Winners of the Google Lagos Hackathon event win tickets to Google I/O event in San Francisco, USA

Nelson Matthos with the Google+ developers at the CcHub in Lagos

The winners of the Google Hackathon held in Lagos, Oyewale Oyediran and Maxwell Udoba, will be on their way to the Google I/O event holding from the 27th - 29th of June 2012 in San Francisco, USA. They built an application called “Life Savers” which is a platform that uses the Public Data API and analyses your mood.  Apart from the tickets they won, they also got brand new Android phones.

Samsung now Number 1 handset maker globally even though Nokia retains No. 1 position in Emerging Markets

Latest reports show that Samsung has overtaken Nokia as the biggest handset manufacturer in the world. Samsung shipped 93.5 million handsets in the first quarter, 36 percent more than a year earlier, compared with 82.7 million for second-ranked Nokia, researcher Strategy Analytics said in a statement yesterday. Demand for Galaxy smartphones helped South Korea-based Samsung post first-quarter net income yesterday of 5.05 trillion won ($4.5 billion), beating analysts’ estimates.

Safaricom, Bharti Airtel in partnership to lay fiber network in Kenya

Safaricom Kenya and Bharti Airtel are set to form an agreement that will enable the two giants to lay a fiber network. The move is designed to cut costs associated with the involvement of third parties whom they rely on for their internet.

Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom, told the Business Daily that the company initiated talks with other mobile operators including Telkom Kenya and Essar, but only Airtel took up the bid.

Pictures from the just concluded 2012 Mobile Web West Africa Conference in Lagos Nigeria

The Mobile Web West Africa Conference has come and gone. It was a well attended conference and speakers all talked about the need to monetise mobile content in line with the conference theme “Taking the monetization and content creation dialogue to the next level.” 

Alan Knot-Craig of MXit

There were many attendees from various sectors related to the mobile industry but it was noticeable that one major player in the ecosystem was missing - the mobile operators. The only mobile operator represented there was Etisalat and they were only there to showcase their latest products. It would have been worthwhile to get their opinions on the subject being discussed. The tech bloggers were also represented at the seminars and Twitter was alive with the various tweets lighting up the Twittersphere making the the foremost event followed on Twitter during the two days the event took place. 

After DealDey, we await Konga.com - an online retail site

Sim Shagaya is an entrepreneur and co-founder of E-Motion Advertising - a diversified business with interests in out-of-home and new media.

He started his new media ventures with DealDey which has been a phenomenal success and blazed the trial in the Group buying business. He is now thinking of spinning another internet business - Konga.com. In a recent job advertisement for an order fulfillment Manager, he claims that he would be taking the e-commerce business to the next level with the launch of Konga.com. The job ad states that "Konga will be aggressively building complex warehousing/order fulfillment logistics systems, a strong technical platform. Konga will also be carrying a wide breath of inventory that will immediately make it the largest books, dvd, toy and electronics and other category retailer in the country."  The Konga.com site is already up and beckons people to subscribe by entering their email addresses, mobile numbers and State to alert them when they launch.

When will the launch take place? Will Sim be able to do with Konga.com what he has done with DealDey? Is Nigeria ready for Konga.com?

Google honours the inventor of the ubiquitous ZIpper - Gideon Sundback

Imagine a world with the zipper (zip or fly); a world with pants without zippers, dresses without zippers, bags without zippers - interesting!!


The Swedish-American inventor of the ubiquitous zipper, Gideon Sundback if alive, would have been 132 today.

Google has decided to honour him today by dedicating its doodle to him. Just go to Google, and you will find a giant zipper running down the centre of the global search engine's home page.  In fact, if you drag your mouse down to unzip the zipper, it will split the screen, including the search textbox and reveal the relevant results for the name Gideon Sundback.

Mobile Web West Africa 2012

It is one of the major events of the year and it is usually an event that all the major people in the mobile web and related industries from the West Africa region attend.

The Mobile Web West Africa 2012 takes place on the 25th and 26th of April at the Oriental Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos.

Some of the personalities and companies expected at this event include Isis Nyongo from Inmobi, Ehi Binitie from Rancard Solutions based in Ghana, Lelany Sommers from Research in Motion (makers of Blackbery devices), Alan Knott-Craig from Mxit, Jason Njoku from Iroko Partners, Elo Umeh from Twinpine and many more.

The theme of this year’s conference is “Taking the monetization and content creation dialogue to the next level.”

It promises to be an exciting edition. Catch you there.

3000 entrepreneurs to attend Google's 2012 Small Business Web fair

Juliet Ehimuan, Google Country Manager

GOOGLE has promised to bring together thousands of business owners for the second leg of the Get Nigerian Businesses Online (GNBO) 2012 Web Fair, taking place at the City Hall, Catholic Mission Street, in Onikan, Lagos on April 26 and 27.

