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.

Giving mobile advertising its edge

According to Mbugua Njihia, CEO, Symbiotic Media Consortium, the addictiveness, pervasiveness and sheer dominance of the mobile device is what gives mobile advertising its edge.

“Forget the generic SMS marketing initiatives, though they are yet to be fully exploited in the region. The addition of extensive profiling and location awareness creates a potent mix that adds value to the mobile user and advertiser as it gives more bang per shilling spent and is actually useful to the person receiving it as it is hyper targeted”, Njihia observes.

A very big opportunity also exists for the Government to streamline its operations and improve service delivery to its citizens using mobile applications and mobile Web as a tool. The cost savings that can be realised here run into millions of dollars. What the Government needs to do though, is to start with its most basic services and make them mobile so that the citizens can get a better perspective of the services and buy into the vision that m-government holds.

“Sometimes policy and legislation act as stumbling blocks to simple proofs of concept. The beauty about mobile is that scalability is not something to cause sleepless nights”, Njihia says.

In view of the uniqueness of mobile technology, service providers can latch onto it by embracing developers and providing them with tools that allow them to build services that interact seamlessly with the networks infrastructure. The mobile operators cannot match a developer community in terms of ideas, implementation and rollout. Njihia argues that a network operator may only be able to focus on, say, five value added services, while the developer community will have up to twenty different services addressing different niches. If provided with the tools, access and reasonable revenue agreements, it becomes a win-win situation for everyone.

Africa’s creative capital

The biggest challenge, however, is for the region to develop a new generation of mobile entrepreneurs.

“Ideas on mobile are Africa’s creative capital; this is how we will leapfrog into the future. These ideas however must get off the ground and this is where the first bottleneck is encountered. Having been part of two startups in the mobile vertical, I have experienced firsthand the hardships of raising venture capital…let’s not even touch on bank loans. We don’t have a particularly vibrant venture capital pool in East Africa that look at virgin ideas, embrace the potential and grow the ideas to the multimillion businesses that they should be”, Njihia offers.

However, things are changing, with “old money” starting to look at new ideas mostly in the mobile and mobile Web space as the next big growth areas. This presents a unique opportunity for the new generation of mobile entrepreneurs. A lot of education is needed especially on the business planning process, and this is where many young entrepreneurs seeking to enter this lucrative industry fail.

With the mobile revolution sweeping across Africa, Moses Kemibaro, Business Development Director, Dotsavvy Limited, says marketers have no choice but to adopt the new medium to market their products and services besides other media like print, Tv, Radio, in/outdoor and direct mail.

Marketing that is proactive and personalised

“But there is one marketing channel that is really taking off–mobile marketing- that is proactive and personalised, versatile, interactive, fast, efficient, affordable, ubiquitous, traceable and measurable,” Kemibaro observes.

In his definition, mobile marketing refers to “using mobile and mobile-based technologies to market products and services”. It also involves one-to-one communication; streamlined fulfillment; testing and re-optimising, as well as measuring the results. To effectively use mobile marketing, he advises the industry to hinge on the drivers of mobile technology which are to ensure that every mobile device is SMS and MMS-enabled, handset prices are falling and features are increasing, broadband and 2.5G proliferation, improved infrastructure, exponential subscriber growth and mobile money for transactions.

“The growth of mobile in Africa is remarkable. It has grown by 550 percent over the last 5 years. Currently, there are 350 million mobile users and 3 in 10 Africans now have a mobile phone. The mobile has therefore become the number one communications device in Africa. But one thing the industry should not take for granted is that the mobile is so much more than a phone…it’s…. SMS/texting, e-mail, the web, the bank, entertainment, a camera, socializing and mobile lifestyle”.

Key considerations to the success of mobile marketing are therefore based on the mobile uptake which is exponential worldwide but more so in Africa. Global statistics show that mobisites are becoming more dorminant, having grown by 129 percent in 2009 since mobile Web-enabled phones have exceeded computers in numbers.

“For many in Africa, their first and possibly only Internet experience will be via the mobile web. Dotsavvy’s proposition is therefore to extend leadership from Internet marketing to mobile marketing in 2010, establishment of DotsavvyMobile and strategic partnerships with leading mobile VAS providers for various mobile marketing services. Currently, we are offering mobisites, mobile web ads, SMS and MMS marketing services,” Kemibaro says.

