Who would have known that Asus was going to be threat to the world of electronics, and was holding the third position during the third quarter of this year, this is according to a research by the International Data Corporation (IDC).
The company has really outdone itself and pretty soon it will be the leading if the other competitors are not careful.
The research, which is pegged on tablet shipment, shows Asus rise from 4.5 percent tablet market share in the second quarter of 2013 to 7.4 percent in the third quarter.
The Taiwanese multinational shipped 3.5 million units compared to 2.3 million units in the same period last year. At third position, Asus now competes with the top two tablet manufacturing companies Apple and Samsung which took first and second positions respectively.
The survey also attests to Android being a favored operating system among various consumers with 47 million units shipped. The growing appetite for tablets has also been a factor with the increasing 36.7 percent year over year in the last three months.
Chris Wen, the product manager, Asus Kenya said: “The present success for Asus in the tablet market share is partly as a result of the growing popularity of tablets in emerging markets like Kenya. This ranking is not just important to the company but to gadget users as well since they will be keen to lay their hands on other Asus products which are better performing and pocket friendly.”
During the second quarter of this year Asus introduced the Fonepad in Kenya. The device was the first android tablet that runs the new Intel Atom processor. A few months later the Fonepad was followed by the launch of Nexus 7 that comes with Android 4.3- the latest version of the android Operating System (OS).
Try visiting your yahoomail.com from Nigeria this morning, and you will be greeted with the biggest and the most pleasant surprise!
Something is coming, Something big from Konga.com! Konga is bringing Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales to Nigeria, and calling it ” Fall Yakata” Sales.
The long brewing rivalry between the two mobile market industry leaders Airtel and Safaricom was taken a notch higher, when Airtel refused settlement plan with Safaricom over money transfer charges and this has now paved way for a full hearing.
According to the Standard Weekend Business, Airtel is fighting what it calls anti-competitive tendencies from market leader Safaricom. Since the inception of mobile money transfer, MPesa has maintained an expensive exchange transfer charge with Airtel Money.
“The battle to open up the mobile money market is not a private matter between Airtel and Safaricom, but is an industry issue. It will only get the justice if it proceeds to full hearing,” said the Airtel executive who requested not to be named because the firm is yet to make its position on the matter official.
The matter is being handled by the Competitions Authority of Kenya (CAK).
Safaricom is said to be controlling over 80 percent of mobile money transfer market with a total of over 24 million users in Kenya according to Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK).
This year’s edition of the annual Techie Entrepreneurial Nigerian Talented (TENT) is set to hold in Nigeria’s commercial capital city of Lagos.
According to the organizers, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN), this year’s edition would be featuring former presidential candidate, Prof. Patu Utomi, and Sim Shagaya, CEO of Konga.com.
According to the organizers, the annual event has become a platform where budding Nigerian ‘technoprenuers’ showcase their work, connect with resources, and inspire innovation. The theme for this year is ‘Competence. Collaboration. Competition.’
Other speakers are Mario Valle (Director Business Development (Emerging Markets) at Electronic Arts), Oreoluwa Somolu (W.TEC), Emeka Okoye (Vikanti), Osayi Alile Oruene (WimBiz), Chude Jideonwo (RED Media), Emmanuel Oluwatosin (Nokia) and Victor Asemota (Swifta).
This year, participants would be drawn from institutions such as Lagos State Polytechnic, Benson Idahosa University, Covenant University, Federal University of Technology Akure, University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, Lagos State University, Yaba College of Technology, Adekunle Ajasin University, University of Ilorin, National Open University of Nigeria, Obafemi Awolowo University and Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta.
Other participating institutions are Babcock University, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Ogbomosho, Kogi State University, Tai Solarin University of Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Kwara Polytechnic, University of Uyo and University of Calabar
Play It Gaming has raised US$700,000 seed funds to bring social games to feature phones which still dominate the mobile phone market.
It is said that at the end of 2016 there will be 5.4 billion feature phones globally. Feature phones are still very dominant in Africa and companies like BiNu are still developing apps for the feature phones.
Play It will work closely with BiNu to deliver the new social gaming experience to millions of feature phone users.
Play It President Cory Cleveland commented, “Right now, smartphone technology is getting all the major headlines but, the reality is, there are currently over 5 billion underserved feature phone users.”
“The incredible biNu platform has enabled users of this lower-end mobile technology, predominantly within emerging markets, to access previously unattainable information and services and the desire for this content is enormous. Being able to introduce state-of-the-art social gaming experiences to this platform, and engage with new users from all corners of the globe, is an incredibly exciting prospect.”
biNu CEO, Gour Lentell remarked, “We’re excited to be working with the Play It team. The opportunity to bring social gaming experiences to mobile consumers in emerging markets is massive and the combination of biNu’s mobile technology platform with Play It’s content, focus and industry expertise is a sure winner.”
Kenya Television Network (KTN) has over the weekend announced that it has broken the one million likes on Facebook, being the first television station to do so.
Months ago, the Standard newspaper, owners of KTN announced that it has surpassed Nation’s Nation.co.ke website in terms of traffic. This has seen the company shift its energies to online media as readership grew.
These new shift reflects the increasing internet access in Kenya. According to the new Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) report, the internet users in Kenya has reached 19 million users by June this year.
Nation Television and Citizen Television are on KTN’s hot heals to also break the one million mark.
Microsoft has announced that users of Windows devices can now join the over 135 million people who are using Instagram, the popular image editing and sharing application with the release of the beta version of the app for all Windows devices.
With the release, the company said it devices including Nokia’s Lumia series now offer users “a simple way to capture and share the world’s moments on their Windows Phone.”
“Customize your photos with one of several gorgeous and custom built filter effects. Transform everyday moments into works of art you’ll want to share with friends and family,” Microsoft said.
