Experience the 2012 London Olympic games with Google

The Olympic Games began last week in London, and more than half of the planet—some 4.8 billion people—have been tuning in to watch. To help you join in the excitement and glory of the Games, we’ve put together google.co.ke/olympics. Here’s a quick look at the updates, results and other content we’re bringing you from London 2012.

Discover and learn more
Want to know what your team’s next medal prospect is, or if you’ve missed Oscar Pistorius make history in the 400m? Here are a few ways we’re helping you get all the hottest news in a flash:

Search from your desktop, phone or tablet for [london 2012], a country team like [Team Kenya, Team Nigeria], or a sport like [swimming], and you’ll see up-to-the-minute detailed information.
In the Hot Searches section of the site, we show you which topics, athletes or events are being searched for by fans around the world. The analysis is updated hourly, and you can click on any search to read associated news articles.
On Google Play, find a collection of useful apps, from results trackers such as London 2012 Results to games such as London 2012-Official Game for download on your Android device.

Click here to read more

Inactive PoS terminals hit 62,095 amid poor connectivity

The number of unused Point of Sales terminals in the cash-less Lagos initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria has reached 62,095 amid poor connectivity and downtime.

A PoS terminal is an electronic device used to process card payments at retail locations.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Offficer, Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc, Mr. Adebisi Shonubi, said the clearing house had registered 151,717 PoS terminals on its platform but lamented that only 88,622 units had been deployed as at July 1, 2012.

This, according to him, leaves 62,095 registered PoS inactive.

He said, “PoS deployment had been on the increase since December 2011 and the cumulative number of PoS deployed and connected to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc stood at 88,622 as at July 1, 2012.

NigComSat, Main One partner on rural broadband connectivity

The Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited has entered into a partnership with Main One Cable Company to take broadband access to last mile users, especially in the rural areas where fibre cannot reach.

As part of the partnership, NigComSat has invested in a Teleport located within the premises of Main One Cable in Lekki, Lagos.

Chairman, NigComSat Board of Directors, Prof. Turner Isoun, specifically said that NigComSat would carry traffic from the Teleport via satellite to far flung places where cable could not reach.

African Web video service Iroko raises more funds, targets cable TV

Jason Njoku (extreme right) 

Iroko Partners, an online distributor of African movies and music, has raised another $2 million in its latest round of funding from a Swedish venture capital group as it seeks to take the service to cable and satellite TV partners in the U.S. and Europe.
The Lagos, Nigeria-based company raised the funds from Sweden’s Kinnevik, an early investor in Groupon Inc. Iroko previously raised $8 million from U.S.-based hedge fund Tiger Global in April as investors in emerging markets seek to tap into one of the fastest growing movie businesses in the world.

Kinnevik investments head, Henrik Persson, said his firm, which has invested in African telecoms, sees tremendous opportunity in African media and online services. “It has very low penetration and we see a really strong growth trend. He added: “A part of our investment philosophy is that we think that the perceived risk is higher than the real risk in this market..what people see as a lack of opportunity is a lack of supply.”

Which website is dominating the world? Is it Yahoo, Google or Yandex?

Which website rules the world? Which website do you think most people visit?

Webempires recently released an infographic to give us some interesting pictorial information. Google is clearly the leader. As you can see, Facebook rules in Africa except in Cameroun; how interesting.

Courtesy - Webempires.org

The map above includes #1 websites in each country, based on traffic rank (Alexa data, for want of anything better). It doesn’t include properties. Google’s traffic is scattered across nearly 200 domains for local versions of Google (google.se, google.lt, google.co.uk…). Google also owns 23 of the top 100 websites in the world, making Facebook pale in comparison.

Click here for more information

How Mobile innovation and Technology can give political parties innovative new ways to reach voters in Kenya?

Given the upcoming elections in Kenya early next year, there is no more vital time to reach a broad audience come voting season for political parties. Finding the triggers to a nation’s touchpoints – what policy matters to them, how they need to hear information and how best to get them this information – is key to informing the people about their choices.

