Author: Cyrus

Kenya’s new Chief Justice, Dr Willy Mutunga, has joined Twitter. The new CJ got one of the biggest welcome any famous person has ever gotten while having a first time on the social networking site. It might also not be that the Kenyans on Twitter would like just to follow him but maybe the expectation out there is so high. You could see from the comments directed at the new CJ’s twitter handle that many were looking for justice on stalled cases. The new CJ also announced his presence on Facebook through an official page. Within one hour of joining…

Election is nearing. This is where journalists are so busy meeting political and business leaders as they prepare their forte for the eventuality after the elections. Blogging is also growing in Kenya and when you are a blogger, you are definitely a journalist. You would want a professional recorder to conduct interviews with industry leaders. These devices are also handy when you want to keep track of what the lecturer is saying. You can record the whole session and replay it later. Bloggers are very innovative. They will quickly turn their phone into a recorder or simply use their computers…

We have just been traveling throughout Nairobi using Google maps and one of the most prominent landmark buildings we came across are some buildings right inside Kenyatta National Hospital. The buildings have the German Swastika designs when viewed through the Google satellite photos. It would be interesting to learn more about the history of the buildings. We think that they are the nurses quarters but we might be wrong. The buildings are right opposite Kemri University of Oxford Wellcome Trust Collaborative Programme offices. Though the Swastika has remained the symbol of religion in Hinduism, Budhism and Jainism, its use by…

This are getting bad. Rumours are out there that AccessKenya is in the the advanced stages of shutting down the Home portal. The portal has been run down by people not well conversant with content generation and monetizing portals. At its peak, the portal used to generate more than Ksh 1 Million in revenues. AccessKenya later disagreed with the consultants who were managing the portal under unclear circumstances. Word is out there that it was the fee charged by the consultant which was the issue with AccessKenya seeing that the portal might generate enough revenue without the expensive consultancy fees…

Social media doesn’t, as yet, have very wide reach in South Africa, but it still offers the ability to create greater depth in the relationship between the consumer and brands. For car manufacturers, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter offer a much better relationship-building solution than can be achieved with a typical vehicle website. “Additionally, from a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) perspective, social media provides a platform for one-to-many communication, while at the same time giving clients an opportunity to have personalised conversations with the brand,” says Ben Wagner, Chief Marketing Warrior at NATIVE, the largest independent, fully…

Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto have had the highest number of secret meetings with Yoweri Museveni anyone can talk of. They main agenda is not clear but it has started to raise eyebrows. In 2007 during the upheavals after the general elections in Kenya, Museveni was reported to have sent military police in Kenya to help Kibaki stay in power. Though Museveni and Kibaki denied this, it was evident from the military fatigue spotted during the quelling of some of the protests and also the witness account around Lake Victoria. The Uganda soldiers used the long secret entry points through…

Kenyan bloggers are as peculiar as Kenyans themselves. They will wow, surprise, annoy and make you happy at the same time. They will do the meaningless and not do the meaningful at the same time. They will brag and their egos is the size of the great Pyramids of Egypt. We just sat down and came with 8 traits of Kenyan bloggers they better change or we will just still be a tourist attraction. 1. The Secret Admirer There are Kenyan bloggers on twitter who when they think that you are a threat to their forte, they will unfollow you.…

Rene Meza, CEO Bharti Airtel Kenya, has been named by the respected GTB Magazine as one of the top 40 under 40 global telecom leaders. GTB is a website which deals specifically with top managers of telecommunications companies globally. They do interviews, market researches and white papers. Some other notables in the top 40 under 40 list are Norman Moyo the CEO of Zantel–Etisalat, Ryan Sher of WIOCC, Hova Van Beijma of Text to Change among others. The GTB top forty under forty is an annual industry survey of the young telecom leaders. It has been running for the last…

It seems like we just had our Firefox 4 yesterday. But the legion of developers behind the Firefox are not resting. The Gecko based Firefox engine looks to be faster than IE9 and Chrome in the 5.0 released yesterday. Before we tell you how good it is, check it out here and then read on. Some of the key features in the new Firefox 5.0 are; Improved Privacy – The browser will be able to let you choose how you want it to track your browsing. Firefox 5 also has the Do Not track feature in both the Android and…

Airtel Kenya has announced the availability of a personalised promotions and offers system. Airtel Kenya clients can access the service by dialing 141, they will be able to access My Airtel My Offer service for special rewards. My Airtel My Offer is an interactive voice response, where customers call a dedicated number 141 through which they will receive comprehensive information about the full range of products and services available on the Airtel network. This is a new approach to letting customers choose and personalize their rewards unlike the traditional promotions and reward. Among the goodies available to customers are discounted…

Hewlett Packard (HP) today signed a US$1.8 million (KES 162 million) contract with the Kenya Women Finance Trust Deposit Taking Microfinance Limited (KWFT) to upgrade the latter’s Information Communications Technology systems and revamp its primary data center. HP’s new state of the art Superdome 2 solution will be the new technology for the Data Centre. KWFT’s client base stands at over 450,000 and this solution.KWFT has a total of 215 business outlets,  including 10 deposit taking branches  in Kakamega, Eldoret, Nyeri, Mombasa, Nairobi’s River Road, Malindi, Kericho, Kisii, Embu and Migori with three additional opening soon in Machakos Kitale and…

Philips was in Nairobi today  as part of the Cape Town to Cairo road show 2011 which runs from May 12th to July 11th. This is the second such event and it covers 12 countries and 12,000 Kms. Philips is travelling throughout Africa to create awareness about healthcare and lighting solutions. Impressive stuff were shown including the solar lighting solutions, LED bulbs, babycare solutions and other hear systems. During the roadshow, Philips will be engaging with governments, NGOs, media and the customers giving the real life experience stories and conducting product demos. Some of the innovation on Mother and Child…

Kenya Data Networks (KDN) has announced a partnership with Israeli cable manufacturer Teldor Cables & Systems, alongside its local partner Amiran Communications, to supply and deploy a fibre optic network to be used in KDN’s new data centre. The partnership will see Teldor C&S design, supply components, support a Building Management Systems and undertake a fibre optic network layout within the data centre. The multi-million dollar data centre, situated along Nairobi’s Mombasa Road, is a world-class data facility purposed for hosting applications and is aimed at serving both local and international businesses.

Today is World Refugee Day. Safaricom, Ericsson and Refugees United have come together to make it easier for refugees to be united with their loved ones. The partnership will see Safaricom offers its 17 Million plus clients database for an app jointly developed by Ericsson and Refugee. The mobile site enables refugees to access Refugees United’s mobile site – http://m.refunite.org, register themselves (in English, Kiswahili, Somali or Arabic), search for and subsequently reconnect with loved ones. Once registered, the information is stored in an anonymous database that is maintained by Refugees United. It can then be accessed by individuals as well…

This post is inspired by the spirit of transparency as enshrined in the new constitution. So please nobody should hold it against me nor take it personal. When the voice of the voiceless is dimmed with shouts of traitor! traitor! , we take it upon ourselves to sneak it through this medium and make sure that it is heard loud enough. We must first acknowledge that the Kenyan government through ICT Board is trying in various ways to market the country’s ICT potential as well as help techies look for opportunities elsewhere around the world. Through the seminars, conferences and…