It added: “Share your photos in a simple photo stream with friends to see – and follow your friends’ photos with the click of a single button. Every day you open up Instagram, you’ll see new photos from your closest friends, and creative people from around the world.
The app offers users 100% free custom designed filters: XPro-II, Earlybird, Rise, Amaro, Hudson, Lo-fi, Sutro, Toaster, Brannan, Inkwell, Walden, Hefe, Nashville, 1977, and others. It also supports video recording with breathtaking cinematic stabilization
Other features include Linear and Radial Tilt-Shift blur effects for extra depth of field, instant sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr and Foursquare.
Users enjoy unlimited uploads, can interact with friends through giving and receiving likes and comments, and has both full front and back camera support
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) owners in Nigeria seeking to exploit new business opportunities converged at 2013 e-Business Fair organised by Connect Nigeria.
Representatives of banking institutions and ICT firms were on hand at the event to educate members of the public on how best to maximise electronic technology to improve their business operations and service delivery.
A keynote address delivered by the CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi titled “Importance of a Cash-less Society to Economic Growth and Development” highlighted the prospects of economic growth as a result of growing technology and its embrace by the business environment.
E-business in Nigeria has been identified as a significant factor that will contribute immensely to the growth of the economy and as such it formed the basis of the interactive session at the forum. SMEs cater to a large chunk of the national economy through provision of services and employment generation and if given leverage via electronic means, it is believed that it will spur economic growth exponentially.
Participants at the 2013 Connect Nigeria e-Business Fair were given the opportunity to develop websites that will promote their businesses electronically by NextDaySite, a business partner to Connect Nigeria with a 50 percent discount.
Mr. Emeka Okafor, Managing Director, Connect Nigeria, observed that new opportunities will be created for businesses in the form of new markets from far and wide places that were previously unreachable as a result of e-business growth in the country.
The services sector in Nigeria, which presently contributes about 34 percent to the economy, is projected to account for 45 to 75 percent of total economic output by 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) identifies Nigeria as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and due to its economic development prospects and growth of internet technology; the CBN is currently implementing a cashless policy with the objective of reducing cash transactions and growing smaller businesses.
When Kate Kiguru was growing up in a small village in Kenya, she was brought up like a boy. It wasn’t by design.
She was the middle child in a family of four girls. Her parents had twin girls first. Her mother was occupied with them, so she ended up spending most of her time with her dad. “That’s why I’m so comfortable working in a male-dominated field,” she told me, 30 minutes before she was scheduled to pitch her startup to investors and advisers last Friday in Washington, D.C.
Kiguru, 26, was at the World Bank last week to promote and raise funds for Akida, a mobile application that addresses the challenges of staff attendance verification in large organizations. She was invited by infoDev, a global multi-donor program of the World Bank Group that aims to enable entrepreneurship for sustainable, inclusive growth and employment in developing countries.
Kiguru and 16 other entrepreneurs gathered for infoDev’s Mobile Startup Camp, designed to help early stage mobile entrepreneurs from emerging markets. As Kiguru shared her story, it wasn’t hard to internalize that youth are a driving force behind the rising Africa.
More than 200 million people in Africa are between ages 15 and 24. Like Kiguru, they are rapid learners and fast implementers of their knowledge despite challenges. She grew up in a village without electricity or running water. Her parents passed away when she was young, but she continued her schooling with help from her sisters. She saw computers for the first time when she was 13 years old.
Now, 13 years later, she is not only traveling halfway around the world to raise money for her venture, but also helping girls in her home country learn how to code. Her hopes of solving problems and inspiring others persuaded her to persevere in a culture where girls are expected to stay within the boundaries and follow patriarchal norms.
She recalls her college days when she was the only female student in her computer classes. Working in the technology sector was no different.
“I’m sort of stubborn,” she quipped as she talked about her determination to not blindly follow the tradition. To ensure that other young women in Kenya reach their potential, Kiguru works with Akirachix, a community of tech women, to inspire Kenyan girls to learn about technology.
At the Mobile Startup Camp, there were roughly equal numbers of male and female entrepreneurs, all of them eager to learn to refine products, business models, and marketing pitches. As I listened to their pitches, it was clear that all of them are committed to a cause, whether it’s helping farmers in remote parts of the world sell crops easily or making sure jewelery from African slums reaches the global market.
The World Bank is helping these entrepreneurs to take their ideas, as Valerie D’Costa, program manager of infoDev put it, from “mind to market.”
Tanzanian Jerry Isaac Mruma, a USIU MBA student and founder and CEO of Kilimo Yetu, an agribond investment startup has been found dead after he went missing last Saturday in Nairobi.
Mruma’s body was found at the City Mortuary by a family member on Thursday. He reportedly went missing after the Tanzanian Night Dinner held at the Sarova Panafric Hotel in Nairobi.
Then a representative of graduate students in USIU’s Student Affairs Council, Mruma was born and bred in Dar es Salaam Tanzania and founded Kilimo Yetu, a startup that offers stock like options as investments in the agriculture industry. Buyers of the agri-bonds invest in a crop of their preference and wait for yields when a farmer sells the produce to pay the investors between 20% to 35% yields.
The startup founded August this year identifies and packages the cost of large scale agriculture projects involving high input costs, gives investors across Kenya the opportunity to invest in these projects in return for lucrative profits within 12 months. The objective is to benefit the investor just as much as the people our projects feed.
“Our products are called ‘Agribonds’, and they are our best strategy to achieve food security in Africa. You can play a part in this, and be rewarded for it,” said the founder on his site.