A political election is much like a marketing campaign showdown, and the team with the best product usually sways the biggest audience. Look at Barack Obama in his first campaign, afterwards cited as the most successful “new marketer” in history for his ground-breaking use of online and social media to reach out to potential supporters.

More than anything, his campaign showed that online and social media could no longer be ignored. In Kenya, while TV and Radio are still the preferred way for people to receive political information, mobile is catching up fast. In fact, according to recent research released by InMobi, 33% of Kenyans prefer receiving messages via TV, with 20% preferring to hear their news via the radio; this is likely to be in the form of news broadcasts.

New app seeking to boost the crop yields of Kenyan farmers

Farmers in Kenya can now predict their crop yields using a web-based application that gives them access to statistics on soil fertility, required fertilisers and expected crop diseases.

Mkulima Calculator (M-Calc), which when translated means ‘farmer calculator’, seeks to influence the decision making of farmers. M-Calc aims to optimise production and reduce losses farmers incur when they plant specific crops in unsuitable areas.

The application developed by students from Strathmore University in Nairobi was inspired by the 2011 drought which saw more than 3.5 million Kenyans face starvation.

ISIS NYONG’O, INMOBI Africa VP AND MD recieves 2 prestigious Nominations

During June, the InMobi Vice President and Managing Director for Africa was nominated as one of Africa’s most successful women by Forbes, and was also nominated by Kenya’s Business Daily to their annual Top 40 under 40 awards. This is in addition to an earlier nomination in 2012 by the World Economic Forum to their Young Global Leader awards.

Isis, has been working in the media and technology industries for over 10 years, and held previous positions at MyJobsEye, Google and MTV Networks Africa. After working at MTV, Isis joined InMobi, the world’s largest independent mobile advertising network, to head up the Africa region. In Africa, InMobi has offices in Kenya and South Africa.

When asked about her fascination with this industry, she said “I find media and tech to be the most exciting and challenging industries in Africa. This is where the level and speed of innovation is at its highest; when it comes to media, the continent is experiencing the same paradigm shift facing global media houses. They are grappling with how to engage with and monetize increasingly fragmented audiences who are consuming media through digital channels including mobile. Technology is an enabler for things to progress and move forward and it is inspiring to see the projects developers are working on in the technology hubs in Nairobi, Lagos and Cape Town. It is great that InMobi can play a pivotal part in monetizing many of these projects given how central mobile devices are for everyday life in Africa.”

Source: Inmobi

The wait is over. Konga.com finally launches in Nigeria

Konga.com is finally here. The wait is finally over and true to its declaration, it is focusing on Baby Products, Beauty and Personal care.

It offers Cash on Delivery and Free delivery too.  

Nokia East Africa announces the "Don't Break the Beat competition

Nokia yesterday announced the launch of the “Don’t Break the Beat” campaign across East Africa. The campaign, linked to the Nokia Asha range of mobile phones, centres on a competition to find the definitive rapper, also known as a cypher, among the youth in East Africa.

The search will be conducted in cities and towns across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, with a number of auditions and elimination rounds in each country to determine the national finalists. This will culminate in early September with the East Africa battle to determine the overall champion who walks away with the title and a whopping 250,000 Kenyan Shillings.

“The youth in East Africa are all about self-expression and the freedom to share their unique style,” says Angela Githuthu, Marketing Activation Manager for Nokia East Africa. “The Nokia Asha range of mobile phones is designed specifically for these consumers, offering freedom of choice in design, form factor, colour and price; but not compromising on features that the youth demand such as integrated social networking, access to thousands of apps and entertainment. We are bringing these devices to market through the Don’t Break the Beat campaign which marries the youth’s desire for individuality expressed through music, and the wish to have phones that are almost an extension of themselves.”

As part of this campaign, Nokia will also extend the current Nokia Asha family range with two new mobile phones – the Nokia Asha 202 and Nokia Asha 305 for the local market. 

