Microsoft has launched an initiative dubbed 4Afrika in Rwanda to enable its active participation in Africa’s economic development to promote its global competitiveness.
The 4Afrika initiative will focus on disseminating affordable smart devices designed for Africa and that seeks to support application development by Africans for Africans.
The initiative has been built on an education platform with an intention to develop technical and entrepreneurship skills as a means to boost employability especially among the youth.
Patrick Nyirishema, Head of ICT Department in Rwanda Development Board, said that the Government of Rwanda has identified two lead programs for possible collaboration with Microsoft within the 4Afrika initiative: the Viziyo program which is set up to support citizen-access to smart phones while the Smart Village program is built on the concept of replicating ICT model villages across the nation as a means to achieve Rwanda’s goal to become an ICT driven economy.
During the launch the Minister of Youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana pointed out that big opportunities are apparent in Rwandan’s ICT industry.

He added that Technology is a principle element towards numerous aspects of national development and Rwanda cannot be left behind and that a lot can be achieved through collaboration, consultation, and smart private-public partnership.
The minister applauded the Microsoft’s 4Afrika initiative explaining that that the Company is committed to developing innovative approaches using the power of technology to help transform social and economic progress in Rwanda.

Call them Bigwigs as #KOT calls them, here are the top 5 tweeps worth following for informative, educative tech stuff in Kenya.

@WhiteAfrican, Erik Hersman

He’s the Co-founder of famous crowd sourcing platform, Ushahidi and Kenya’s iHub business incubation center and Co-founder Savannah Fund with investments in SafariDesk, biNU and Ahoya.com. He blogs at AfriGadget and WhiteAfrican. The Senior TED  and PopTech Fellow tweets about the impact and application of technology in Africa and globally.

Follow @WhiteAfrican

@MartinGicheru, Martin Gicheru

He’s the brain behind @Techweez, a top African gadgets review blog, kind of our own Engadget.

He is a co-founder of Infoken Solutions, a web hosting and domains’ reseller. He’s a respected technology blogger and a web entrepreneur who loves to cover new technology. He is one of Kenya top bloggers and gadget’s guy. He loves mobile tech and is the Ninja at Techweez , you can follow @TechWeez for latest gadget reviews and tech news.

@RobertAlai, Robert Onyango Alai

The certified screamer and top Kenyan techie, all round blogger and local’s rights activist is worth following.  He’s the founder and chief blogger for @techmtaa which is also among the best tech blogs in Africa worth bookmarking.

He is currently a columnist at Standard Group’s Nairobian.  Follow him or @Techmtaa

@Kachwanya

Founder of Kachwanya.com , tech analyst and techprenuer, Kennedy Kachwanya has run several tech companies and is into consultation services and a gadget’s guy.

For interesting tech stuff follow @kachwanya and or ask him anything on startups.

He is the current chair of BAKE, the association of bloggers in Kenya.

@AfroMusing, Juliana Rotich. She is an engineer, Ushahidi Co-founder, iHub co-founder, Google Africa advisor and a TED fellow.  Juliana is one of the most respected ladies in tech in Africa  and she’s the Marissa Mayer of Africa in my opinion. She blogs at afromusing.com, a role model for ladies to follow her footsteps of success. She currently into green energy research and I can’t be surprised if she launches a revolutionary product soon.

Startup founders and developers can get some wisdom from her tweets and retweets.

Plans are underway to connect Peri-urban and rural areas in Zambia to broadband services by telecommunications firm Zamtel,the leading telecom in the country.

The company provides a modern Internet service through Zamtel On-line, founded in 1997, including digital subscriber lines (DSL) and wireless access.

The company also aims at investing $4 million to better telecoms infrastructure at Livingstone within a span of three months which include rolling out optic fibre network in various parts of Livingstone, as well as Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula International Airport.
According to Zamtel officials, the rural broadband project will include installing 400 high capacity site for 3G and 2G services.