To lower risk of loss of investor money, Kilimo Yetu works with farmers with a high track record of success. An investor signs up o their site, the firm contacts them and gives them access to available investments opportunities, the investors finds out more about the firm’s offering, the insurance structure and other details, they identify the their suitable AgriBond and then go ahead with the process.
The firm say they turn an investors 1 million shillings into 1.35 million in a year, produces healthy food for the population and creates employment opportunities for East African youth.
Before the founders date the firm was focusing on production of wheat, greenhouse horticulture and quail and were planning to enter the Stevia market too.
RIP Jerry.
Elon Musk, the co-founder of Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity has been named as Fortune’s businessperson of the year, with his firms as the No. 1 revenue gainer and No. 2 stock price gainer, beating Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg at 12th, Twitter’s chairman, Jack Dorsey at 14th and Apple CEO, Tim Cook at47th.
Fortune says its “no Secret that Elon Musk is a triple threat” due to his move from PayPal to disrupt aeronautics with Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX and then now disrupting the auto industry with Tesla Motors and the power sector with SolarCity, Musk is a man to reckon with.
Apart from being the CEO & CTO of SpaceX and chairman of SolarCity, Musk is also the CEO & Chief Product Architect of Tesla Motors which has has emerged as the world’s most prominent maker of all-electric cars with revenues up 12 times for the first three quarters of 2013 and the company is headed to top $2 billion in sales by year end.
Musk’s SpaceX is also reigniting interest in space exploration and his ultra-high-speed transit “hyperloop” between San Francisco and Los Angeles announced in August also led him to the world’s top businessperson this year said the magazine. Bloomberg Wealth values him at $7.7 billion.
According to the report, global mobile networks generate over 50 Exabytes of traffic annually. The immense volume of traffic together with the growing adoption of open source Operating System (OS) platforms such as Android has opened up new security threats. Mobile malware, SMS spam, cyber attacks and unlawful eavesdropping are an ever-increasing problem for enterprises, consumers and mobile network operators around the globe.
Due to this, firms have had to increase their investments in integrated security appliances and content security gateways by both enterprises and mobile network operators, besides opening doors for emerging submarkets such as mobile Security as a Service (SEaaS).
On the devices front, installation of Anti-Malware/Anti-Virus client software is fast becoming a de-facto requirement for most smartphones and tablets. Furthermore, mobile device OEMs are also integrating advanced biometrics such as fingerprint sensing into their smartphones and tablets, amid growing popularity of security sensitive opportunities such as mobile payments.
Driven by the thriving ecosystem, SNS Research estimates that mobile device and network security investments will account for nearly $9 Billion in 2013 alone. The market is further expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 21% over the next 7 years.
The report presents in-depth assessment of the global mobile device and network security market, and covers four individual submarkets. Apart from covering key market drivers, challenges, future roadmap, value chain analysis, deployment case studies and vendor service/product strategies for each submarket, the report also presents comprehensive forecasts for the mobile device and network security market from 2013 till 2020. Historical revenue figures for 2010 – 2012 are also presented. The forecasts and historical revenue figures are individually segmented for four submarkets, 17 product/service categories, six geographical regions and 34 countries.
Mr Godzi pictured with Faith Musevenzi and Chianne Godwin, both from Telecel’s Sales Department, after handing to them the proceeds of Telecel’s fund raising activities.
Telecel Zimbabwe has launched a new fund to in a move to comba cancer, through promoting greater awareness of the disease, its early diagnosis, research into its causes and effective treatment.
Handing over to the Cancer Association of Zimbabwe a donation from the company, Telecel Zimbabwe Human Resources and Administration head Findros Godzi announced that Telecel had become a corporate member of the association and had established a fund to assist members of staff suffering from cancer.
He also handed over donations to two Telecel staff members who are suffering from cancer.
While the donation to the Cancer Association of Zimbabwe came directly from Telecel, the donations to the two staff members came from fund-raising efforts by Telecel and its staff during the month of October, which was National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
As part of these fund raising efforts and in solidarity with those who are suffering or had suffered from breast cancer, Telecel staff members purchased and wore pink ribbons during the month of October. They also wore pink every Friday. Those who did not wear pink paid a fine, which went towards the fund raising efforts.
The Cancer Association of Zimbabwe also held workshops at Telecel Zimbabwe head office.
Towards the end of October, Telecel held a Fun Run to increase public awareness of cancer and raise funds for victims of cancer. The Fun Run began and ended at Sunrise Sports Club in Harare.
Presenting the donations to the Cancer Association and the two Telecel staff members suffering from cancer, Mr Godzi pointed out that, despite advances in its treatment, cancer remained a terrible disease.
“Even though great advances have been made in the treatment of cancer and probably more people than ever before are successfully treated for it nowadays, there remain types of cancer for which there is no effective treatment. Moreover the treatment itself is often unpleasant, frequently causing unpleasant side effects.
“Often cancer is detected at too late a stage to be treated effectively, which is why early detection is important,” he said.
He commended the Cancer Association for the work it was doing in promoting cancer awareness and awareness of the symptoms to look out for that might indicate the presence of cancer. The earlier the cancer is detected, the better the chances of treatment in most cases, he said.
He said the association did a good job too in providing support for those who are suffering from cancer and in conducting research into the causes, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure of the disease.
“Telecel believes the work that the Cancer Association of Zimbabwe does is important. We are happy to support the association and we have now become a corporate member of the association,” he said.
StartupBus Africa’s Sterio.me has announced a new partnership with Zimbabwe’s Higher Life Foundation making it the first startup from the batch to have real life commercial commitments.
Sterio.me will is set to partner with the institution for a pilot phase after the StartupBus trip. Founded by Zimbabwean businessman Strive Masiyiwa, Higher Life Foundation manages thousands of schools and has agreed to give Sterio.me access to its schools. in the country.
