Over three billion people  world use open fires or wood charcoal for cooking producing black soot and toxic gases, leading to the premature death of 4 million persons yearly. That has lead to Emerging Cooking Solutions to design a state of the art cooking appliance that is gaining a following in Zambian households.

Emerging Cooking Solutions (ECS) humbly began in 2010 with 40 households, but now boasts of having the capacity to produce clean, renewable cooking fuel for thousands of households, as it works with customers such as Copperbelt Energy Corporation, First Quantum Minerals, Sandvik and SKF inspired to see an end to deforestation in Africa and and put a stop to the health hazards associated with smoky cooking.

Yet, a number of companies and non-governmental aid-organizations have focused on distributing clean cook stoves in developing countries. The introduction of modern solid-fuel stoves is one of the quickest ways to improve health and living conditions. But unique about this new design is by pelletizing unwanted agro- and forestry waste to upgrade a nuisance to a 100% renewable bio-fuel  –  and sell it cheaper than the competing unsustainable alternative – Charcoal, in turn reducing the effects of greenhouse gases and global warming.

Some six tons of virgin forest is destroyed when making one ton of charcoal. This can be replaced by less than 500 kg of pellets made from rice- or wheat husks, straw, peanut-shells, saw-dust or maize husks, concur innovators.

Yet, the Charcoal market in Zambia is worth more than USD 100 milion with very little or no tax-revenue generated for the country. A shift to regulated, sustainable and healthy cooking fuels will not only help save the forests and improve health, it will also create tax revenue for the continents continued development.

Gaining a following, a few individuals have shown an interest in the new life saving cookware. “We were recently given time at the end of church service at St Matthews Church in Lusaka to show our cooking solution. 600 people were amazed at this innovation that can help improve their lives,” said Mattias, “We also met with one of the church’s women’s groups the day before. About 20 out of 40 women signed up right away to purchase the stove, which will be paid in installments.”

Moreover, the organisation has recently received a confirmed order from one of the major micro financing institutes in Zambia, zealous about spreading the word on the new life saving cookware.

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation with over 166 million people and for any nation looking for human resource and a market for itts products, this huge population plays the answer, however according to the World Bank over 22 percent of this population is unemployed and even worse, the youth unemployment rate stands at 38 per cent.

Unemployment aside, World Bank added that between 12 per cent 15 per cent of the youth drop out of school despite Universal Basic Education (UBEC), adding that 16 per cent of the youth, some over 10 million persons, had never attended school.

However there is good news.

Microsoft and the The Future Project, a development initiative founded by the Nigerian youth engagement company Red Media Africa, have today launched  ‘Aiki Nigeria’, a new youth employment programme to help young Nigerians get the skills to set up their own businesses or get jobs.

According to Ugochukwu Nwosu, Citizenship Manager at Microsoft for Anglophone West Africa,“Microsoft takes its citizenship engagement as primary to its work. In working with organisations, technology enthusiasts and governments at every level, we have emphasised the crucial importance of jobs for a new generation of Nigerians. This program is a major step in leading a coordinated solution to this urgent problem.”

Aiki Nigeria has been develped closely with employers to ensure ti offers employability requirements and later, the youths can take up job openings in this firms or be matched to other firms.

Aiki Nigeria has also launched a free online skills portal and career’s advice service, aiki.ng, to reach those in rural areas. Aiki has been designed to give secondary and tertiary school students with detailed information on how to start a business, job opportunities and accessibility, career tips, capacity building and networking.

Yung Nigerians also access training sessions and courses on personal development, consulting, entrepreneurship and project management, and offers one-on-one tailored advice from personal mentors from different occupational fields and mock interviews.

Chude Jideonwo, Executive Director of The Future Project and co-founder of Red Media Africa, said,”It is our ambition that through the new Aiki Nigeria programme we can help all young Nigerians, no matter where they are, to develop the skills they need to achieve their full potential.”