The call was sent to various tech list and to all the mobile operators to send reps. For the tech community, it was a chance to meet the decision makers and understand their point of view and get advice from guys who have been there and done that. The top cream of PRSP’s were present – head honchos, Ken Njoroge of Cellulant, Kiran Dhadialla of IMS and Moses of Adtel and gave some interesting input on how best to work with the operators. Ken and Moses also challenged the networks somewhat all inline to developing and expanding the streams of revenue.

Back to why Safaricom will continue to dominate…simple. They sent three senior representatives while the other operators sent a hitherto unprecedented but not surprising total of zero (0) reps. Heads in the sand trying to come up with a new tariff perhaps? The game is changing guys, you need to wake up.

Bits of the recorded proceedings will be uploaded after the iHub launch that is happening today

* Receive mobile payments at all times of the day and night (24/7) from all over Kenya*
* Track payments easily using your existing shopping cart software (Joomla, Virtuemart)
* Manage orders and create printable receipts and orders for better record keeping
* Easy Account set up for merchants, religous and donor-funded organisations
* No account set up needed for your customers. All they need is their mobile phone and that’s pretty much it!

As a Merchant, what can I sell with iPay?
The possibilities are endless. You can sell the following:

* Digital Goods (Music, E-books, Videos…just about anything that’s downloadable)
* Tangible goods
* E-Tickets and Vouchers
* Domain Registration and Web Hosting
* Subscriptions and Pay-per-view services… you name it

I’m not a merchant, nor am I a donor-funded organisation. Whats in it for me as a user of the iPay Utility?

* You don’t need to open any account with us!
* You can use iPay directly from your mobile phone via Zap and M-Pesa.
* Let us know which merchant websites we can approach to allow you to use this neat and seamless payment platform. We’ll take it up from there.

How secure is it?

* iPay has security built into it since it rides on the MPESA and ZAP payment systems to fully authenticate user transactions originating from your site.
* iPay is safe. We maintain a backed up record of all merchants’ financial and contact information regarding all transactions on their websites.
* Intrepid will provide a secure account for all merchants and organisations signed on to iPay.
* There are no limits to the amounts of cash you can recive in a given trading period

I develop E-Commerce websites. How can I integrate iPay into the websites I develop for my clients?

* Easy! We’ve created payment modules that integrate seamlessly with Joomla! and Virtuemart, the most popular content and e-commerce shopping carts on the web.
* We are in the process of creating modules for the OS-Commerce shopping cart as well.

What if, as a developer, I don’t use any of these shopping carts?
Intrepid will be able to offer you access to our simple API that will allow you to:

* integrate iPay into your clients’ websites or systems
* extend the capabilities of your custom payment systems… as easy as 1-2-3!

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.Mobile Monday is a global community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influentials fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets.

Mobile Monday has the following objectives:

* To encourage innovation within the mobile sector.
* To facilitate networking between small and large companies, and between local and foreign.
* To help local companies effectively participate in international initiatives through the import and export of visions, concepts, technologies, know-how and best practices.
* To present innovative visions, trends, studies and forecasts from the mobile marketplace.
* To facilitate and create partnerships.
* To contribute to the education of the broader public through its publications, online presence and media partnerships.

Mobile Monday is organized by a group of dedicated volunteers from around the world. Originating in Helsinki, Finland, in the year 2000, Mobile Monday has grown into the world’s leading mobile community.
History

The remarkable MobileMonday phenomenon began almost by accident in Helsinki, Finland during the autumn of 2000. A couple of well-known Finnish visionaries, invited the who’s who of the Finnish mobile industry to a pub for an informal get-together and perhaps a warming drink. The only suitable time? Monday evening.

After meeting many new faces and discussing the latest in mobility, the group decided to continue meeting on the first Monday of each month — and thus, MobileMonday was born. Towards the end of 2004, the movement started to spread to other areas of the world and new MoMo chapters were started in Tokyo, Japan, Silicon Valley, UsA as well as Rome and Milan, Italy. Since then, the number of MobileMonday chapters and members has dramatically increased making MobileMonday the world’s leading mobile community.

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.”