Speaking to TechMoran, Christopher Pruijsen, Sterio.me’s partnerships and marketing lead and co-founder of StartupBus Africa said, “We are therefore the first startup on the bus to have real life commercial commitments. We will be raising funds for the pilot phase and I will be moving from London to South Africa and Zimbabwe soon to pursue sterio.me full time.”
Launched after less than 72 hours of work, Sterio.Me engages young rural African learners through a simple, teacher-generated, pre-recorded and free phone-call to reinforce learning outside the classroom. The startup aims to end the difficulties of engaging learners out of the classroom and an even bigger difficulty tracking their performance especially in Africa.
According to the team, there are some solutions on the market using data, video streaming among others which offer open-source and free educational materials, however not all learners have access to a smartphone or even stable data connections required to consume content. Using only GSM voice signal for quick quiz delivery, Sterio.me is able to cover almost the entirety of the African continent with pre-recorded lessons and SMS quizzes.
“When a learner texts this code, an automated and free VOIP call from our servers to the learner is triggered,” said Chris. “This VOIP call is interactive, including multiple-choice answers and open-ended questions in the same way a call from your bank would work, but with the familiar voice of your teacher. The teachers receive real-time analytics on our platform, which saves them time on collecting results and marking. These analytics empower teachers to measure how their individual learners understand class content, as well as providing regional and national comparisons with other learners using the platform, allowing long-term tracking and measurable learning improvement.
The free for teachers and learners platform also has a marketplace for teachers to share their Sterio quizzes amongst each other and aim to work with local celebrity-created content to increase learner engagement in education and public information via Sterio.Me.
Sterio.me aim to monetize from both professional Sterio creation and strategic advertisements.
Chris grew up in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He is a former President of the Oxford Entrepreneurs and co-founded Startupbus Africa and FounderBus UK in addition to organising the April 2013 Startup Career Launchpad in London. He is a global advisory board member for the Kairos Society and has received numerous fellowships including World Economic Forum “Global Shaper” and membership in the Nexus Youth Summit community. He leads on partnerships and dabbles in marketing for Sterio.me
The other co-founder Danielle Reid, in charge of design and product, for Sterio.me grew up in Melbourne, Australia. She is also building Capsule.fm and product owner of the first showcase of Capsule.fm’s technology. Danielle is a member of Sandbox Network, being recognized for products such as Snapcat and is a mentor at Startupbootcamp Berlin. As designer for Sterio.me, she has worked on branding and front-end development.
Dean Rotherham, the third co-founder is in charge of product integration for Sterio.me. Dean was born in Johannesburg but now living in Cape Town and has a passion for making “stuff” do “things”
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara and Bollore Group President Vincent Bollore for the first time in Africa inaugurated Blue Solutions, the first autonomous electric bus line at the University Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Abidjan. The new means of transport that relies on 100 per cent electricity is expected to see the costs of fuel drop, reduce air pollution while it signifies advancement in technology, despite its high cost.
“It’s not the project cost, which amounted to 1.2 billion CFA francs (€1.8 million) entirely financed by the Bolloré Group, that is significant here but rather the confidence being shown in the Côte d’Ivoire by introducing at this point in time such advanced technology” noted Ouattara in an interview.
The launch of the new bus line comes at a time when the pump price for diesel fuel in Cote d’Ivoire was last reported at $1.30 USD according to a 2012 World Bank report. While means of transport including cars, trucks, buses, ships and trains account for 90 per cent of the cancer risk associated with air pollution, Blue Solutions claims to solve energy challenges facing Africa
Reports say health impacts from diesel pollution exposure, such as premature death, heart disease, asthma and bronchitis, recently cost at least $22 billion USD worldwide, not including impacts such as lost work and school days. Nevertheless, Bolloré Group has rolled out a seemingly innovative and reliable solution to develop clean transport services along with smart energy management through the development of a unique technology “LMP”, which, through its mobile and stationary applications is able to meet the major energy challenges.
Moreover, the Bolloré Group has chosen Côte d’Ivoire to inaugurate with great zeal some of Blue Solutions’ array of applications. The Group has offered the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Abidjan its first BlueBus network equipped with state of the art electric batteries. Also constructed within the university complex is a solar powered building fitted with these batteries and supplied exclusively by photovoltaic panels, say reports.
According to Vincent Bolloré , this new solution serves to ease trip-making throughout the campus. It combines the development of an electric bus network, with the installation of photovoltaic panels and the option of LMP batteries for storing solar energy.
This bus network, he says, will not only provide students and faculty with a higher-quality work environment, but also improves environmental protection by considerably limiting CO2 emissions – known to contribute to global warming.
For its African development efforts, Blue Solutions benefits from the Bolloré Africa Logistics Group, one of the continent’s most extensive integrated logistics network and leading operator of both port and rail public-private partnerships. As the new system of transport gains following, it is expected to travel to other parts of the continent, keen on witnessing advancement in technology while reducing fuel costs and air pollution.
Rocket Internet’s real estate online classifieds site, Lamudi is going live today in Tanzania in a move that will complete Lamudi’s expansion into East Africa. The Tanzanian site will join Lamudi Kenya, Lamudi Uganda and Lamudi Rwanda that were launched earlier this year. Lamudi is now present in 8 African countries and 14 countries globally.
Speaking to TechMoran Aneesa Arshad, CEO Lamudi East Africa said, “The size and growth of the real estate market in Tanzania is especially appealing for Lamudi which aims to be THE source of real estate information in Africa. “
There are currently a couple local classifieds sites, but none match the quality and reliability of Lamudi.
Going live with 250 properties, Lamudi Tanzania aims at signing up as many properties as possible by early 2014.