Zambia’s ICT sector has approximately a million internet users and about seven million phone users, out of a population of 13.2 million. The reason being the country’s internet connectivity is concentrated mainly in urban areas and internet service providers consider rural areas as economically unfeasible to realise their investments.

Africa’s startup ecosystem is growing and booming day by day leading to massive competition to for users, seed or VC money and clients for the benefit of the local users.

We have identified a number of the fastest growing and probably the most promising startups but today we shall present only five of them as we get the rest of the list complete under various categories.

Ghaflakenya, Kenya

Kenya’s biggest, hottest entertainment news website with. Banned at one time on campuses, Ghafla is frequented by readers of all walsk of life. The startup founded by Samuel Majani currently gets over 720, 000 readers per month , 4,500,000 page views per month ,has over 32,000 Twitter followers  and over 27,000 Facebook fans. It’s the most read entertainment site and ranked second after nation on Klout score of over 80%. The startup got funding from 88mph and says it’s already profitable.

Mimiboard, South Africa

Enables local content creation and unlocking access to content across Africa. The startup aims to help communities by making it easy for them to create and share content. Through the establishment of trusted brands (iportals) and virtual noticeboards (Mimiboard) Umuntu Media aim to improve access to information and facilitate user-generated content. It’s currently available in 16 African countries with a growth of 11 million visits this March, the startup aims to reach a billion visits in the next 2 years.Mimiboard is currently used by over 50 media firms on the continent and is working on full integrations of its iportals this June. After the completion all the iportals will run us virtual noticebaords or Mimiboards.

Njorku, Cameroon

Njorku.com is a job aggregator and search engine, just like CareerBuilder.com, but with an African focus. Basically, Njorku.com crawls several African careers and recruitment websites, retrieves job advertisements, and then provides a simple interface for job seekers to search through and filter jobs from all these websites. The speed and simplicity of Njorku along with its accessibility on web and mobile via www.njorku.com and njorku.com/mobile allows job seekers to search for jobs conveniently, wherever they are.

Founded by Churchill Mambe Nanje, a 25 year-old Cameroonian serial tech entrepreneur, Njorku is Africa’s Google for jobs and currently it’s available in over 8 countries with over 500k users.

SasaAfrica Kenya

Sasa Africa, one of DEMO Africa’s 2012 top five startups, is an e-commerce platform connecting offline artisans to buyers online using feature phones. The founders say they saw the need to promote locally manufactured African artifacts such as necklaces, bangles and other jewellery to buyers globally. With $50k in funding and a team around 20 SasaAfrica wants to be Etsy of Africa.

IROKO Partners Nigeria

IROKO Partners is the world’s largest distributor of Nollywood movies. Launched December 2010, the company has built a global audience of over 6 million unique users from 178 different countries.

Dubbed Africa’s Netflix, iROKO Partners task is brutally simple:  buys the online licenses of movies and music directly from producers and recording artists and stream them online to a global Diaspora audience. In doing this, iROKO Partners has assembled the world’s largest online library of awesome African content and is Africa’s fastest growing internet company.

 Image:www.wpclipart.com

Founded in February 2005 and after 8 years in operation today YouTube announced it has hit a billion unique active users monthly since its launch.

YouTube has been recording over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month  and 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and one out of every two people on the internet visits YouTube with a viewership of roughly ten super Bowl audiences reach.

In comparison with the country’s population YouTube will be the third largest country in the world after China and India or simply 25 times the size of Kenya. If going with the most viewed videos PSY would have to perform in front of packed Nou camp stadium 11k times which is magical.

The streaming of the Olympics to YouTube users boosted the number of users with Kenya being among the most growing user base country and the famous universe free fall record breaking event. The team at YouTube appreciated all aspiring filmmakers, next great pop musicians and all its fans in the world that tune in, subscribe and share their favorite videos with the whole world. Today marks great step by YouTube which just hit a billion monthly users and micro blogging site twitter which celebrates 7 years since launch but the bad news is when will Arsenal celebrate its milestone too…?

YouTube is good news to ad agencies and Google ads business.