The Nokia Asha 202 is great for consumers that value dual-SIM capability on their phones. In addition to using Easy-Swap technology, the Asha 202 has a 2.4-inch touchscreen and alphanumeric keypad that allows the consumer the best of both worlds. Users are assured of an enjoyable multimedia experience, thanks to a high performing loudspeaker, enhanced stereo FM radio and ringtone tuning. The Nokia Asha 202 is available across East Africa at affordable prices.

The Nokia Asha 305 is the first full touch Asha device and features a major update of the Nokia Browser, which uses cloud technology to reduce data usage by up to 90%. The benefits are numerous: web pages will load faster, battery life is improved and mobile Internet access is much more affordable. Another great consumer benefit is that the Asha 305 comes with 40 Electronic Art games that consumers can download and keep forever.

The Nokia Asha 305 will be available in East Africa towards the end of July at affordable prices.

To find out more about Nokia Don’t Break the Beat, go to:

http://dontbreakthebeat.mobi or http://www.facebook.com/nokiaeastafrica

Mara Launch Uganda Fund seeks footing in Uganda

A new venture fund called Mara Launch Uganda Fund has opened its doors to Uganda’s technology community complete with a community working space and business mentorship programmes.

Mara Launch Uganda Fund primarily invests in innovative, high growth enterprises in Uganda.

Speaking to HumanIPO, the fund’s programme associate Beyamba Gilbert said Mara Launch Uganda Fund will provide risk capital between US$2,000 and US$4,000 to high-growth enterprises in various sectors which show good growth in return for an equity share in the business as a minority partner.

Orange's Music Streaming Service Deezer Enters Africa's Burgeoning Music Platform Market - TV Programmes to Follow?

London — There are now several online and mobile music TV platforms that have started in Africa. Some like Iroko Partners started with Nollywood film and went into music, whilst others like Spinlet have started with music and could easily go into TV programming. For broadcasters, these platforms represent another way to get to their audiences and a potential opportunity for new revenue streams. Sylvain Beletre, Senior Research Analyst, Balancing Act talks to the key players.

Over the past few years there have been several online music services in Africa including radio stations streaming. Nigeria’s Spinlet , a mobile music management and storage service launched at Midem in January 2012 and iROKING is a free music Nigerian music streaming service that came out of Iroko Partners (Nollywood Love). Also Google’s initiative to have local servers on the continent for You Tube has put a large number of African countries within reach of free local music videos.

On 12 June 2012, Deezer, a European and international music streaming service aimed at encouraging the growth of legal online music offers announced that it was now joining Africa’s digital music armada in two high potential African countries: Mauritius and Ivory Coast. There are the first countries to launch Deezer’s service in the Middle East and Africa region. It plans to rollout in about ten African countries in total with Orange, which is a minority shareholder. Currently it offers 18 million tracks from 2,000 different music labels so it has content in depth and it has 1.5 million premium users.

Glo Mobile Pioneers New internet-free mobile app that tackles unemployment in Africa

Mobile operators can now help to tackle access to employment with the launch of a new SMS-based job application app. Job Xpress – the new internet-free app from ForgetMeNot Africa – enables partnered mobile networks’ subscribers to send CVs and job applications attached to mobile emails from any mobile phone, regardless of the model or make of the handset.

Recent OECD figures revealed that 40 million African youths** are currently unemployed, representing 60 per cent of Africa’s jobless. The difficulties, time constraints and the high cost involved in applying for jobs online in internet cafes – the main source of internet access for young Africans due to the lack of fixed telephone lines across the continent – further hamper the job application process.

Demo Africa joins forces with VC4Africa

Demo Africa has joined forces with Venture Capital for Africa, the largest online network of entrepreneurs and investors building innovative companies on the continent, to identify the most innovative emerging and established companies from around Africa.

Mr. Harry Hare, Executive Director of DEMO Africa said “We are very excited about holding the inaugural DEMO event on the African continent. This collaboration with VC4Africa will serve to increase the outreach and ultimate participation at the event by Africa’s most innovative entrepreneurs as well as investors who are looking for the next big thing in Africa.”