Launched this year, Lamudi is present in over in 12 countries including Algeria, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Tunisia and Uganda. Out of Africa, the portal is now live in Mexico, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Colombia .
The portal iams to be the go-to marketplace for property sellers, buyers, landlords and renters to be the ideal platform to find homes, land and commercial property online. Previously, Lamudi was called Vamido in Africa, Ubilista in Latin America, Zamudi and House in Asia.
Kenya’s top entertainment news site Ghafla has announced it will delete all the *nude photos it has in its database and won’t publish any such photo again in a u-turn move that has shocked many.
Known for its serial gossip on Nairobi’s entertainment scene and controversial photos of Kenya’s ‘celebrities’ and ‘socialites’ many of whom send in nude photos to court the site’s massive population of over 9.5 unsuspecting million youths monthly, Sam Majani said it was time to send new trends.
In a u-turn change of heart, as if struck by lighting Majani told TechMoran, “Yes, we are pulling down all those photos. We are the major entertainment site in the country and other bloggers look at us. We shall not publish any nude photos or run negative stories as long as they are not clean.”
To several readers, Ghafla’s huge traffic is due to the funny images and the controversial stories they post. To Majani, the traffic comes to them because they understand what their audience wants. Majani said the said that in all their stories published this year, nude photos are less than ten. His change of mind also has some other influences.
The site was begining to lose advertising deals from resposible corporate clients who felt by advertising on his site they were helping him endorse porn or immorality, CocaCola, (coke is my lunch companion) was one of them. Majani decided to take his frustration to his Facebook wall.
He posted “We lost Coca Cola cause of some socialite. Never again. No need to compromise our biggest clients for that.”
Ghafla’s situation is now so tricky. They will have to turn away this photos from some crappy socialites in town, turn off some of their readers who ravaged the site for such photos and are risking, as a crappy guy might take over their throne by opening a plan B for the socialites. However, at the end of the day, sane clients will come calling Mista Majani again. At the moment, the temptation is strong, his spirit is willing though but we want him to turn to images of cats instead like we did here and here.
Ghafla, first began as a RapGenius for Kenya, but slowly turned into entertainment news to fill in the gap that there was. News became so popular that even today the lyrics are the less viewed as the readers online turn to photos and videos but with the new found sanity, and the tyranny of numbers, the site will still reign.
The condom has been there for nearly five hundred years, and just like today, they have been used to prevent sexually transmited diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
“One of the oldest incontrovertible descriptions of a condom comes from 16th-century Italian physician Gabriele Falloppio, who lent his name to the Fallopian tube. Amidst a roaring syphilis epidemic, Falloppio recommended that men sheath their penises in specially treated linen, tied with ribbons. The doctor is said to have tested these linen condoms on 1,100 men, all of whom supposedly avoided contracting syphilis.”
However, Bill Gates wants to see something new. He has invested $100,000 into a team to develop the condom of the future. Through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill aims at making the condom awesome so as more people use it to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. The condom of the future will preserve or enhance pleasure and will be easier to use.
The foundation will see Benjamin Strutt and a team from Cambridge Design Partnership in the United Kingdom will design a male condom out of a composite material that will provide a universal fit and is designed to gently tighten during intercourse, enhancing sensation and reliability. While Willem van Rensburg of Kimbranox Ltd. in South Africa will test a condom applicator, the Rapidom, which is designed for easy, technique-free application of male condoms. Kimbranox will test an applicator designed to be applied with one motion, thereby minimizing interruption.
The new two are part of Bill and Melinda Gates’ Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) initiative which funds innovative ideas to tackle persistent global health and development problems. The winners were selected from 14 countries from over 2,700 proposals.
According to Chris Wilson, director of the Discovery & Translational Sciences team at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,“Grand Challenges Explorations is designed to foster the most innovative ideas to save the lives of the world’s poorest people. Although these five areas are very different, solving each one of these problems in new ways could make a huge impact.”
The foundation selected over 81 projects and each received $100,000 in funding to pursue its goal.
Others included;
1. Gisli Olafsson of NetHope Inc. in the U.S. will work to improve humanitarian information management in emergencies, such as after a natural disaster.
2. Wayan Vota of Development Gateway in the U.S. will combine data generated by citizens and governments into an interactive interface that can be easily accessed and used by average citizens to improve their communities in three Nairobi slums.
3. Mumbi Kimathi and a team from Farm Concern International in Kenya developing a mobile phone platforrm to promote farming-related trade between and around villages in rural Africa. Dubbed “e-Women Dial-up Initiative, the platform will be used for ordering and paying for farming-related materials, products, and services
4. Mustafa Ojonuba Jibrin from Nigeria working on a participatory reality TV show to promote the use of draught animals to help female farmers in Nigeria with plowing, ridging, and weeding.
5. Edwin Routledge from the UK, developing an artificial snail decoy to attract the parasite Schistosoma mansoni, which causes chronic disease, with the goal of reducing the numbers of humans who are infected.
6 .Judy Sakanari from the U.S. developing an inexpensive electromagnetic detection device to identify and diagnose parasitic worms to help infected patients get well faster.
7. Milosz Faber from the US developing a rabies vaccine that both protects dogs against rabies and reduces their population levels to control the incidence of human rabies. Human rabies causes 70,000 deaths annually and is mostly spread by dogs.
8. George Warimwe from UK’s University of Oxford developing a vaccine to protect a variety of species, including humans, sheep, and cattle, against Rift Valley fever, which can cause serious illness.
9. Abi Santhosh Aprem from India will continue work coating IUD devices with polymers to increase acceptance of this highly effective contraceptive device.