The Venture Challenge will consider any submission that enhances the target growth economy and also provides a potential return on the investment. The Venture Challenge is not limited to software or hardware that uses Nokia device or software platforms. In fact, as many emerging markets have varying degrees of mobile and Internet adoption, submissions can also expand beyond the mobile phone. As examples of innovations in growth economies, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo spoke about several Nokia solutions and projects such as Nokia Life Tools, Nokia Tej and others that can be viewed at http://theprogressproject.com/.

The million dollars will be invested in a single winning organization with the best idea as decided by a combination of judges from Nokia Growth Partners, Nokia’s venture arm, and Forum Nokia, Nokia’s organization dedicated to 3rd party developers and other innovators. Through Nokia Growth Partners and Forum Nokia, Nokia offers developers and innovators potential funding, expert technical support and marketing programs designed to assist and promote 3rd party activities on Nokia platforms.

Additionally, ten finalists will be invited to present their ideas and business models to a panel of Nokia business people and private venture capitalists. This provides an opportunity for the innovators to receive business guidance and possibly other funding from participating venture capitalists.

The Venture Challenge finalists will be announced by mid May 2010. The final winner will be announced in June, 2010. The deadline for submissions is April 18, 2010.

Interested innovators can learn more and enter their submissions at www.callingallinnovators.com.

About Nokia Growth Partners
Nokia Growth Partners is a leading global growth stage venture firm focused on mobile technology, services and media. Nokia Growth Partners is funded by Nokia to provide superior returns and investments into companies, firms, and people that are changing the face of mobility, communications, and the internet. Nokia Growth Partners works closely with the promising companies adding value through deep domain expertise and network in the mobility market combined with many years of venture investment experience. Nokia Growth Partners offers companies in which it invests a global engagement model through its presence in the U.S., Europe and Asia. For more information visit: www.nokiagrowthpartners.com.

About Forum Nokia
Nokia’s global developer program, Forum Nokia connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels they can use to build and market applications around the globe. From offices in the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, China, and Singapore, Forum Nokia provides technical and business development support to developers and operators to assist them in achieving their goal of successfully launching applications and services to consumers and enterprises. More information is available at www.forum.nokia.com.

by Ron Liechty
Manager Forum Nokia Online Community

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.

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ATTENDEES

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AGENDA
1.    Follow up of Skunkwork presentations.
2.     Possibilities and Objectives for a broader business driven co-operation between Kenya and Sweden.
3.    Visit to Sweden (when going to Denmark)

AGENDA 1: PRESENTATIONS
There were presentations from techpreneurs as follows: Ushahidi; Nilipe; (Government)IPv6; SMS Driven Portal/Data Mining.

a)    Ushahidi
Erik and Ken of Ushahidi presented on Ushahidi which is a Free and Open Source Software crisis information software that has been developed by volunteers from Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and United States of America. It was started in Kenya during the post election period as a tool for people in crisis areas to send SMS which would then be mapped to their geographical locations and then made available to aid organsations.

Initially, Ushahidi team developed the software and then made it available to others to download. It has as such been used for different purposes including a crime monitoring site “hatari.co.ke”. Other instances of Ushahidi include its use by AlJazeera in Gaza as well as in India, Afghanistan and Mexico to monitor elections.

In January after an earthquake hit Haiti, the Ushahidi team deployed the software in Haiti. From network providers Digicel and Comcell, they were given the short code 4667 through which anyone could send a message to the system. From the presentation, it could be seen that there had been over 10,000 hits on the site since then.

Ushahidi has over 270 volunteers who carry out the roles of software development, translation and geo-mapping. Hence the information on the site is real time.

Follow up Questions
1.    What are Ushahidi’s future Plans?
In response to this question, a video about an innovation hub that is in the process of being set up was shown. Located opposite Uchumi Hyper on Ngong Road, the hub will be an open space with a few meeting rooms to host upcoming companies. They shall be provided with good Internet and other support to enable them break through in the market. The hub would be opened on March 3rd 2010.

2.    How does Ushahidi get funding?
Ushahidi is funded by private foundations as well as public organizations such as Hivos of Netherlands.

3.    How do they track users, since Ushahidi is free?
Users have a choice to activate the software. Many have done so and are using Ushahidi for other uses such as drug and deforestation monitoring.