First launched in September 2011, the GNBO is an initiative aimed at helping small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) create free websites.

“The goal of the GNBO programme is to make it easier for Nigerian entrepreneurs to grow their businesses by taking advantage of the power of the web,” said Juliet Ehimuan, Google Nigeria Country Manager.

MTN Ghana enables disabled people...... provides alternative source of income for them

MTN Ghana on Thursday launched an Alternative Livelihood Project (ALP), aimed at improving quality of life for persons with disability in Koforidua, Ghana.

The project would provide 150 MTN motorized custom tricycles worth GH¢ 468,882.00 to physically challenged persons in high traffic locations across the country.

The tricycles, powered by solar-enabled devices, would serve as sales points for airtime, SIM cards, and SIM and mobile money registration among others.

Mrs Cynthia Lumor, Corporate Services Executive-MTN, launching the project said, the project formed part of MTN’s effort at promoting employment in the country.

NCC releases 1st draft of guidelines on mobile number portability in Nigeria

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has released the first draft of guidelines on mobile number portability. The document, titled, "Nigeria Mobile Number Portability: Business Rules and Port Order" sets out the business rules to manage the processes for porting mobile number(s) (MSISDN) between mobile service providers, NPC and subscribers, licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to provide mobile telecommunications service in Nigeria.

NCC, which said the 60-page document was released to serve as an invite for comments from mobile operators and other stakeholders in the industry, noted that the document had been prepared without prejudice to any future requirements for number portability between fixed and/or mobile customers.

The release is in line with the Commission's plan to implement Mobile Number Portability in Nigeria before the end of 2012. Mobile Number Portability enabled mobile telephone users to retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one network to another.

Click here to download the document.

Farmers in Nigeria get $60million from US

Federal government efforts to revive agrico-economy sector in the country has received a boost as the United States Government has voted $60 million to further boost farmers’ productivity in Nigeria.

USAID Mission Director for Nigeria, Dana Mansuri, who disclosed this at a programme to mark the end of the first phase of USAID Maximizing Agricultural Revenue and Key Enterprises in Targeted Sites (MARKETS) in Abuja, stressed that the US government would commit the fund to the next phase that would commence first week of May 2012.

World Bank, AFD to sponsor mobility project in Nigeria

The second phase of Rural Access Mobility Project (RAMP II) in Nigeria will be sponsored by the World Bank and the French Development Agency (AFD) with 3.6 million U.S. dollars, an official has said.

The development communication officer for the project, Ifeanyi Okereke, disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday.

MTN Nigeria features Dr. Farrar Gray as it offers 30million Naira to budding entrepreneurs

Dr. Farrah Gray

In its continued commitment to empowering dreams and enriching lives, MTN Nigeria in the last four years has brought in renowned speakers like Les Brown, Chris Gardner and David Plouffe to speak to Nigerians on topics bordering on entrepreneurship, strategy, motivation amongst others. Formerly tagged the MTN Motivational Series, the project has been revamped and repackaged as the MTN Leadership Seminar to bring more value to her customers and the general public.

Developers Parapo: “BlackBerry Babes”; Hype or De-facto? Strength and size of the BlackBerry ecosystem in Nigeria

It’s time for us to understand the numbers, mingle and have fun again – Yes, it’s April DevParapo.

The GSMA estimates the total number of active mobile lines in Africa at about 620m with Nigeria accounting for 100m according to a recent Financial Times article. One in 20 of these active SIM cards is further estimated to be in a smartphone. Industry experts reckon that BlackBerry® smartphones account for 20-40 per cent of these 5m smartphones in Nigeria (between 1 – 2m handsets).

Safaricom CEO appointed to UN global board

Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, announced the appointment of Safaricom’s CEO Bob Collymore to the UN Global Compact Board.

Bob Collymore

The UN Global Compact is a voluntary initiative aimed at recognizing businesses committed to adopting sustainable and socially-responsible policies.

“As Safaricom, we feel it is important for companies to report on their operations from a holistic perspective and to report on their sustainability credentials. Corporate governance and ethics are a key factor that underpins a company’s reputation.” said Collymore

Last year, Collymore made a presentation on an initiative “Every Woman, Every Child,” before the UN General Assembly.

In Zimbabwe, retailers give shoppers airtime instead of change

Aiming to provide a new solution to the lack of currency in Zimbabwe, local startup Yo Time offers an internet platform that allows retailers to give change in the form of mobile airtime instead.

