Despite teething problems, mobile Web is taking Africa by storm and is certainly the next stage of mobile technology evolution. Zachary Ochieng and Alex Owiti of CIO report.
The advent of mobile Web–the web browser-based access to the World Wide Web using a mobile device connected to a wireless network—has completely changed the way people do business. Notably, advertisers are increasingly using the mobile Web as platform to reach consumers. As at 2007, the total value of advertising on mobile was $2.2 billion. A recent study by the Online Publishers Association reports that about one in ten mobile Web users said they have made a purchase based on a mobile Web ad. While 23 percent said they have visited a Web site, 13 percent said they have requested more information about a product or service and 11 percent said they have gone to a store to check out a product. continue reading »
iPay is an easy-to-use mobile money transaction processing system that incorporates the popular M-Pesa and Zap modes of money transfer.They have packaged these two popular money transfer systems into an online transaction processing system that will allow you to receive payments off your website and thus further extend the reach of your brand’s products and services within the East African Region and beyond. continue reading »
MobileMonday has announced the opening of chapters in Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya. The Kampala chapter opens its doors on March 8, and the Nairobi chapter launches on March 11. A new South African chapter will also open in Capetown. After over a year of background work, the global organization formed a partnership with the World Bank to take the community’s concepts to several African countries.
“We visited selected African markets a few weeks ago with absolutely no idea how the open community values would be received, and were pleasantly greeted with much enthusiam by the business, governmental, and academic communities, and by the media as well,” said Jari Tammisto, MobileMonday’s CEO. continue reading »
Good ideas are a dime a dozen, or so the saying goes. But now a single good idea could be worth a million dollars (USD). Nokia has announced a million dollar venture challenge to encourage innovators to create a mobile product or service that raises the standard of living or enhances the lives of those in growth economies. The Growth Economy Venture Challenge is part of Nokia’s global Calling All Innovators competition announced on January 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Announcing the Growth Economy Venture Challenge at the conclusion of his keynote at CES, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo called on innovators to do good by bringing mobile solutions to parts of the world that can benefit most. At the same time he explained that mobile solutions can be quite profitable, but not exploitive, leading to financial “win-win” scenarios for both innovators and consumers.
“We’ve seen what the tech community can do when it focuses on problems that are also opportunities”, Kallasvuo said. “We want to channel that energy toward improving lives in the developing world.” continue reading »
Summary
This was a follow up meeting to one that took place in December 2009 where Ministry of Information and Communication (MOIC) and the Trade Affairs Department of the Embassy of Sweden were exploring strategies for greater cooperation in the ICT sector.The meeting listened to and critiqued presentations from Kenyan software developers and on this basis discussed some areas of interest for bilateral cooperation.
From the discussions of the meeting, several resolutions were made:
1. As an immediate step, MOIC would initiate discussions with the Ministry of Industrial Development and other concerned departments with a view to finding a solution to the difficulty associated with patenting software in Kenya.
2. A team of five was appointed to draft a concept paper encompassing areas of interest for cooperation.
Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, is a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi’s roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The website was used to map incidents of violence & peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web & mobile phone. This initial deployment of Ushahidi had 45,000 users in Kenya, & was the catalyst for us realizing there was a need for a platform based on it, which could be use by others around the world.
Since then it has grown from an ad hoc group of volunteers to a focused organization. The team is comprised of individuals with a wide span of experience ranging from human rights work to software development. They have also built a strong team of volunteer developers in primarily in Africa, but also Europe & the U.S.
Now Team Ushahidi gives back to the local dev community in Kenya where it all began by establishing the iHub, which is being billed as Nairobi’s Innovation Hub for the technology community. And it couldn’t come at a better time as the government through the ICT Board is yet to embark on its own tech facility which will be based in Athi river…though I overheard that they may be eyeing the Sameer ICT Park development along Mombasa road to Fastrack their initiative.
The iHub is an open space for the technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers in the area code 254. This space is a tech community facility with a focus on young entrepreneurs, web and mobile phone programmers and designers. It is part open community workspace (co-working), part investor and VC hub and part incubator.
There have been discussions on the need for a physical nexus for the tech community in Kenya for a couple years, so it’s great to finally be so close to uncorking the bottles and celebrating a big step forward continue reading »
As the recent earthquake in Haiti continues to claim casualties, the outpouring of relief funded by contributions made from the mobile phone comes into the spotlight. As of the 18th of January 2010, the Red Cross and other relief organizations managed to raised more than $20 million (Ksh 1.5 billion) through text message donations, which is about 10 percent of the $210 million (Ksh 15 billion)total raised.
The user experience was simple with people sending the word “HAITI” to the number 90999. This text had a charge of USD 10 (Ksh750) and was added to a users phone bill. Am guessing here that most guys are on postpaid lines in the US. Locally i have not seen an implementation of a service on the Ksh 100 billing band and above.
Of interest is that it seemed like most people were engaging this new medium of fund-raising for the first time.Mobile Accord who run the mGive initiative for the Red Cross say that this is the biggest response they have seen since 2008when they began offering their services.
Closer home, while the numbers may not match and while the causes don’t get Michelle Obama type support to rally them, the numbers are non the less impressive…on a local scale. continue reading »
Can you sell to others or are you your own market? If your thinking of going to business, make sure you adopt “the man outside” frame of mind and look at your business idea critically. Just because your mother said you were born to be your own boss and that your idea is great…
Mbugua Njihia – the mind of is a personal soapbox: views, opinions and thoughts reflected here can be ingested and regurgitated in support of knowledge sharing.