Launched five years ago, the Future Project invests in enterprise and expanding opportunities for young people. The enterprise support scheme aims to work with Microsoft to better build a community of talented job seekers and help match them to job opportunities and solve unemployment and related evils.

Digital imaging and printing solutions firm Epson will on November 26 sposnor the inaugural edition of Kenya Photography Awards in a bid to honour those who have contributed significantly to the growth and development of photography in Kenya.

The awards ceremoney will see the overall winner walk home with a Stylus Photo 1410  A3+ printer while  all photographers will print their photos from Stylus photo R2000 and L800 printers which Epson will avail at the venue.

The awards  launched in September were organized by the Photographers Association of Kenya together and PAWA 254, a social enterprise through which innovative professionals from diverse artistic fields exploit their creative genius to foster social change.

Mukesh Bector, Regional Sales Manager for East Africa in a statement issued this morning said, “As the Kenya photography awards present a platform for photographers to showcase their exemplary work to the world, Epson is dedicated in ensuring that this work is presented in high quality by the near dedicated Epson photo printers.”

With Claria Ultra High Definition Photographic ink, the Stylus Photo 1410 assures of bright, vivid images which are resistant to fading, have smooth tonal gradation and fine detail. These make it to be one of the most valuable assets for the digital photographer. Other features of this printer include direct printing from a camera, CD/DVD printing, 6 individual ink cartridges and ink droplets as small as 1.5 picolitres due to the MicroPiezo print head.

On its part, the Stylus photo R2000’s eight-colour ink set takes advantage of Epson’s high-gloss encapsulated pigments including a gloss optimizer. The printer automatically selects Photo or Matte black ink for the best results on glossy, matte or fine art media.

The Nigerian Communication Satellite Limited (NigComSat) is set to provide tele-medicine services to improve healthcare delivery in the country.

Tele-medicine is the use of telecommunication and information technologies in order to provide clinical healthcare at a distance. It will close the distance gap between health care providers and the public, especially in the rural areas.

The firm said that any medical assistance can be accessed even outside the country and will equally assist medical experts to do cross consultation among themselves without having to travel out of their location,” it said.

On e-banking, the publication affirmed the confidence the organization has on that the telemedicine concept.

The satellite is believed to create a world of difference in the banking industry with will create more seamless services in the country, as it will make it easier and effeicent banking services for the citizens of Nigeria.

“Online banking services are going to become a common place in Nigeria because the launching of the satellite will provide the much needed capacity to ensure a highly reliable online banking system. It will also save the country millions of dollars being transferred out of the country as fees for leasing huge capacity from other international operators. `We can proudly say that we are self-sufficient in that aspect in our country,” said NegComSat.

Google’s App store has grown significantly and financial analyst, Citygroup’s Mark May, has predicted that the search engine giant will harvest $1.3 this year.

The analysis say that in this year there will be just over 900 million Android devices, and even though that Android consumers spend less on apps than their Apple counterparts (as believed), he still expects the average revenue per user to be about $4.59.

This collectively results to total revenues for Google Play of $4.2 billion, of which Google takes a 30 percent share which is about $1.3 billion, before its own hosting/management costs.

Mark further estimates that in the next four years, Google Play revenues will reach at least $17 billion, resulting in Google taking a slice of $5.2 billion from the sale of mobile apps.

Adding in the revenue from mobile advertising, then Google’s Android investment will pull in at least $7 billion a year by 2017.

Computer Warehouse Group (CWG) and MTN Nigeria have come together in pursuit of making payment easier for the citizens of the country; the two parties have unveiled the M-Commerce which is in conjuction with MTN XaaS platform.

This comes after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed concern over improving the country’s payment systems as well as the service industry, through mobile payment systems.

The Pan African ICT Company, CWG, said that it has seen the growth potential in the payment solutions space in the banking and finance sector in the country.

MTN’s XaaS platform, powered by CWG technology,  is a solution made for Microfinance, Savings and Loans, Cooperative and other small scale financial institution and is showing strong penetration in Nigeria market.