10. Olufunke Cofie from Ghana developing fortified fertilizer pellets from treated human excreta for market sale.
11. Andrew Shennan from UK, working on a new blood pressure monitor that uses solar power and requires little training to use. To field test in rural Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.
Get more info on grant awardees can be found here.
The world is slowly embracing the EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) and Juniper Research has released a new report saying that 249mn cards will be used for contactless payments next year.
The report, Contactless Payment Cards: Market Prospects 2013-2018, says that the growth in usage will primarily be driven by early adopter markets such as Australia, Canada, Poland and the UK. After which user growth will be heightened by significant use in the US following the mandated transition from magnetic-stripe cards.
Growth in the UK had been sustained by ticketing and retail usage, says the report.With more than 3.5 million London bus journeys paid for through contactless payment cards since November 2012.
It also highlighted the strong retailer proposition offered by contactless reduced cash handling and increased customer retention allied to an opportunity to use contactless as a mechanism for greater consumer engagement in the form of loyalty cards.
However, the report cautioned that despite recent deployments, contactless POS (Point Of Sale) terminals still accounted for a small minority of the total in nearly all markets, meaning that opportunities for usage were still severely constrained.
The report’s author, Dr Windsor Holdensaid: “‘We’re still at a comparatively early stage in the consumer contactless journey. Awareness of – and confidence in – the technology needs to increase substantially before we move to true mass adoption.”
Other findings suggests that Growth is being fuelled by increased contactless transaction limits in key markets where multiple contactless cards are presented in a wallet at a card reader, it is possible for the wrong card to be charged
Last year, Forrester research issued a report stating that the pay-per-use model of cloud computing, in a scenario where application load varies over time, would always be a clear cost winner. The report was clear on the benefits of the cloud and hosting services, but there was, however, a clear caveat attached – perceived concerns around security, performance and reliability has left some business and IT managers simply more comfortable using their own in-house IT, regardless of the benefits of the alternative.
It was clear from the research that IT remains resistant and in certain cases, entirely opposed, to the hosted model. In-house IT departments, particularly in volatile environments like call centers, are employed to keep the technology up and running at all times. Unfortunately, this need for consistency is not conducive to the changes that this industry constantly requires.
The so-called “era of the customer” has meant that the marketplace can change at the drop of a hat. Being flexible and able to meet their demands can mean the difference between excelling or failing. Every minute, and every demand, counts.
It’s easy to paint a scenario – an operations manager may require a change to the existing tech, such as the introduction of a Workforce management tool. The in-house IT department (that is often under-resourced and placed under strict budget constraints) would have to approach their vendor to receive a quote, and spend a few weeks going back and forth to get the right pricing, and then – if approved, implement the system at a great cost and great risk. If that system proves to be of little use, they would have wasted a significant investment.
Change, in this scenario, is detrimental.
On the other hand, if that same operations manager had spoken to a hosted provider, the system could have been implemented within a matter of hours. Once activated, the tool could have been tested and even discarded with ease, at a low cost.
Hosting does not simply give business managers the opportunity to access technology that they may not otherwise be able to afford or implement – it gives business the opportunity to experiment. It’s scalable, instantly available and requires no investment in hiring, training or upskilling IT staff. They can freely diversify, test new technologies, explore new markets – without a significant capex investment.
Similarly, when dealing with in-house staff, there are no implications for not delivering an adequate service. When dealing with a hosted provider, there are contracts, SLAs and a relationship whereby the provider is required to maintain certain service level requirements at all times.
Control is not lost when handed over to an out-of-house provider – it’s intensified. Even if a company has devoted years to improving their security measures, in most cases, they are unable to access and afford the systems that a hosted provider can through simple economies of scale.
It’s apparent that business and IT goals are misaligned – IT requires a stable environment, business requires constant change to remain competitive. Hosting should not be seen as a threat to the in-house department, but as a way to give both parties what they need. Businesses are able to explore new markets and technologies through their hosted provider and IT departments are given extra time and resources to do much more than simply avoid disruption.
Business and operations managers should not be held ransom to the in-house IT model – there are alternatives. Once they start exploring their options, and taking ownership of the technology in their call center, they will find themselves not only running a business that is more flexible but also a lot more competitive.
Winners of South Africa’s first national business idea competition, 2013 have been announced today. This competition was aimed precisely at inventors and innovators.
The competition, sponsored by Sasol and Technology Innovation Agency of the Department of Science and Technology, received nearly 400 entries from innovators all over the country.
Winners were of all categories from the farm to the salon products to ICT, to chemistry and many more. they included a spray to rapidly detach braids from natural hair, a cattle “breathalyzer” that can diagnose diseases and eliminate blood tests, and a South African “drone” used for aerial firefighting.
The champions will take home a total of R4.5 million, prizes and benefits like coaching, mentorship, cash, tablet devices and business support from the Small Enterprise Development Agency.
“This has turned out to be the ‘Idols of innovation’ in South Africa,” says Project Director Martin Feinstein,Traction. “There is enormous innovation talent out there, coming up with concepts that solve real-world problems and have great commercial potential. The programme will assist them to link up with investors, as well as receive mentorship and coaching.”
Traction has partnered with a range of venture capital funds and entrepreneur support organisations, as well as Microsoft, the Innovation Hub, the SA Innovation Network and others.
As the festive season draws close, Telecel Zimbabwe has launched an SMS bundle promo in a move to allow its pre-paid subscribers to purchase short message service (SMS) bundles to cut costs on all local text messages.
Suscribers can either choose a bundle of 25 text messages at 20 cents and valid for one day or a one dollar bundle to send 250 SMSs for a week. Also subscribers can choose a three dollar bundle to send 400SMSs valid for 30 days. The promotion will run until December 31.