The communication Commission of Nigeria has announced that the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) programme which had been planned for June last year but failed will now be launched on 26th of March this year.

The NCC Director of Public Affairs Tony Ojobo, said that the launch would be flagged off by the end of this month as this would be in the same accord with the NCC’s goal of launching MNP in the first quarter of 2013.

He pointed out that MNP would enable subscribers to port from one service provider to another without losing their numbers. He explained the procedure saying that a user would go to the customer service centre of the network one wants to port to and take with them a photo ID,and fill in forms and all data will be recorded in the centre database.

According to Ojobo the move complements SIM registration exercise that was done last year. He added that the “verification of all the SIMs that have been registered would be done next month to ascertain any discrepancies arising from the registration exercise and the affected subscribers will then receive an SMS requesting them to go to a service centre to rectify the mistakes.”

Ojobo said the process of porting would take a maximum of 48 hours from the time its initiated to the to the point where the number is functional through the new service provider.

Facebook is reportedly running a small test of a new notification that reminds users to post something to their profiles if they haven’t been active in a while, fast company reported earlier on.

The report comes after venture capitalist Bijan tweeted out the alert he received on his phone. The response from the followers was not positive.

Facebook has been adding features slowly by slowly. Most of the features are from Hackathons that are normally undertaken by the engineers in the company. Of late after the changing of the newsfeed design and timeline, Facebook as added ability to send images through message in the mobile version.

Facebook growth is limited to retention of the billion users and acquiring more of them and mobile is powerful. The introduction of reminders will be effective in retaining active members and increasing their activity rate .

Tecno and Zalego are working together to reward the best entries in the Afmobi developer challenge this Saturday.

Zalego Ltd is a technology solutions firm specializing in mobile software development, value addition, consultancy and empowerment through training where as Tecno Telcom Ltd is a comprehensive mobile phone manufacturer specializing in R&D, manufacturing, sales and service and boasts itself as one of the major mobile phone suppliers in the world and a leading mobile phone manufacturer in China. The firm has plans to launch mid-end smartphones mid this year. To complement the strategy, Tecno is looking for local apps which will drive uptake of its phones.

Recently, the firm put up an app contest through the continent known as Afmobi Developer Challenge which is basically looking for Java apps for Tecno’s low end devices and Android apps for Tecno’s smartphones.The contest is especially interested in Swahili apps for Kenya, Amharic apps for Ethiopia and Hausa apps for Nigeria.

In the partnership, Zalego will give free application development training to interested developers.The ultimate goal of the contest is to expose the hidden talent within the Kenyan developer community.

At an event that will take place at Kenyatta University on 23th March this year,the two firms will offer cash and phone rewards to the top developers who will take home Ksh. 200,000 and an Android phone. The runners up will receive KSh. 150,000 and an Android handset while the third place gets KSh. 100,000 and an Android phone.Other top 10 entries will also win a Tecno Android smartphone each.

Tecno has plans to introduce new Android devices later this year including an Android-4-based device to retail at approximately KSh. 10,000. Other planned devices include a 5 inch low-resolution smartphone and a high end smartphone, similarly sized to the Samsung Galaxy S4, that will retail at between KSh. 20,000 to KSh. 25,000.

Zanzibar Telecom Ltd. (ZANTEL) has launched a promotion dubbed ’MIMINA’ a platform which will allow subscribers to enjoy free calls for some minutes across all networks, internet access and SMS for 24 hours for just 3,499/-.This translates into 200/- a day where subscribers will get 10 free Mins talk time, 10 SMS and 10 MB GPRS valid for one day.

The offer will provide subscribers 200 minutes of airtime to all networks, 200 SMS and 200MB internet bundle for 5 days. To register for the package subscribers will have to dial *149*15#.

According to Zantel Chief Commercial Officer, Mr Sajid Khan, the offer will allow customers access information and connect to others at affordable rates. He further said that the company intends to make communications accessible to all Tanzanians regardless of their economic status.

The offer which is available only to prepaid customers aims at bringing more subscribers on board as well as increase internet use through mobile phones.

The Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania has announced plans to expand and upgrade its automated teller machines (ATMs) network in strategic locations, including those in Arusha.

While addressing customers in Arusha,Ms Liz Lloyd, the bank’s Chief Executive Officer said, “a number of them will be upgraded to embrace latest technology that supports both cash and cheque deposits.”

According to Ms Llyod, plans are under way to start the first electronic banking unit which would allow its customers to enjoy enhanced internet banking services.In addition, the bank has upgraded its head office branch and set up a priority banking centre geared towards offering a comfortable and functional banking setting.

MS Llyod added that the bank will soon be re-opening these state-of-the-art banking premises She further pointed out that Standard Chartered was the first financial institution in Tanzania to introduce ATM machine.

The initiatives are a follow up to the recently introduced visa electronic debit card, the visa infinite card, and premium banking -a service concept focused on high net worth individuals which allows these customers to experience personalised and convenient banking. Other activities include web banking services for corporate, the supply chain financing product and the Diva account Specifically for women

The bank is currently positioning itself to open 100 new branches in the continent as well as expanding the employee base in Tanzania and elsewhere.

Orange Telecommunications Company has introduced the first ever 3G+ network in Central African Republic.

Patrick Benon,CEO of Orange Central Africa Republic,said, “Orange is now the first operator to operate a 3G + network in Central African Republic, and it reinforces our position as an innovative operator.”

According to the company , the launch marks fastest mobile internet connectivity the region has ever had. The 3G + is 10 times faster than EDGE. With a flow rate up to 21 Mega bits per second (Mbps), 3G+ is the most powerful and paves a way to a world of innovative services

The launch of the 3G + will allow subscribers to access their favorite matches , football championships on their mobile with mobile TV and in addition a user can even see their partner in a call with videophone.

Are you hungry? Need food delivered to your doorstep? Yum.co.ke,  a local Kenyan startup founded by Jake Goldberg and Mike Hudson from personal experience.They were disappointed with the few delivery options when ordering food from their favorite restaurants  and saw an opportunity to help Kenyan restaurants to reach a bigger customer base hence yum was born.

You simply place an order by going the site yum.co.ke and choose location. A list of restaurants available in the location will be displayed; the user browses through the menus, finds a dish they would like, adds to the cart and makes a purchase directly online with available options for payment MPesa, credit cards and payment on delivery. Yum delivers your order in under 45minutes.

They communicate with the restaurant after the purchase immediately and ensure the food is delivered to the customer as soon as possible. The startup has an all round delivery service which is very active and delivers currently  to a few neighborhoods in the city.

The startup is growing at a promising rate with over 1000likes on Facebook and already has a huge number of returning customers who use the service daily. They are constantly adding new restaurants into their portfolio with new menus like Brew Bistro Terrace Lounge, Kenchic,-Urban Spoon and Rendezvous food menu.

Yum has  a wide range of meals covering large price as low as Ksh 200 Swahili vegetable stews to yummy ksh.1950 king prawns and delivers on Sundays too.

So far the company has been boot trapped with expansion plans to all over Kenya but first with exhausting the capital city Nairobi. Yum what’s your favorite meal delivered right to your doorstep, get started yum.co.ke

However, Yum is not alone in the market as a food delivery service, Rocket Internet’s Hellofood launched late last year opens beautiful competition in the market. Several local startups and even restaurants have joined the food delivery band too.

Samsung

Electronics Company Africa today launched a Solar Powered Health Centre model at its 2013 Samsung Africa Forum in Cape Town, South Africa. The move marks a step towards a large-scale medical initiative on the continent.

According to Samsung ,the mobile centres are built for use in remote rural areas, and aim at eliminating the economic and geographic barriers that prevent people across Africa from obtaining quality medical treatment.

The centres will move progressively from one area to the next providing a range of eye, ear, blood and dental medical services to the public.

