The Laptop project in Kenya will not start in the time it was allocated as the government of Kenya has cancelled the projects tender for schools.

They say that the reason behind it is that there is a budget deficit as the bidders made quotes that exceed the budgetary projections.

Prof. Jacob Kaimenyi, the Education Cabinet Secretary,  said that the tender process was cancelled because the government had budgeted for Ksh 2 billion whereas the lowest bidder has a quote of Ksh 32 billion.

The project in itself is esteemed to cost a total of Ksh 50 billion which is targeting more than 1.3 million pupils in public primary schools and is said to include training of the teachers as well as electricity connection to various primary schools.

The project that is set to start next year, the government says, will have 425,000 pupils who will benefit  from this ICT venture.

The Cabinet Secretary emphasized that the government will work hard to ensure the gadgets are delivered to schools in the first quarter of 2014, adding that his Ministry would go into consultations with other sectors of the government to see how to achieve this.

The Laptop Project was the core promise in the Jubilee manifesto during the campaigns and the president has so far insisted that it will deliver the promise to provide free laptops to standard one pupils in the country.

So does this mean they made a budget before consulting or could it be the taxing that has affected the pricing, but one thing is for sure Kenyans are watching if this key promise will be fulfilled or not as there were so many mixed reactions on the delivery of the laptops.

Interdist Alliances, a Platinum level member in Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) and Value Added Distributor, has today unveiled a Oracle Partner HUB in Kenya.

The Hub will be located at Interdist Alliances’ offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and being run on Oracle’s behalf by Interdist Alliances. The Oracle Partner HUB provides a broad collection of services to drive the growth of partner organizations and their business.

“Our commitment as a value added distributor is to help partners find new opportunities and to provide the enablement necessary to support them; the Oracle Partner HUB presents an ideal way to deliver this value. We are very proud to be an Oracle distributor and to be able to execute a shared vision of a more accessible brand and competence within the Kenyan context”, Kristian Tierney, General Manager, Interdist Alliances.

The concept of an Oracle Partner Hub combines Oracle’s technical knowledge, professional services and marketing support to help ensure the best possible support for partners.

Oracle Partner HUB integrates Oracle Studio, a contemporary and professional meeting place where you can demonstrate business solutions, meet other professionals and hold networking events.

It also has the Oracle Academy which offers specialist training in Oracle software, hardware and engineered systems at discounted rates

The Hub will also have an  Oracle ISV Migration Center which provides technical support for migration to Oracle software, in one location.

“We are delighted to be working with Interdist Alliances to bring global best practices and business value to our partners in Kenya through the Oracle Partner HUB. Today’s launch reinforces our commitment to helping our partners drive value, become more efficient and knowledgeable and remain competitive,” Janusz Naklicki, Vice President Alliances and Channels, Oracle Eastern & Central Europe, Middle East & Africa.

Oracle in partnership with the Ministry of Education have introduced ICT training to Kenyan primary school teachers.

The teachers, from primary and secondary schools and staff of the Ministry of Education were introduced to a 5 day Java Fundamentals course for Kenya Master ICT teachers.

“This training could not have come at a better time with the roll out of ICT integration in K12  schools in Kenya. The course is relevant and timely for our teachers in the integration of technology,” said John Temba, Directorate of Education, Ministry of Education, Kenya.

They were also introduced to the Oracle Academy Java Fundamentals curriculum which includes instruction in Java programming using the Alice and Greenfoot Integrated Development Environments.

In the first phase of the roll out of the Oracle Academy curriculum the participating teachers will take the Getting Started with Alice lessons into the classroom for their students, before introducing Greenfoot as a learning concept.

“There is a need for ICT skills and development in Kenya in order to equip the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders. It’s exciting to see the commitment of the Ministry of Education to support and drive ICT skills into schools through providing valuable, hands on training to the teachers.  By introducing students at an early age to the world of technology, it opens up endless possibilities for technological innovation and economic growth.  Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student’s first exposure to object-oriented programming. We are pleased to support this innovative programme that will allow our children from an early age to interact with technology, be innovative, and to create animated movies and video games.”  Gilbert Saggia, Country Director, Oracle Kenya.

This is a good step taken in training teachers, but now that the laptop tender has been cancelled until further notice, will this learning be all for granted and we know that technology keeps evolving what it in today is out tomorrow. We truly hope that our children’s digital dream will not be killed.

