Author: Cyrus

Africell, the largest mobile operator in Sierra Leone, launched the country’s first 3G network. The service which is powered by Nokia Siemens is expected to lead to the growth of data and value added services consumption. Africell was founded in Gambia in 2001 and entered the Sierra Leone market in 2005. Africell  has a market share of 65% in Gambia and 58.7% in Sierra Leone. But the ironic bit is that both its group website (africell.com) and respective country websites (africell.sl and africell.gm) are still under construction. There are three mobile operators in Sierra Leone (Africell, Comium and Zain). Africell…

Local Information Technology solutions provider, Seven Seas Technologies, yesterday unveiled a joint investment partnership with Zimbabwe’s Twenty Third Century Systems in Kenya to spearhead the rollout of premium Enterprise applications. The full-fledged IT solutions outfit trading under the brand name: Twenty Third Century Systems Kenya, with a business mandate to provide SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions. The joint venture between SST and TTCS is more geared towards at facilitating SAP’s aggressive market expansion drive in the continent. There are also strong hints that SAP is in the process of launching a SAP Talent Academy here in Nairobi. Twenty Third…

The CCK Board through its chairman, Eng Phillip Okundi, has announced the appointment of Francis Wamukota Wangusi as the Acting Director General of the troubled Communications regulator. The move is in accordance with the order issued by the High Court on Wednesday 10th August instructing Mr. Charles J.K. Njoroge to cease acting as the Director General until the case challenging his re-appointment is heard and determined. Wangusi who was also a former lecturer at KCCT (now Multimedia University College) was until his appointment the Director in charge of Special Projects and Broadcasting at the Commission. He has over twenty seven years…

Subscribers of Safaricom can now protect their loyality rewards Bonga Points through a new PIN (personal identification number)-based security system. With the recently launched ability of subscribers ability to transfer their Bonga Points, many users have complained that their reward points have been ilegally transferred. This feature has been launched today and is meant to discourage unauthorized transfer of Bonga Points, under the popular loyalty scheme. Bonga Points was launched on January 23, 2007 and is open to all PrePay and PostPay subscribers. Bonga Points may be redeemed for various rewards ranging from free minutes, SMS, MMS and data bundles…

Mocality seems to be moving into the daily deals business. The company has rolled out a new product, Mocality Deals, to compete with Zetu and Rupu in Kenya. Though initially available in Nairobi, Mocality might be thinking of going regional with the daily deals product. I am not sure what we can draw of this but just on a day when Groupon is admitting that it is not profitable and even analysts saying that the daily deals market is saturated, it is hard to praise such a move. But in an interview with Moses Kemibaro, Joseph Mwaniki of Mocality thinks…

Some have started thinking of the many domains they might just be interested in buying. Some are funny others are really controversial, like buying germany.ss. You know the Nazi memories will come back and haunt anyone in Germany with such a domain. But the great news is that ISO has agreed to award Sudan ccTLD dot-SS. That means that you will soon see .co.ss, .or.ss or just get domains like cla.ss, pa.ss or any other you can think of. Though the announcement is yet to be made officially, already there entry has been approved and is even appearing on the…

Around Ksh 3 Million is up for grabs as the Human IPO organised IPO48 contest kicks off in Nairobi. The event which starts from 11th to 14th will see 13 teams battle it out to convince the judges and mentors that they can have a business plan which works in 48 hours. The event will see mentors and entrepreneurs advice and challenge the contestants on their ideas and the idea which comes top will win Ksh 2.5 Million in funding. According to David Owino “Human IPO sees it best to fund green startups because any existing business which is accepted…

Kenya’s insurance industry can breathe a sigh of relief since a local tech company might have just found for them the right solution to their agency businesses. BIMA360 is a mobile application which basically has all the functionality you would wish for in an insurance system. The TurnQuest BIMA360 is an insurance sales agent application that uses a mobile phone device to allow agents access information in the field with minimal connectivity to the office. Agents can sign up clients and use the wide knowledge base to answer key customer queries. The event has been developed by Turnkey Africa Limited.…

It seems that hackers are not ignoring the poorly secured sites in East Africa. The Uganda’s national Airline, Air Uganda, website has been hacked. The hackers have taken control of the domain and is now forwarding the url to blog.bobytiranda.net . It is not known how long the website has stayed like that but prying eyes discovered the breach this morning. Screenshot Just recently Makerere University had their website hacked and many others have been hacked in East Africa.

Safaricom and Orange wants to see the speedy implementation of the the Energy and Communications Law 2011 (Amendment) bill which seeks to curb cable vandalism and treat it as an economic crime. Through statements to us, both Safaricom and Telkom Kenya appreciate that the bill has been gazetted. If the bill is passed, vandalism of telecommunications and power cables in Kenya could attract a fine of Ksh 5 million or a jail term of not less than 10 years. The Energy and Communications Law (Amendment) 2011  bill also changes section two of the Scrap Metal Act by re-introducing licensing for…

Director General of the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) has been barred by the High Court from office terming his appointment irregular.  Charles Njoroge  has recently featured in the battle of power between the CCK Board and Minister of Information with the board insisting that he should not be re-appointed as head of the regulatory authority while the minister went against the board’s advice and recommendations and re-appointed Mr Njoroge. Some have termed the fights as a sign of what is happening in the sector with Njoroge’s supporters saying that he managed to reign in on errant operators who are…

India’s Reliance Communications (RCom) has today entered into the competitive tablet computer market launching and Android 2.3 operating system-based tab. The tab will retail at around 12,999 rupees and it actually looks like a Samsung Galaxy 7″ Tab. The reliance branded tab is one of the latest products RCom is using to boost data sales on its network. The Reliance 3G tab boasts a 7-inch capacitive touch screen, Android 2.3 OS, 512 MB RAM and a micro SD external storage slot which can support up to 32 GB. The tablet will be sold in Reliance World and Reliance Mobile stores across the 13 circles where…

RIM’s Inside BlackBerry blog has been hacked with the hackers accusing BlackBerry of assisting the UK police in tracking the protestors. The hacking is said to have been carried out by TeamPoison with the hackers openly tacking credit and leaving a strong signature on the blog. They also left the following statement: Dear RIM; You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all, the Police are looking to arrest as many people as…

Now in their second year, CIO100 Awards recognize East African organizations that have taken risks on emerging technology or deployed the tried-and-true in a new way. The awards will celebrate 100 organizations (and the people within them) in East Africa that are using information technology in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationships with customers. Perhaps you built a better business process or fostered closer collaboration. Or, you found ways to get more from existing customers, to pursue new markets, to save money or to make more. Here’s…

We did our first post on Techmtaa on 24th December 2009. It has been long since and we have made impact, enemies and some mileage. After almost and after almost 600 days (604 to be exact) I believe we can draw some lessons. Before Techmtaa, I used to blog on other platforms or post long mails and forum replies. Now it is basically blogs and a few magazine articles. There are some few lessons we have drawn from the experience; 1 Stick to Being Yourself This is not about the blog’s policy only but also you as an individual. You…