Kenya

Praekelt Foundation, Wikimedia team up to bring free Wikipedia to Kenya

How often do you reach into your pocket for your smartphone and use Wikipedia to settle an argument? Whether you’re using mobile data or…

Kipochi brings Bitcoin to Africa through M-Pesa

Kipochi just launched its Bitcoin transfer service in Kenya using M-Pesa as its running platform. This service would allow people across Kenya to send…

Measurement Lab, Google want to help Africans measure their internet quality

There are loads of people who are concerned about how much internet access Africa has. In trying to address that concern it’s also easy…

From Ushahidi to Al Jazeera: the role of mobile in Kenya’s elections

The people of Kenya will today start voting in a presidential election. Things have been tense in the lead up to polling day and…

Connected tech communities and competitive advantage: the Kenyan way

In the last couple weeks I’ve had the opportunity to be in Nigeria (Maker Faire Africa), followed by South Africa (AfricaCom). Along with Kenya,…

Kenyan government plans to almost double the country’s bandwidth

Kenya’s government has announced plans to lay a fifth fibre-optic cable in the region, which is expected to practically double the country’s bandwidth capacity…

How political parties can use mobile and social media to reach voters

A political election is much like a marketing campaign showdown, and the team with the best product usually sways the biggest audience. Look at…

Exploring Africa’s open data

I recently discovered Afrographique, a site that does data visualisations on African data. It’s done by Ivan Colic, a South African designer, as a…

Fibre to the home: lessons from Kenya

With i3 Africa’s announcement earlier this month that fibre to the home was finally going to be a reality for South Africans, I thought…

Twitter making its way back to Africa

More than two and a half years ago Twitter shut down all operations in Africa. Back then, in August of 2008, it really didn’t…

Snaply: Taking the ‘exclusivity out’ of eCommerce site building

As society moves more into the online sphere, the need to do practically everything online grows. eCommerce sites are growing bigger and adding more…

Kenya’s astonishing internet growth: Six key trends to watch

For many years, Kenya was known as fertile ground for agriculture, but increasingly it’s becoming known as a place where technology companies can grow…

How SMS is being used in the fight against HIV in Kenya

Using mobile-phone text messages to remind HIV patients to take their dose of life-saving medications can give a major boost to drug adherence, according…

Facebakers: Everything you ever wanted to know about Facebook

Friends have been found, photos uploaded and tagged, gaming has gone social, status updates are now second nature and a movie, The Social Network,…

Kenyan scoops $1m in Nokia mobile app challenge

John Waibochi of Virtual City, from Kenya, on Thursday scooped the Nokia $1,000,000 Growth Economy Venture Challenge at Nokia World. Launched at CES 2010,…

Do banks block mobile money innovation in Africa?

A recent blog posting by Dr. Bill Maurer on the CGAP website spoke about mobile money’s innovation crisis. The author claims that nothing new has…

20 Kenyan web and tech innovations worth watching

Kenya is abuzz right now. The outlook for technology and innovation in Africa has never been brighter, and Kenya is positioning itself strategically in…

Demise of the newspaper greatly exaggerated

At the World Association of Newspaper’s conference in Cape Town, Anton Harber on journalism.co.za writes that it is “Not all doom and gloom from…

Hats off to Media24’s tabloids

Blogging the African Leadership Conference in Kenya, Nairobi

Ingo Capraro, Editor of the relatively new tabloid, Die Son in South Africa gave us a talk on the successes of the paper. Die Son is part of the powerful Media24/Naspers group – the biggest media player in Africa.

Die Son editor gave us a presentation on the newspaper’s successes. It is a tabloid unashamedly covering sex, scandal and has its own page three girl. There was a fair amount of criticism about what the paper was doing. Not sure what the fuss is about.

Who’s running the show at newspapers?

Blogging the African Leadership Conference in Kenya, Nairobi

Dr Peter Mwesige, Acting Head, Mass Communication Department, Makerere University and Former Executive Editor Monitor Publications in Uganda delivered an interesting speech on “African quality journalism”. He emphasised that if we treat the media “like any other business”, we distort the principles of journalism. He noted that there obviously needs to be a healthy mix with regards to the drive for profitability and good journalism, but that the drive for profitability seems to be affecting the craft of journalism. He’s right.

Broadband Africa Forum 2024

South Africa’s Deskless Workers: A Workforce Under Strain

How AI is Rewriting Urban Planning in Developing Regions

Microsoft launches new Surface devices in new AI era

Honor Magic V3 launches, four things to know

Honor Magic V3, a Guinness world record attempt

German luxury cars require a rethink for China

Trump wins – Tesla goes beyond $1 Trillion

Vivo update – a big safety gain