Kenya has retained its position as the Chair of the Council of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO), as it has been re-elected during the just-concluded 53^rd session of the CTO Council held in Abuja, Nigeria. It first took this responsibility in 2012 during the 52^nd session of the CTO Council.

The other countries that retained their responsibility include Nigeria and Trinidad and Tobago as they retained the 1st vice chair and 2nd vice chair of the CTO council position, respectively.

Telkom South Africa and the Telecommunications Regulatory Board of Cameroon were elected to the CTO’s Executive Committee to represent the interests of industry partners and development partners, respectively.

The Council oversees the strategic leadership and guidance and gives the mandate to the CEO and management team of CTO on implementation of the strategic plan, business plan and operational budget.  The Chairperson of the executive council presides over Governing Council meetings.

The 53^rd session of the CTO Council meeting was attended by 20 Commonwealth countries.  Communications Commission of Kenya is the designated Government representative to the CTO.

Hawala, the unregulated and traditional Somali transfer that works with a network of agents is allegedly funding the transfer of fire arms from somali to Kenya.

A broker in Garissa, North of Kenya named Husein Aden said that weapons are being transfers without having to move them physically just like money is transferred.

This is how it works, a client pays a broker the money they wish to transfer, the broker then calls his counterpart at the transfer destination authorizing the payment. On the delivery side,the broker pays the recipients with his own money while charging a two percent commission.

“Hawala money is getting into the pockets of Al-Shabaab, we need an immediate crackdown on hawala brokers and we need to use Somalis who are against terrorists to smoke out this network of traders.”  said Yusuf Muhamed, a high-ranking police officer

Ibrahim Ahmed from local NGO Northern Kenya Caucus said that weapons are shipped from Russia and Ukraine to Somalia and find there way to East Africa through the porous border between Southern Somalia which holds the Al-Shabaab.

It is believed that the militia group uses the hawal transfer  service to buy the smuggled weapons for their counterparts in Kenya as well as other parts of East Africa.

A person in Somali will give their local broker the weapons they wanted transferred and a broker in Nairobi would give the weapons they have in possession to the recipient, the original weapons will not have moved.

Francis Mugatha, an immigration official at the Kenya-Somali border, said: ” hawala was being exploited, particularly in the trade of weapons. The gun business is thriving in areas such as Nairobi’s Eastleigh suburb. They continue to use a network of ‘hawaladars’ to fund their operations, such as paying for Al-Shabaab trainees. Further, this is how Somali militia groups in North Eastern Province are being financed.”

This transfer system is under investigation in Kenya as it is believed that the Al-Shabaab where using the system together with unregistared SIM cards that could have helped in the recent attack at the Westgate shopping mall.

“Cracking down on unregistered SIM cards is only addressing the communication part, but we need to hurt the terrorists by blocking routes where their money moves. At this time in the country, it is very dangerous to have money moving around unregulated,” said Yusuf Muhamed, a high-ranking police officer.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) outlawed the use of hawala in April by releasing guidelines that required operators of cash-sending firms to register with the bank and pay a Ksh.5 million ($ 58,800) for a license. Operators also have to maintain a minimum capital of Ksh.20 million ($235,300).

“Hawala money is getting into the pockets of Al-Shabaab, we need an immediate crackdown on hawala brokers and we need to use Somalis who are against terrorists to smoke out this network of traders, the same way Somalis assisted in driving out Al-Shabaab out of southern Somalia,” Muhamed said.

The main problem in the transfer service is that it is not registered and not the service, which it should be just like the mobile money transfer system.

The service was expected to shut down on Oct 16 as Barclays bank announced that it would no longer provide services to hawala due to their likelihood to buy world’s best air rifles using the cash. Kenya’s Ministry of Finance suspects that the money transferred through this service comes to about $70 million monthly, but have no records to prove this.

Having limited baking services, M-Pesa does not work let alone other mobile money transfer services leads to this being the only mode of transfer, even Aid agencies including United Nations. So from that reason we cannot entirely put it off.

South Africa’s Network Platforms has today launched a new fibre product to augment their existing offerings in the fibre to the business space geared to compete with ADSL services in the market.