Hand-picked and specially selected companies will deliver their six-minute pitches to potential investors and buyers to garner their buy-in and interest. There will also be presentations and panel discussions from leading industry players and experts on consumer electronics, web-based applications, mobile technology,social media, life sciences, as well as sustainable and renewable energy made during the conference.

Mr. Ben White, founder of VC4Africa said “The number of ventures coming online across Africa is rapidly increasing. There are so many promising entrepreneurs and outstanding ventures. Joining forces allows us to welcome a new wave of innovators, put them in the spotlight for investors. Together we can do even more to mobilize the space and realize untapped potential.”

Source: Demo Africa

DEMO Africa Conference Partners with African Incubators in Search for DEMO Africa 2012 Demonstrator and AlphaPitch Class

DEMO Africa, the African edition of DEMO Conferences, the world-renowned “launchpad for emerging technology and trends,” recently announced the kick off to its Innovation Tour in search of the most promising technologies to showcase at the upcoming DEMO Africa 2012 Conference, to be held October 24-26, 2012 in Nairobi, Kenya.

DEMO Africa Executive Director, Harry Hare and the DEMO Africa team will travel to cities across the continent to meet with potential demonstrators for the upcoming DEMO Africa 2012 conference. DEMO Africa is teaming up with incubators and venture capital firms in each city, where startups will be selected to present their product or concept to CIO Magazine Publisher and DEMO Executive Director Harry Hare and top local investors, for consideration to take part in the class of DEMO Africa 2012 launch demonstrators.

The rise of low-cost android smartphones in Kenya could mean the end for Blackberry and Nokia

The rise of the smartphone in Kenya has been astronomical over the past year or so. The main reason for this has been the arrival of affordable smartphones in many flavors from Nokia, Samsung, Huawei, RIM (AKA BlackBerry) and even other lesser known brands such as Mi-Fone and Tecno. As things stand in Kenya, I estimate that smartphone penetration should be in the region of 7% which is still quite low when many other global markets have over 30% penetration. On many levels, one could say that it is still early days for Kenya where smartphones are concerned but this will change radically over the next few years.

The reality is that for pretty much the first time in Kenya, we have smartphones retailing for as little as Kes. 7,000.00 depending on the brand and model you buy. At the same time, most of these low-cost smartphones run on Google’s Android, a trend that was started by Huawei’s ground-breaking IDEOS almost 2 years ago when it retailed for around Kes. 8,000.00 at launch. As of this writing, we probably have as many as 10 Android smartphone models retailing for under Kes. 10,000.00 in Kenya – including Dual-SIM models. It therefore goes without saying that when it comes to entry-level smartphones, Google’s Android has all the potential to wipe out Nokia and BlackBerry in Kenya.

Paga secures new investments to scale money transfer service nationwide

Lagos, July 2, 2012 – Paga, Nigeria’s leading money transfer service launched in February 2011, today announced it has secured new investments from Adlevo Capital, Omidyar Network, Acumen Fund, Capricorn Investment Group, and current investors Goodwell West Africa Microfinance Development Company.

Paga’s mission is to deliver innovative and universal access to financial services for all Nigerians. The company plays a critical role in enabling a cashless Nigeria and delivering access to finance to the over 80% of Nigerians that are un-banked or under-banked. The company uses a multi-stakeholder approach. Paga is available on all mobile networks and is delivered to customers in collaboration with strong local banks (including microfinance institutions), retailers and various other private and public sector organisations.

Russell Southwood at Co-Creation Hub on the 4th of July. Be there.

Browser and Social Media Wars – Talk by Russell Southwood

Russell SOuthwood, CEO Balancing Act

Russell Southwood, the Chief Executive of Balancing Act, a consultancy and research company specialising in telecoms, Internet and broadcasting in Africa will be at the hub on Wednesday 4th July, 2012 to speak to the community about Browser and Social Media Wars.