“For those who enjoy sending text messages, the savings realised from purchasing any of the TelecelSMS bundles are significant,” Telecel marketing director Octivius Kahiya said.
“For instance 20 cents would, at the normal standard rate of nine cents per text message, only allow one to send two SMSs. However a 20 cents SMS bundle would allow one to send 25 text messages.
“A dollar would, at the standard rate, be enough for 11 text messages. A one dollar SMS bundle would allow one to send 250 text messages,” he said.
The biggest saving is with the three dollar bundle. The standard rate would allow 33 text messages to be sent for three dollars. The three dollar SMS bundle allows 400 messages to be sent. It is valid for 30 days.
Interested subscribers should dial *404#, to go the menu then select the bundles they want to purchase using their airtime. A subscriber can only buy bundle at a time. The SMSs purchased within a bundle are for both on-net and off-net use. This means subscribers will be able to send bundle messages to any mobile phone number in Zimbabwe. International SMSs will be charged at normal peak and off- peak rates.
Though users are turing to smartphones Mr Kahiya said the SMS is still a relevant and useful means of communication.
The App gap in all Windows Phone is expected to be eliminated in by the end of next year, says the head of Microsoft’s Windows Phone.
Well, waiting for a whole year to get an app that’s on android phone has is not worth the wait, but they have made an effort because so far the list has become smaller since the beginning of the Windows platform.
In a message on his twitter account, Windows Phone boss, Joe Belfiore wrote that they will “look back on the end of 2014 as the ending of the app-gap for Windows Phone.” He added grandly that “the 3rd ecosystem is decidedly here!”
The gap has closed markedly in recent weeks, and the launch of Instagram on the WP OS today filled a much sought after gap in the app marketplace.
South Africa’s Port Elizabeth police have launched an innovative product to keep communication going between them and the public. The service has been initially launched at Humewood Police Station in the City.
The SMS solution provided by Vox Telecom will ensure that service provision for the city residence is improved.
“A number of police stations in the Eastern Cape have been making use of a Vox Telecom SMS service for some time now, mainly for internal communications purposes,” says Andre Joubert of Vox Telecom.
“Humewood wanted to use the service as a two-way communication tool between the police and victims of crime or members of community in general.”
“If a victim, for example, is told that his or her case has been closed, they can respond back with a SMS message to object. Or, if a victim of a crime remembers more details or even spots the suspect, he can respond back with a SMS to the police station with the latest information,” Joubert explained.
“The SMS is not only immediately routed to a dedicated resource and appropriate investigating officer, detailed reports are also sent to the Brigadier who can review communications and detect problems with the resolution of cases or poor service. That way, the public knows that their case is being given full attention.”
In Kenya, Chief Kariuki is well known for using tweets in communicating with the society.
Nigeria’s ecommerce platform, JUMIA has revealed that gamers in Nigeria prefer the PlayStation over Xbox. Ore Odusanya, Head of Gaming & Electronics JUMIA Nigeria said the brand is more widely accepted in Nigeria than the Xbox and he added that the average Nigerian gamer would go for PlayStation.
He said: “PlayStation is more widely accepted and Nigerians are more open to playing PlayStation games generally. The new Xbox is not yet out officially so we can’t say much about it. But generally, the average Nigerian gamer would go for PlayStation over Xbox.”
On the PS4 that the company is debuting in Nigeria, he said it is more than an ordinary gaming device; according to him, it is a complete entertainment system that has more improvements over the PS3.
“First is connectivity. PS3 only had Wi-Fi, but for the PS4 it has Bluetooth so you can connect it to iPhone, iPad and android devices. Another good thing about PS4 is sharing. You can share songs, games, and others. You can also download games on it which the PS3 didn’t have. It comes with a larger memory.
“You can place it sideways, better graphics and has an internal processor. It is a better gaming system and it’s not just for playing games, you can store all your movies, songs and others. So I will say it is a complete entertainment system and not just a gaming system,” Odusanya said.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) is set to launch U-Mall, its partnership project with Netplus Advisory in other African nations in which the bank is operating. This was revealed by Wole Faroun, managing director of Netplus Advisory in an exclusive chat.
He said the bank is the party that is “leading the thinking”. According to him, when the project goes live in other African nations, it would contribute significantly to the growth of businesses.
“Our vision for U-Mall is for it to become a big ecommerce solution that helps thousands of Nigerian business and indeed African businesses grow their businesses using the online channels,” he said. He added: “We are certain that we will have U-Mall implemented in other African countries where UBA currently operates.”
On the choice of UBA as partner for the U-Mall project, he said it is bank that is innovative in ecommerce.
“They are a leading bank and they have shown innovation in e-business and e-payment solutions so it was an easy decision,” Faroun said.
He said the number of companies on the platform is increasing and the companies are from various categories. Before a business is allowed on the platform, he said certain verification procedures are undertaken.
He said: “We got over 100 businesses in the first week of launch. It’s been increasing ever since – but because of KYC involved, it takes time for the actual site to be made available to customers. The bank needs to do verification of the businesses.
It depends on the business. It’s faster for current account holders because the bank already knows them. For new acct holders it could take a couple of weeks.”
Francis pitching at Venture Out Challenge 2013 held in Moldavia
Francis Onwumere is the business and product developer for Prowork Collaborative Product Management, one of Africa’s startups that participated in the 2013 VentureOut Challenge. In this interview, the developer spoke on how startups need to prepare for pitches, lessons learnt from 2013 VentureOut Challenge, and Prowork’s expansion plan for Africa.
Briefly talk about how Prowork came into existence
Prowork is collaborative project management solution for business. We observed that many businesses were losing productivity and money as a result of improvising their project management. Typically, project activities were scattered across different improvised media like email, SMS, Skype, etc. To keeping track was a lot of work. Now even when some companies paid a lot to license traditional project management software, adoption was very low across teams.