Following the abandonment of the Zimbabwean dollar back in 2009, numerous hard currencies can be used to pay for goods in Zimbabwe, including the widely preferred US dollar. A problem arises, however, when consumers’ purchases fall short of a whole-dollar amount, because small change is in chronically short supply in the nation. Aiming to provide a new solution to this problem, local startup Yo Time offers an internet platform that allows retailers to give change in the form of mobile airtime instead.

Currently, shoppers whose purchases don’t add up to a whole-dollar amount are often forced either to buy an extra item to make the total round up, or to accept a credit note that’s typically good only at the store that issued it. With Yo Time, however, participating retailers can issue change in the form of PIN-less airtime credited directly to the shopper’s mobile phone number. The service can handle credits of any value between 10 cents and USD 50. Once sent, the shopper receives the airtime within eight seconds along with a confirmation message.

Yo Time has already been embraced by several leading retail chains and supermarkets in Zimbabwe, the company says. A model to bring to other currency-strapped nations around the world?

Source: Springwise

Valucard changes identity. Now known as Unified Payments Services Limited

ValuCard Nigeria, a payment industry solutions provider, has changed its name to Unified Payment Services. ValuCard was launched in 1997 by a consortium of Nigerian banks, which came together to set up a shared infrastructure to enable electronic payments (e-payments). The company launched the first domestic card scheme and a plastic payment card, the ValuCard e-Purse.

What wil happen to Dropbox when Google Drive launches?

Google Drive?

There has been rumours of the launch of Google Drive since February this year (2012) and it seems that it might be unveiled next week.

Google Drive is purely focussed on file storage and synchronisation. And it would be launching with a free 5GB offer.  Now this would be a definite blow to Dropbox, which is still the leading service in legitimate cloud storage. Dropbox users get 2GB of storage for free and then can pay either $10 or $20 per month to upgrade to 50GB or 100 GB of storage. It also matches the free 5GB offerings from companies Box.net and SugarSync.  Dropbox may be forced to increase its free 2GB to 5GB offerring.

Internet Subscribers now 6.2m while mobile subscribers now 26.5m in Kenya

The number of Internet subscribers in Kenya increased by 13.48 percent from 5.42 million to 6.15 million between September 1 and December 31 last year.

During the same period, the estimated number of Internet users rose to 17.38 million up from 14.30 million, representing an increase of 21.55 per cent.

Airtel, IBM Organizes Mobile Innovation Competition For University Of Ghana Students

Airtel Ghana in collaboration with IBM Ghana are organizing a mobile innovation competition for students of the University of Ghana. The mobile innovation competition is aimed at building awareness and to educate students on issues relating to mobile technology.

Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, Philip Sowah in a release explained that Airtel, in its bid to spread its innovation mantra to young people in schools and to encourage entrepreneurship as a means of curtailing graduate unemployment, decided to collaborate with IBM Ghana which had similar ideas. What we seek to do is to collaborate to produce a pilot competition on mobile innovation with 50 students from the University of Ghana, Legon who will come up with ideas that use IBM Lotus Connections to develop an IT based solution to an identified problem, Mr. Sowah explained.

He added that an agreed scenario and problem statement will be presented to the students prior to the event scheduled for Saturday April 21 2012. Through the use of a collaborative tool such as Lotus Greenhouse, Mr. Sowah said the students would be asked to generate innovative ideas on how to monetize the mobile platform to create technological products.

Throwing more light on the competition, Head of Corporate Communications and External Affairs at Airtel Ghana, Donald Gwira said the best 20 ideas will be selected and those students will receive coaching/mentoring to prepare them for the panel evaluation. Mr. Gwira explained that the ideas will be assessed by a panel of IBM and Airtel judges and the winner of this competition will be flown to Nairobi, Kenya to participate in the Innovation Discovery Airtel Africa Workshop. Runners up in the competition will receive one year Airtel data subscription with all participants receiving Airtel and IBM paraphernalia.

Mr. Gwira added that what we are doing with IBM Ghana is not a mere marketing drive but a very bold statement that we want to encourage all those IT savvy young people that there is so much more that can be derived from the internet. Airtel 3.75G service with our affordable data bundles ensures that we can access the internet at an affordable and greater speed, he concluded.




Source BusinessGhana

Covenant Christian Centre presents "The Platform 10.0 - Cultural Innovation." May 1, 2012.

The 1st of May of every year for the past few years has been significant in the Nigerian calendar as it is a day when prominent speakers from all around the world come under one roof to share ideas, innovations and insights. It is “The Platform”. The platform is an intellectual fair geared towards helping people to create opportunities and develop their potentials. It is also aimed at developing an accurate mindset and right thinking processes to enable people utilise opportunities available to them in the country today.