4.    How to they verify the messages sent?
The system has inbuilt verification measures. For instance in the Haiti case, after receiving a message in local language, it is translated into English and then the data is affirmed. Another way to verify is when a message about an incident is received more than once from different sources and also through listening to other networks of information as word travels fast. Mostly though there is also a lot of trust placed on the users sending messages. The system shows whether or not a message has been verified.

b. Nilipe, a payment Solution
David Mugo of Tristar presented on Nilipe, a payment solution that integrates mobile money transfer. Nilipe was born out the problem with existing mobile money payment systems where in order for one to confirm receipt of money, one has to have the number of the sender of the money. Nilipe is therefore along the same model as say, Paypal, only that the company does not keep any money on behalf of the client.

Nilipe is installed on the handset, which sends information to the server. The merchants have an interface so that as money is transferred, they get notifications from the network, enabling the seller to know whether the transaction was a pass or a fail.

Follow Up Questions
1.    Does the buyer have to be on the same network as the seller?
There has been a problem with the networks as they do not give applications like Nilipe access to their mobile money systems. However, at the merchant side, Nilipe can support multiple mobile money transfer systems, enabling a buyer to pick the convenient one.

2.    How does the company make money from Nilipe?
Nilipe sells the license to the merchant. They make money through license fees.

3.    Does one send money to a personal number or a business number? How then does Nilipe validate so as to avoid originated SMS?
Either of the two can work.  To overcome the problem of originating SMS, where say for example a person from even outside Kenya can send the merchant an SMS similar to the MPesa transaction one, Nilipe uses message centre numbers to verify. Additionally, networks do not use the normal alphanumeric identity numbers to send confirmation messages and this has been useful in verification.

4.    What are the advantages of Nilipe?
Nilipe does not keep money yet it makes money transfer more convenient. In addition, Nilipe does not charge per transaction fees unlike most others and it is not network centric. At the moment, the system is able to support seven networks in three countries and was in talks with an eighth.

5.    How many people have downloaded the trial versions?
Trial period would start later in the week

6.    What is the response from merchants? Is there a possibility to connect Nilipe with banks?
Nilipe would like to connect with banking networks and indeed that was the future vision. However, there were many barriers to entry into that market because for instance if Nilipe started handling money it would be subject to the banking law and would need to pay for expensive licenses. Merchants who had been approached were excited about the solution, so were fellow developers at skunkworks and other fora.

7.    Other  Comments
Innovators were called upon to take the issue of trials more seriously as any potential investor would need proof of concept which could most firmly be satisfied by carrying out robust trials.  In addition, techies were encouraged to team up with business people when doing presentations in order to present not only the technical but business viability of their innovations.
The issue of protection of intellectual property in Kenya was raised, with developers complaining that it was expensive and a long process to get a patent for software. It also emerged that the problem may be due to a substantive error where developers tried to patent software and not a method, as only a method is patentable. After deliberation, MOIC undertook to initiate discussion with the Ministry of Industrialization and other concerned ministries in order to find a solution to the same.

c. IPv6
Esther Wanjau, the Chair of the Kenya IPv6 Task Force, made a presentation explaining the background, mandate and composition of the Task Force.  Recognizing that the IPv4 addresses were being depleted, the Government took measures to ensure a smooth transition to IPv6 by 2012.   The Task Force, consisting of partners from various public, private, academic and civil society organizations was mandated to develop strategies for eventual deployment of IPv6.

The Task Force was focusing on awareness creation and capacity building. To this end, equipment has been acquired and the next step would be training on IPv6.

Follow up Comments
There was a need to deploy IPv6 as fast as possible without necessarily training the users on the technical aspects as this was not very important to most. However, the human development aspects such as having home equipment with IP addresses could be made known to users, once the technology had been rolled out.
d) Data Mining SMS Solution
Martin Maina, who earlier developed doctorsonline, an application for doctors, presented on a new product- a data mining SMS portal.  Unlike previous applications where the server lies at the network, the backend for this system were provided for different corporates, all using the same short-code.  The data was managed by advertisers.  A simulation of data from NSSF and NHIF was explained.