CWG partnership with MTN is to jointly create a business model that will set new paradigms for mobile commerce.

MTN XaaS, the mobile commerce and MFB platform with CWG Digital Commerce at its core will enable millions of ‘bank and mobile network customers’ to make cashless payments and settlements through their mobile phones.

The platform also empowers banks and Mobile Money operators to roll out innovative mobile financial services to their numerous customers via mobile telephony, one of which is the just launched MTN Yellow Diamond Account, which offers the 55 million MTN subscribers with the opportunity of financial inclusiveness.

Nigeria’s online ecommerce platform, JUMIA has become the first ecommerce site in Nigeria to launch Playstation Console PS4. In a statement issued this morning, the company said being the first platform to offer its users PS4 shows its commitment towards enhancing best shopping experience.

“JUMIA continues to bring the best shopping experience to their customers in Nigeria by being the first company to offer PlayStation 4. The long awaited game console was released in USA on Tuesday selling out in 24 hours. Now the new PS4 is available on the Nigerian market with customers being able to start ordering and have it delivered anywhere in the country,” JUMIA said in a statement.

To celebrate the launch, the company said it is organizing a gaming competition at the Nigerian Comic Con 2013.

“The gaming tournament is in partnership with Nigerian Gaming Network and Nigerian Comic Con where JUMIA customers will play series of PS4 games. The grand prize is a new PS4 Console along with new games,” JUMIA said.

Ore Odusanya, Head Of Gaming & Electronics JUMIA Nigeria, expressed the company’s excitement with being the first to offer PS4.

“We are very excited to be the first company to have the latest PlayStation console available in Nigeria. Every day we strive to make the online shopping experience better for our customers and we are happy to now provide a requested world known product on the Nigerian market,” Odusanya said.

The long awaited game console was released in USA on Tuesday and it sold out within 24 hours.

“Sony packaged the new PlayStation 4 with the latest Sony operating system ‘Orbis S’ along with other key features such as PlayStation Plus which connects all players online, Dual shock 4 wireless controller, and PlayStation motion sensing camera with 1280x800px lense making the new console one of the best to be seen in the gaming world,” JUMIA said.

Vytas Paukstys, the chief executive officer of Eskimi has revealed that mobile money users on the platform are nine times more active than other categories of users. In an exclusive interview, Vytas said despite the high rate of activity among mobile money users, there is shortage of services. This he said is responsible for the low number of active users.

“The users are about nine times more active than those acquired through traditional means like outdoor, radio or TV,” he said. He added: “There are not enough services, so the overall number of active users is still small.”

He said the nation’s second leading social media platform currently allows users to purchase airtime and perform mobile money transactions.

“They mainly buy airtime, send money to other mobile money accounts and bank accounts,” he said.

Concerning m-commerce in Nigeria, he said it is not yet fully explored in Nigeria and his company cannot do much about championing it since it is not a mobile money service provider.

He said: “This is not exactly our business to do that. We developed a great tool to educate, acquire and retain users on mobile money. This is our primary goal.”

However, he said Eskimi has been in talk with the various mobile money service providers in Nigeria for the past two years and some of them are already on the platform.

As we mark the International Children’s Day today on 20 November 2013, scientists from Missouri are promising a brighter future for ill children in hospitals in years to come, as they have discovered new technology using DNA sequencing and analysis that could cut down infant mortality rates.

Scientists for the next five years, from the Children’s Mercy will be analyzing the genomes of about 1,000 of babies born with disorders to fully understand the benefits of two-day genomic diagnosis, following a $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to carry out research on the outcomes of using rapid genomic sequencing on newborns with disorders.

This technology that uses rapid DNA sequencing and analysis is able to identify genetic mutation that keeps babies from developing properly in addition to analyzing critically ill infants’ genomes using fast whole genome analysis treatment.  in last year September the National institutes of Health offered a grant of $18.7 million USD for research projects to improve human gene sequencing.