According to Warwick Ward-Cox, MD of Network Platforms,“There are inherent weaknesses with ADSL that some businesses want to avoid; Best Effort Service, asynchronous connectivity, higher latency as well as not having a fixed public IP are some of the hurdles for businesses to overcome. Our Fibre products offer low latency, synchronous connections, on an SLA with fixed public IP’s.”

Therefore the launch of the 5 Mbps fibre connection for under R4,000,  10 Mbps for under R10,000 and other packages are available up to 100 Mbps is expected to lower the barrier to entry for companies wanting a fibre service.

The second single biggest hurdle is the time to service and cost of installation. Network Platforms is targeting specific areas to make sure that they can deliver the service within 4 weeks in most cases at a setup fee of around R7,500. This trumps a 4-8 month waiting for service with a relatively high installation cost using other network providers.

The firm is already delivering to Sunninghill, Linbro Park, Rivonia, Bryanston, Fourways, Woodmead, Rosebank and Randburg. The firm added that other business parks are also available and more are being added to the network monthly.

Network Platforms have collaborated with certain Fibre providers to be able to deliver this service. Together with this infrastructure, Network Platforms has built a well-priced, low contention breakout for these SME’s. Dedicated bandwidth is also available on this service.

The 5 Mbps service comes with a generous allocation of data, while a cost will be applied to usage thereafter. The larger packages have larger data allocations in line with their line speeds.

Network Platforms offers a premium 1:1 uncontended and a contended service depending on the client’s requirement with local and international access. Our international routers have full failover as we utilise SAT3, WACS, Seacom and Easy. SAFE will be added in the near future offering much lower latency to the Asia/Pacific region.

Previously, Service Providers could only provide these priced services on inferior bandwidth but we’ve worked hard at being able to deliver a superior quality and service at these price points.

In Kenya, Wi-Fi connection first crept into expats’ homes and offices. Then, last year from the start of October, it became possible for businessmen to eatout at five star joints while enjoying free Wi-Fi connection thanks to an initiative EatOut Kenya, Google and Wazi WiFi had just rolled out. Today – a year later, matatus have joined the trend drawing the common mwananchi to their public means of transport with the help of Wi-Fi stickers and connections.

In the drive to assist developing countries to fuel the growth of internet infrastructure in diverse regions, the University of the Gambia Technology Association in collaboration with the Network Startup Resource Centre at the University of Oregon US have made the first step in donating networking books to the university’s ICT School.

October 22^nd it the date to mark, that is if you are a gadget and technology fan, as Apple is set in unveiling the new iPad as well as other Mac offering.

The grapevine says that the new device will be lighter and thinner than the predecessor. The specs of the tablet expected is said to have an improved camera and will use Apple’s new 64-bit A7 chip, which can also be found in the iPhone 5s.

The device is said to have the Retina Display and powered by the A7 chip, well, now that it will use some of the features that the iPhone 5s has, it is yet to be established if the device will have the Touch ID fingerprint sensor which is on the iPhone.

Whether the tablet will be the iPhone 5s in a bigger size or has new features that surpass the current iPad is yet to seen and criticized, lets leave all this for 22^nd October.

CAF together with SPORTFIVE Africa have come together to bring the lovers of this sport the Pepsi Football NOW APP.

It is a live prediction game and can be downloaded form Google Play and also the App Store at no cost.

All the people who will download the application have the advantage of being able to predict the outcome of every match.

For every correct predictions, the gamers will earn themselves Pepsi points, which allows them to collect Pepsi FootballNOW badges. The badges come in Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum, and are awarded according to the points won during a single match. During competitions, new badges will be unlocked.

There are other prizes to be won, including a tablet, tickets for the finals of the two competitions and official match balls.

The App can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/PEPSIFootballNOW-AppleStore or  http://bit.ly/PEPSIFootballNOW-PlayStore

Following the official Orange African Cup of Nations, SOUTH AFRICA 2013 App, CAF and SPORTFIVE Africa are once again using mobile platforms to help bring African football to life for as many fans as possible, by creating an innovative new “second screen” experience. New functions will be released soon and a new version will be available for the next season including for the Orange CAF Super Cup.

With football one cannot make mistakes in Africa, it is a sport that people would do anything for. The possibility of a success in this venture looks quite promising, most especially the prices but is this to make the Pepsi brand big or make people drink Pepsi? Coke should be watching this it already lost its number one position in biggest brands to Apple.