What solutions are you offering specifically?
We designed Prowork to be a unified platform for project management and collaboration. We made it easy to use, mobile and ubiquitous. Prowork is real time and available on mobile, web, API and SMS for offline scenario.
Prowork comes with full task management features; like scheduling, delegation, and workflow. Prowork also provides business insights like team performance tracking, reporting and predicting project risks.
We have a flexible billing system that fits different business sizes from small, medium to the enterprise.
How has the response been so far?
The response has been emphatic. We are growing very fast and we are working to keep conversion at par. Prowork has Over 10,000 users and a growing number of paying companies from mostly emerging markets.
Our target market is currently Africa, even though we still get subscriptions from all over the world, as can happen with cloud based software as a service (SaaS) platforms.
What was on your mind as you embarked on the journey?
Venture Out Challenge consisted of two parts, the internationalization workshop (3 days) and the Pitch sessions (3 hours).
Each Pitch (5 minutes) was interesting, unfortunately we didn’t win the prize for Africa.
The workshop was very engaging and with a lot of quality content squeezed in the 3 days, hardly any time for a breather.
Facilitating were:
Entrepreneurs who had successfully take their startup global (Amir Hasson of Oxigen, Phillip Kandal of Skobbler, etc)
Business model and entrepreneurship university faculty (Prof. David Kirsch of University of Maryland)
Investment legal counsel from silicon valley (Augie Rakow)
InfoDev and CRDF Global Facilitators
The workshop had a lot of practical take home, and a lot of value from interacting with entrepreneurs from across the world
Which skill set is essential for developers at such challenge?
I believe you have to think more of the business. According to Steve Blank – “a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model“. Venture Out is about scaling your business model, so you need to have some understanding and practice of the lean startup approach and the business model canvas
How did you prepare your pitch?
Each startup was assigned three mentors. Prowork had the help of Mobola Onibonoje of Alitheia Capital in Lagos, Saadiq Rogers-King formerly co-founder HotPotato and Nodejitsu in Silicon Valley, and during the event, Augie Rakow of Orrick Partners- a law firm that has many years of experience helping startups close investment deals.
The mentors, amongst many other things, listened to our pitch and helped us refine it.
How will it change how you run Prowork?
Luckily we had three days of Venture Out workshop with Professor David Kirsch, of the University of Maryland Business School, who has helped many startups adopt the lean startup model to scale their business.
At Prowork, we will be applying the lean startup learnings from this event, especially in the area of customer development.
Tech and business aside, how will you describe the challenge in terms of fun, and did you get to go round the city?
Moldova is a beautiful country.
Walking is very pleasant as there’s a lot of history and scenery. If you go to Moldova make sure you visit Milestii Mici, http://www.milestii-mici.md/en, one of the biggest wineries in the world.
Did you get any support from the Nigerian government?
Prowork is part of an accelerator programme, Tech Launch Pad, created by the Ministry of Communication and Technology of the Nigerian government, so we get a lot of support from them.
What should we expect from Prowork soon?
Better customer development, stay tuned.
You didn’t win the challenge. What do you think you could have done differently?
Pitching your startup is about communicating different aspects of your business model. We can always improve there.
Are you considering other challenges?
We are always focused on the business. If we find an opportunity like Venture Out to improve the business, we’ll take it.
Cape Town basedThundafund.com, an online crowdfunding platform, which has raised over R400 000 to fund 20 projects since June, will host an official launch at the Cape Quarter in Green Point, Cape Town on Thursday, November 28.
Since going live in June 2013, the platform has already raised over R400,000 for 20 projects and is driving crowdfunding in South Africa and its focus is on the funding of creative and innovative ventures.Thundafund is expecting that total to grow to as much R1 million over the next three months.
Thundafund’s three year goal, based on extensive global and local research and the sites development, is to have 3400 projects funded, R173 million raised and 10 000 jobs created.
According to Thundafund co-founder Patrick Schofield, “Crowdfunding has the potential to play a significant role in new enterprise development in South Africa and Africa. Thundafund.com is and will be at the leading edge of this wave.”
Crowdfunding has become a global force in funding new business ventures by leveraging the power of social media platforms to create start-up capital. Global funding collected through crowdfunding is expected to reach R50billion this year. Crowdfunding targets range from as little as R5000, up to the mega targets of over R100 million.
StartupBus Africa’s Benedikt Wahler, Maria Paskuda and Clinton Mutambo are working on GreenBack, a revolutionary solution expected to light up homes across Africa
In a statement to TechMoran Mutambo said the GreenBack Initiative, now at Starupbus Africa will mobilize the support a worldwide community of supporters to light up Africa and help African families pave their way to a greener future.
“Today, Sub-Saharan Africa is still the most energy deprived continent. Of 830mn people living there, only 29% have access to electricity,” said Mutambo.
“In rural areas that drops to a sad 12%. Some 115mn households are left only …with dirty sources of energy and light. And they are expensive: $ 10 per month go to kerosene lamps, candles and the like. A whopping $ 13.8bn, every year! This is where the GreenBack Initiative comes in.”
The team is building an app-powered points scheme that let’s one raise funds and pay for clean, solar energy for African families.
Everytime one purchases at participating sponsors, everytime one checks-in into the app and see an ad, and everytime one donates money or the rewards they have earned at loyalty programs, GreenBack points go to prepurchase energy units for African families.
Users can contribute what they can, where and when they can and in return give back to their communities.
This year’s edition of the annual Techie Entrepreneurial Nigerian Talented (TENT) is set to hold in Nigeria’s commercial capital city of Lagos.