Follow Up Comments
What is the incentive for Kenyan developers to diversify from mobile to desktop applications?
While there were views that it is the medium that dictates the spread of technology, there was also emerging information on the increasing penetration of computers and other terminals in the Kenyan space. For instance, the Government was enabling provision of laptops through the stimulus packages and by next year, 3 million of these would have reached homes. In addition, digital TV, which had already been launched, was a next generation technology with networking capacity.

Developers were therefore challenged to collaborate in order to make use of the opportunity presented by the expanded digital space in the country.

AGENDA 2: POSSIBILITIES AND OBJECTIVES FOR A BROADER BUSINESS DRIVEN CO-OPERATION BETWEEN KENYA AND SWEDEN
The discussion attempted to find areas of interest and mutual benefits for bilateral cooperation.  There was the question on whether the cooperation should be extended to other partners and how the same could be done.
After open discussion, the following areas of interest were   identified:

a)    Capacity Building/Training of Local Content Providers
It was noted that Sweden had renowned schools for film/animation developers from which Kenyans could learn. An example was also given of the Royal Technical College (KTH) that had a programme to encourage use of ICT in developing countries which Kenya could benefit from if pursued.

Opportunities of transferring and sharing knowledge on content development so that Kenyans could learn the same locally were discussed.  The following were pointed out as possible avenues for building capacity for content generation: taking Kenyans to study in Sweden, student exchange programmes, giving International trainers/teachers space to teach in Kenya.

b)     Business Partnerships
In recognition of the fact that there were many skilled Kenyan developers on the one hand and opportunities for work in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries on the other hand, another area of collaboration could be business partnerships. Such partnerships would not only boost trade but also enhance capacity development as the more Kenyans have software development jobs, the more the opportunities for on the job training for young people.

c)    Barcamps and Fora for  Software Developers to meet
The importance of providing fora for networking of professionals from Kenya and Europe was highlighted. It was noted that this was an activity that could be incorporated into the implementation plan of the cooperation. In such fora issues such as security, which was a growing threat to the software development profession could be discussed.

While discussing areas of interest, challenges such as language barrier; brain drain and building trust were pointed out as issues that could affect the overall aim of the partnerships.  However, KCR who had vast experience in Scandinavian countries assured all that English was a widely spoken language in all the countries. Brain drain could be countered by building business relations with the developed countries so as to enhance the job opportunities in Kenya for trained developers. The issue of trust could only be cured by having high integrity.

The meeting resolved that in order to encompass all areas of interest, a concept note would be developed in the next two weeks. The note would also inform the planned visit to Sweden and other countries. The following were appointed to draft the concept note:
1.    Paul Kukubo – overall coordinator
2.    Agosta Liko
3.    David Svarer
4.    Carol Juma
5.    Alex Gakuru

AGENDA 3: VISIT TO SWEDEN
After due consideration, it was decided that the objectives, areas of interest and tour to Sweden, Denmark and possibly other Scandinavian countries would be drawn in the concept note (See Agenda 2 above).

CLOSING REMARKS

1.    In light of the discussion, K Group Consultants informed the meeting that they were developing a fund based on a model tried out in the US. The fund would create a bridge between innovators with local investors by providing opportunities for investors to present their ideas to investors for funding.  To date they had already brought on board two local investors and the fund would be launched soon.

2.    Digital Age Institute announced that they were organizing a Software Career Day on Saturday 13th February at Alliance Francaise. This would be an event bringing together software developers and inviting potential and graduates in this career to network.  All were invited.

3.    In conclusion, MOIC thanked all for participating in the discussion and stated that it is such fora that inform policy making. For instance, the Ministry would take up the issue on patenting after the information that had come out about the process of obtaining a patent for software. The Ministry was also in the process of revising the ICT Policy as well as its Strategic Plan.

Noting the genesis of the meeting which started with an informal consultation, the partnership had now been taken to a level of bilateral discussions with a potential for multilateral partnerships. All these were opportunities for enhancing development, especially rural development, where people were fast embracing ICTs.MOIC invited all present to give their ideas for an upcoming conference on ICTs which was being planned. Security and the law governing ICTs were suggested as some of the areas for discussion.

NEXT MEETING
The date of the next meeting would be communicated by email.
There being no other business, the meeting ended at 5.15 pm.

Tristar Holdings walkthrough their soon to be launched payment gateway Nilipe from Mbugua Njihia on Vimeo.