada, of the Toshiba Corporation in Johannesburg, who coordinated the donation of the tablets. “We were happy to support the University of Zambia’s language programme, as it will surely foster more positive working relationships by bridging communication gaps through the learning of languages.”

Press Release:The Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) has today announced the extension of the submission phase for the 2014 BAKE Kenyan Blog Awards. The submissions were to end on February 10^th but will instead end on February 17^th 2014. This is in response to public demand and an overwhelming number of submissions made in the last few days.

This will result in the judging phase being altered as well, but other key dates will remain the same. Here is the new timeline for the 2014 BAKE Kenyan Blog Awards.

1. Submissions

From January 10^th 2014 to February 17^th 2014, we will be accepting submissions in the competition’s 17 categories.

2. Judges Choose the Best 5

From February 19th 2014 to February 28th 2014 judges comprised of bloggers and media experts will decide on the 5 blogs that advance to the next round in all 17 categories. These are the blogs that will be in the running to win a BAKE Kenyan Blog Award.

3. Online voting

The ballot box will be opened on March 1^st 2014 and it will close on April 30^th 2014. We will be limiting votes to one time per category.

In support of international Safer Internet Day (SID) and following the release of the latest results of the third annual Microsoft Computing Safer Index (MCSI), Microsoft Corp. is asking consumers to “Do 1 Thing” to stay safer online and commit to doing so on a new, interactive website, .

The site allows Internet users around the world to share how they plan to avoid online risks, learn what other people are doing to help protect themselves, and receive instant tips to enhance their digital lifestyle.

“In Africa, this risk is growing fast”, says Marius Haman, Anti-Piracy, Legal & Corporate Affairs lawyer for Microsoft Middle East & Africa, “Sub-Saharan Africa is home to one of the world’s fastest growing internet populations, which means more and more people are accessing the internet for the first time, providing a large and unsuspecting base of targets to cybercriminals. Combine this with the lack of strong cybercrime laws and high piracy rate on the continent and its clear why we’re seeing more and more people fall victim to attacks”.

According to the MCSI survey, the annual worldwide impact of phishing and various forms of identity theft could be as high as $5 billion, with the cost of repairing damage to peoples’ online reputation higher yet at nearly $6 billion, or an estimated average of $632 per loss. This means that education and guidance about how to avoid online risks remain key and is why Microsoft is asking people to “Do 1 Thing” today and make it part of their daily digital routine.

Yet despite such losses, only 36 percent said they limit what strangers see on social networks and the amount of personal information online, while 33 percent said they adjust their social network privacy settings. And, only 33 percent use a PIN or password to lock their mobile device.

Locally, Microsoft marked Safer Internet Day by educating students and their parents on how they can remain safe on the Internet. Over 130 students from 10 schools attended a demonstration at HillCrest School in Nairobi, where Microsoft staff demonstrated how the students can increase their safety on the Internet.

Hillcrest headteacher, Lady Karen Morey said: “Kids may fall prey to criminal and other predators online who may seek to take advantage of them. I would like to thank Microsoft for taking the opportunity to highlight the dangers online and how young users can keep themselves safe.”

Internet users can make more informed decisions and help better protect their online activities by visiting  http://www.microsoft.com/saferonline

Thanks to Sigourney Weaver in Alien, and then Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day — there are more women in movies than ever who can handle a fight as good, if not better, as most men.

So here’s my pick of the best 9 female kick ass movie characters, enjoy

So did I miss out on any awesome kick ass characters, hit back at me if so….

The Tempo Smart Calendar has been launched in South Africa; well it is not for every phone but only for the iPhone.

It looks like a calendar but works exactly like a personal assistant; this is how, the app applies the artificial intelligence to data analyzed from the calendar, email and contacts, in order understand what’s important and surfaces information and actions just like a personal assistant that knows what’s coming next.

This is what you can do with this App

• Read news about a company you’re meeting with

• Call, text or email anyone your calendar

• Review relevant emails and documents for each meeting

• Show your contacts at a company

• Send “running late” messages

• Browse attendee LinkedIn profiles

• Dial into conference calls without the passcode hassle

• Get directions and estimated drive times

This expansion to South Africa is accompanied by an all-new version of Tempo that includes People Insights, Twitter integration and Smart Alerts. Insights are rich contextual details around the people in your calendar – including recent emails, meeting history, mutual contacts, Facebook posts, tweets, LinkedIn information and more.

Leading electronics manufacturer Apple will soon open iTunes U Course to another 70+ countries which includes South Africa.

“With in-country support from Digicape, iTunes U Course Manager lets South African educators expose their course material to a global audience for the first time”, said Alan Goldberg, director of education at Digicape.

The iTune course is a web-based tool for instructors to create, edit, design, distribute and teach all digital courses, which can be enhanced with a variety of audio, video, books and other materials to augment course materials and shared with students in possession of an Apple ID and iOS device, within the iTunes U app.

Instructors in institutions can send course links to their iTunes U public site manager administrator, who can publish it to their institution’s iTunes U site and make it available publicly in the iTunes U catalogue.

The company is seeing a lot of excitement among schools, universities and colleges around the country, as they look to adopt digital delivery platforms.

“iTunes U is the world’s largest catalogue of online education content and iTunes U Course Manager supports multiple media types from various sources, for the richest possible online education experience. This is the new way of learning, embraced by educators and students around the world,” he concludes.