Reports indicate that the hospital team identified the cause of one infant’s problems that involved a genetic disorder that is treatable with intensive treatment that includes nutritional support that would in turn stimulate her cells mitochondria while ruling out other progressive and fatal conditions. The genomic diagnosis helped shape her clinical care giving advice on what nutritional supplements the she was to take.

As the gene tests and genome analyses take weeks, the hospital claims to use more efficient tech tools that can quickly identify potentially medically relevant variation in a patient’s three billion base pairs of DNA.

Yet, many countries have experienced high infant mortality rates. But this new procedure would see the death rates dwindle further, especially in Africa and Asia, not just the USA.  There has been progress in reducing infant mortality rates in urban areas of Africa, Americas and Asia. The urban poorest that makes four fifths of Africa’s population has on average witnessed a decrease in infant mortality rate from 99 per 1000 live births in the 1990s to 70 per 1000 live births in 2000-2007. While in Asia, the poorest four fifths in urban areas have experienced a fall in infant mortality rates from 81 to 51 per 1000 live births between 1990s and 2000-2007, on average says a WHO report.

When it comes to applying the genome technology, the challenge however lies in the fact that few people worldwide have had whole genome sequencing, scientists in need of millions of patients especially infants with various conditions before knowing what the whole human genome sequences are needed, say.

In all, a robust “bioinformatics infrastructure” that includes computing power and high level expertise will be key for labs that are interested in running the next generation sequencing of DNA, say reports.

Kenya’s Bidco Group, a market leader in edible oils, fats, soaps, margarine and detergents in East and Central Africa, has decided to move from its existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) legacy to SAP.  

The company today showcased the benefits derived from implementing SAP (and other technologies such as Microsoft and IBM) across the organization at its headquarters.

Vimal Shah, CEO, BIDCO, said: “We have reaped plentiful benefits by being at the forefront of adapting newer technologies to assist in our manufacturing and marketing endeavors.  Our IT initiative has helped Bidco being real time online to reduce waste (MUDA) from the business processes and make it very efficient. We have created consistent and transparent availability of information across the organization for on-line reporting at various levels. Integration with other technology helps automate the processes to increase productivity of the employees. Knowledge transfer is the key for the employee to resolves their day-to-day operation making each of them a knowledge worker.”

“Bidco is a good example and role model of local enterprise obtaining value by implementing SAP in 90 days. They were the first and the fastest to accomplish this momentous task. They have proved beyond doubt that African companies have come of age and that it is possible for African companies to walk shoulder to shoulder with the best of enterprises across the world and be World Class,” said Michael Kaniu, head Ecosystems & Channels, SAP, East Africa.

 Bidco’s CEO added that SAP has enabled them to improve of customer satisfaction, human resource efficiency as well as supply chain management.

Governments of Africa should listen to this, if they apply eGovernance in their services they will be able to save $50 billion annually by 2020; says the global research from the Secure Identity Alliance.

The report reveals the role of trusted digital identity in enabling effective and secure eService deployment.

 “Whether we’re logging into eServices to perform healthcare claims, to vote or sign a digital transaction, pay taxes, book or buy goods or services, our digital identity will be absolutely central in the years to come. Convenience, privacy protection and security are therefore of paramount importance for trust in modern and efficient electronic government services. And as we move further towards 2020 the role of digital identity intensifies as the cost savings mount up,” said Frédéric Trojani, Chairman of the Board of the Alliance.

The prominence of the egovernance services as the researchers put it, is entirely dependant on the development of a trust framework which will combine governance, standards, business processes and technical capabilities.

“While it’s true we’ll see multiple identities from multiple providers, the root identity – the one trusted digital identity upon which all are based – starts with Government. Strategies must be put in place now to assure those processes are robust and trusted by the citizens. The Secure Identity Alliance shall be the reference partner for Governments looking to offer cutting-edge technology in e-documents and e-services to their citizens”, adds the Chairman.