A report by World Bank shows that, more than 60% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa live in rural areas. These people often lack the time and resources to reach clinics for proactive medical care, and particularly if they are ill and unable to make long journeys. In South Africa, only approximately 20% of the population is served by private medical schemes, with the public health sector struggling to cater to the remaining 80% of the population

Ntulule Tshenye,The Business-to-Government and Corporate Citizenship Lead for Samsung Africa says, “We have been providing medical services to rural areas in Africa for a few years now through our annual Employee Volunteer Programmes.This experience has shown us how desperately medical treatment is needed across the continent, and inspired us to develop a sustainable and innovative solution to reach the people who need it most. While our CSR strategy in Africa is largely focused on education, our efforts to enrich lives will not be felt if people’s basic needs, such as access to healthcare, are not met.”

Samsung therefore seeks to reach one million people through its Solar Powered Health Centres by 2015.

The core activities of the initiative will include screening people to establish conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, tooth decay and cataracts.

In addition, the centres will educate communities on health issues and encouraging people to do tests as preventative measure. Samsung’s partners will provide medical products to support this project, including the Department of Health and pharmaceutical companies. The company will also work with medical universities, and organisations that are involved in health care like World Vision, and Doctors without Borders.

Mobile operators in zimbabwe will be charged USD180 million as compared to the current charges at US $100 million to $180 million for a new operating licence.

Current licences are due for expire in June this year, and therefore the Ministry of Transport and Communication is in a process to issue new 15 year converged licences that would allow them extend their services.

The new framework would require that the operators share infrastructure to cut on operating costs and tariffs.

According to the Finance minister Tendai Biti, the licencing system will move away from the current system that awards two licences; one for GSM-mobile and data services.

Plans are underway for the ICT Ministry of Egypt to award a tender for a specialised ICT training programme to students in Egypt. Sixteen training companies have been considered to support 8 specialised training tracks for around 720 students.
Atef Helmy, the Minister of Communications and Information

Technology, has already discussed with the training companies on the proposed programme. The meetings was basically focused on the framework of implementing the Egyptian Information Society Initiative, intending to prepare fresh graduates in Egypt by refining their technological skills to enable them to keep up with developments in ICT.

The training will center on Microsoft databases, Oracle databases, UNIX and Linux programs, communication networks infrastructure and security systems, Java mobile applications, web application development, e-commerce software and graphic application development.

Rovio Entertainment,the Finish game developer and entertainment company behind the Angry Birds mobile games has been positioning itself as an entertainment company on the level of Disney—complete with an animation studio, theme park, book business and plush toys. And on March 16 and 17 the company will launch the Angry Birds Toon video series

Michele Tobin, Rovio’s head of brand partnerships and advertising for the Americas, said “We view ourselves as the media company for the connected device era. Considering that Angry Birds apps have been downloaded 1.7 billion times and reach 263 million monthly active users, Rovio has the stats to back up such a claim.”

In keeping with that Disney 3.0 position, Rovio will be distributing Angry Birds Toons through a new channel being added to the Angry Birds smartphone and tablet apps, as well as multiple video and TV distribution outlets. In the U.S, the new show—which goes into Angry Birds’ characters backstories on the fictional Piggy Island—will be available via Comcast’s Xfinity on-demand service and Samsung Smart TVs, and will eventually be available through Roku and other connected devices.

However, Rovio’s YouTube Channel, which has received over a billion video views, will not be an initial distribution vehicle, but Tobin made it clear that the video platform could be in the cards for the future.

Rovio seeks to adopt a more traditional scheduling system. A single 2 minute 45 second episode will air each weekend, first hitting TV on Saturday and then rolling out to the mobile and tablet Angry Birds apps on Sunday

The series will be distributed traditionally through TV network partners outside the U.S. (such as Cartoon Network in India)

According to Tobin, The company has a very large, highly engaged audience, and they will continue to give the fans what they want and also bring them new and exciting content, citing a 97 percent brand awareness stat for the brand in China.

Tobin says,”Given the series’ potential reach (the apps have been downloaded by 263 million users) Activision, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and BlackBerry are the series’ four launch brands,and other advertisers will be will be incorporated before all 52 episodes air.”