Innovative Ghanaian companies get investment from Actis

Innovative companies supporting land rights and agriculture in low-income communities across Ghana are to benefit from a new Actis investment fund operating for the first time in West Africa.

Medeem Ghanak, a Ghanaian majority-owned and operated social enterprise that has developed an innovative and sustainable approach to the formalisation of land rights in Ghana, will receive a $1m loan to strengthen property rights for the poor, and GADCO, an integrated agri-food company, will receive a $1.5m equity investment. The Actis fund, based in Accra, will support entrepreneurs who create businesses that provide affordable housing, healthcare, education, clean energy and water, and agricultural goods and services. SInce 2001, it has invested more than $70m in enterprises in SOuth Asia and East Africa

Source: African Business

Insights into Internet in Africa

InsightsAfrica is the result of a two-year collaboration between Google and Basis Research Ltd to understand people's behaviours and attitudes when it comes to the internet. Over 13,000 people in urban centres of 6 key African countries were interviewed - Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda - to understand how and why people use the internet, what prevents non-users from coming online, and much more. After completing the study, they wanted to make sure that this data was publicly accessible, easy-to-understand, and to ensure that website visitors could focus on the information that is most useful to them. So they created filters for country, age, gender and internet usage level, which you can select with just a click. 

Google unveils Project Glass.. a sign of things to come...

Last Wednesday, Google unveiled "Project Glass".   This new technology functions like a smartphone, only in the form of a wearable device that looks like eyeglasses.  In its launch post, the developers - +Babak Parviz +Steve Lee +Sebastian Thrun, stated that they "started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment".

Project Glass is a long way from completion and Google says it only showed the device to the public in an effort to collect feedback. The project has been under development by a small team of engineers for two years now.

Relax and watch. It is exciting......

The New York Times had suggested that the glasses might go on sale with a starting price ranging from $250 to $600 before year-end, but experts say the project has a long way to go before completion.

Truly a sign of things to come.....

The Tony Elumelu Foundation partners with CcHub to provide and support managed seed funding to 20 technological ideas/ventures in Nigeria

In a press release today, the Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) is partnering with the Tony Elumelu Foundation to give social technology entrepreneurs a boost.

Read the press release below.....

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), an institution dedicated to the promotion and celebration of excellence in business leadership and entrepreneurship across Africa, is partnering with Co-Creation Hub Nigeria (CcHub), Nigeria’s first open living lab and pre-incubation space dedicated to catalysing creative social technology ventures, in an effort to encourage innovative ideas that could help transform the social technology space in Nigeria.

Facebook to buy Instagram for $1 billion

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook announced today that Facebook would be acquiring Instagram, a popular mobile-only photo-sharing app, for $1 billion in a cash and stock deal. He made this known on his Facebook page some hours ago.    

Ghanaian listed as one of the world's top 10 innovation management scholars

In an article published recently in the Journal of Product innovation Management (Volume 29, Issue 2), a Ghanaian has been identified as one of the world's top 10 innovation management scholars in the world. He is Professor Kwaku Atuahene-Gima.

The empirical data was garnered from data on innovation management from articles published in two leading innovation management journals and eight top management and marketing journals during past 20 years (1991–2010).  Based on citation impact factor, past studies have established that Journal of Product innovation Management (JPIM) and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management are the top two innovation management journals in the world.

EPAWA to expand SMS project on human trafficking in four regions in Ghana

Enslavement Prevention Alliance-West Africa (EPAWA), a Non-Governmental Organization, has said measures are underway to expand its Short Message Service (SMS) project to four other regions to help combat the rise in human trafficking cases in the country.

The first phase of the project was launched last year on a pilot basis where community monitors in twenty communities were selected in some parts of the country and given free mobile phones and laptops to help report instances of violence, exploitation and trafficking witnessed in their localities via text messages or mobile phone calls.

The technology connects a network of professionals who can respond in a crisis and allow for a timely exchange of information to parents and communities.

Miss Tatiana Kotlyarenko, Chief Executive Director of EPAWA said, the project would be extended to cover the whole of Greater Accra, Volta, Northern and Brong Ahafo regions this year, adding that plans to extend the project was as a result of the success of the pilot project.

Google donates $350000 to iHUB and KENET in Kenya

Google has given $350,000 to Nairobi's Innovation Hub, (iHUB) and Kenya Education Network, (KENET) to help them expand their infrastructure and purchase tools to better serve the developer and academic communities in Kenya.

The iHub, a popular hangout for techies, is home to many of Kenya’s young entrepreneurs, web and mobile programmers, designers and researchers. KENET is a non-profit institution that connects educational institutions with a private, affordable high speed Internet network. It supports many universities, tertiary and research institutions.