Africa’s mobile market used to be talk, talk, talk and with the exception of SMS, data was almost invisible. With the arrival of new handsets and the upsurge in the use of new browsers and social network platforms, data is now highly visible and
the challenge for developers is how to develop software and applications that will allow those who own mobile phones to do more things. Russell will look at:

• The pattern in service and application development in other emerging markets.
• The battle for attention between local and international browser and social media software and what makes for successful applications.
• The structure of the market (smart phones, feature phones and basic phones) and what this means for those developing for it.
• Social behaviour and mobile software use.
• Gaps and future developments.

Russell Southwood’s consultancy work has included: an assessment of two different sectors in the TV market in Africa; an assessment of the transition to digital broadcasting in over 20 African countries; an appraisal of an investment in a wireless broadband operator; and a study on Open Access models for infoDev. He is the author of Balancing Act’s Briefing Paper The Digital Transition – Changing how broadcast functions. He is about to start a study for the Open Society Institute with a research team looking at cost-effective ways of digital migration in Africa and identifying what the “public interest” issues are to be addressed in making the transition.

Date: 4th July, 2012
Time: 5pm
Venue: Co-Creation Hub

See you there.

Do I like Kenya Airways new L10 - In-flight Entertainment solution? Not sure.

I took a flight from Lagos to Nairobi on board the new Kenya Airways B767 aircraft. I hear the B767 is one of the latest aircrafts it acquired. I am not quite sure I loved the whole experience. Firstly I got slightly upset when I learnt that KQ now stops in Accra to pick passengers before heading to Nairobi. I was not told and it didn't show on the flight itinerary sent from the Kenya Airways office. With KQ's penchant for being late (we took off from Lagos 45 mins late), I had to wait in Accra again for 45 mins for some passengers to alight and for Nairobi bound passengers to board the plane.

Another issue that I was not quite happy about, was the in-flight entertainment. After settling down on the flight, I searched around my seat for the in-flight entertainment screen for about 10 minutes. When I could not find it, I then asked the air hostess. She calmly told me that since I was in business class, I would be given an entertainment device. So I waited. She then came back with an "L10", a 10 inch screen handheld in-flight Entertainment device. I found out in the KQ's in-flight

L10 IFE screen

magazine (Msafiri magazine) that it was digEcor’s newest and premium entertainment solution to Kenya Airways. It was launched in June 2012 and it had an 18+ hour battery and Gigabit Ethernet port for fsat content loads, and a capacitive touch screen. I also learnt that using dedicated content update, 80 L10s can be simultaneously loaded with new content from a single server. To accommodate KQ’s passenger diversity on the various routes flown by their B767, the movie selection included Hollywood, Hindi and African movies, in addition to television programming, music, music videos and games. But there were less than 15 Hollywood movies and certainly not block busters. There was a particular comedy film showing on the public screen - "This means War"starring Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon and I asked why it wasn't on the "L10" and I was told it hadn't been loaded yet. And I could not watch it on the public screen because there was no port for earphones. Grrrr....

KQ, please the 10 inch screen is too small and you need to load it with current blockbusters. But the screen is too small. Annoying and the audio quality is not good at all. 

Konga.com, another online megastore launches in a few days

Konga.com, in preparation for its takeoff, has changed its look. It has substituted its former look for a new UI displaying baby products, beauty products and personal care.

As stated in our former post some weeks ago, Konga.com is coming from the stables of the outfit that brought you the Groupon clone in Nigeria, Dealdey.com.

The e-commerce industry is really hotting up. We already have Sabunta and Kasuwa from Rocket Internet that launched a couple of weeks ago and some others such as buynownow, shopng, awoofshop, buylikemagic seem to have sprung out of nowhere overnight. They all seem to be getting their products in-country.  I wonder if Nigeria has the variety of products to ensure they have a steady supply of different products for sale.  Some other companies have focused on foreign online stores since Nigerians have an insatiable appetite for foreign products and there is an abundant supply of products from these foreign places. Such companies include Circuit Atlantic and mannastores, to mention but a few.

Only time will tell what the landscape will be like. It is fairly easy to create an e-commerce site but it is another thing to contend with inventory management, customer service, shipping and delivery issues, e.t.c.

The next few months will separate the men from the boys. Exciting, isn't it? Watch out.