6th South African Innovation Summit Live Stream in Dar es Salaam

6th South African Innovation Summit will take place on August 28-29 (Wed-Thu) at KINU, co-organized by Kinu, TANZICT and Buni. We will the follow renowned speakers presenting in Johannesburg via video stream, and carry out some sessions and discussions locally with Tanzanian themes and insights.

Mobile Monday Today @ KINU Hub

Join MoMoDar Mobile Monday Dar event. This month we are going to discuss about the uses of ICT in education sector. Speakers will include:

1. Emanuel Feruzi: Lecture at IFM & EASTC
2. Faith Shimba: E-Learning specialist at COSTECH.
3. Joel S Mtebe: Lecture at UDSM & PhD Candidate at TUT
4. Loyola Students: Projects demonstration
The event will be held at the KINU space starting from 18:00 to 20:00.

Registration is required as seats are limited, so reserve yours quickly at

 http://momodareducation.eventbrite.com/

Tanzania: Govt to Tighten Screws On ICT Abusers

   

 THE government has warned that stern measures will be taken against people who use mobile phones and other types of social media to incite conflicts and go against the country's customs and norms.

 

The Minister for Communications, Science and Technology,

Prof Makame Mbarawa, said in Dar es Salaam over the weekend that the government has decided to take action because the abuse has been alarming.

"Strict measures will be taken against all individuals or companies who will abuse the government and its leaders; religious, political leaders and individuals," he said.

He added that such measures will be directed towards people showing pornographic pictures, child defilement and giving out information that seek to disturb the country's peace and tranquility.

"It is just few people who misuse mobile phones, email and other social media channelsÉ the law will catch up with this group wanting to destroy our nation," he said. The minister noted that despite the fact that technology has helped bring about development in recent years in the country; there are few people who use ICT negatively and that the government will not sit aside watching as things go awry.

Prof Mbarawa said there were reports of people using ICT to accomplish evil things such as banditry, rape, drugs, prostitution and releasing private information without concert of people involved. "We will not tolerate thisÉ we will work with other government agencies to stop this for the good of our country," he said.

Also, he said that any agent or a telephone company which will sell a sim card to any person without a recognized identity card will be liable. He said that it is a crime for a person to provide wrong information during sim card registration and that the government will switch off all unregistered sim cards as required by law.

Zantel gets new CEO

Zantel Tanzania, has announced the appointment of Mr. Pratap Ghose as their new Chief Executive Officer filling the position which previously used to be owned by Mr. Ali Bin Jarsh, who led the company for two years.

Mr. Pratap used to work with Etisalat as the group Vice President, handling Etisalat activities in the African Region.With over 18 years of experience in Business Optimization and finance he is considered to be the wright person to fill the gap. Also at some point of time he used to work as Chief Financial Officer for Millicom's International (Tigo) in Tanzania

 

Microsoft uses TV whitespaces to take broadband to Tanzanian universities

 

TV whitespaces are playing an increasingly important role when it comes to providing broadband to emerging market countries. The latest project to use the technology sees Microsoft partner up with the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) and UhuruOne to provide wireless broadband access to university students and faculty in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

TV white spaces technology provides wireless broadband by tapping into unused portions of wireless spectrum in the frequency bands generally used for television. Although Africa has the highest growth rates in the world for mobile broadband penetration, wireless broadband services remain largely unaffordable throughout the region.

According to Microsoft, this pilot looks to improve that situation by focusing on broadband access in the area of education, “an effort that will increase digital literacy, teach technical skills, advance e-learning and ultimately promote economic growth”.

The pilot’s initial deployment in Dar es Salaam will target the University of Dar es Salaam, among others. “We anticipate that tens of thousands of Tanzanian students and faculty members will be able to take advantage of the wireless broadband packages offered by UhuruOne through the project,” said Dr. Hassan Mshinda, director general, COSTECH.

These packages, says Microsoft, will include a Windows 8 laptop or tablet, wireless broadband connectivity, and applications and services. Its partners are reportedly working with banks to offer small loans to cover the cost of the packages.

Vodacom Tanzania reports five million M-PESA subs; transactions top USD823m

Vodacom Tanzania says that the number of people signed up to its mobile money transfer service M-PESA has broken the five million barrier, while total monthly transactions now stands at TSZ1.3 trillion (USD823.3 million). The figures compare favourably to 4.5 million subscribers and USD622 million in transactions when the carrier released its last M-PESA update in February this year.

 The mobile operator recently announced investment of TZS250 billion in expanding and improving its networks across the country, and has now announced the signing of an agreement with a number of local financial institutions which is designed to spur e-commerce in Tanzania. According to the firm’s press release, Vodacom Tanzania has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Microfinance Bank (NMB),CRDB Bank, Standard Chatered Bank, Tanzania Postal Bank (TPB) Bank of Africa-Tanzania (BOA Tanzania), Akiba Commercial Bank (ACB) and AMANA Bank, that will allow its customers to use M-PESA services to access their bank accounts for financial transactions. Further, a tie-up with Diamond Trust Bank (DTB) enables M-PESA customers to withdraw money from their M-PESA accounts through DTB’s nationwide network of ATMs, giving customers 24/7 access to their cash.

Technological innovation for companies in Africa

 

By the end of the last decade, and  Begin  of the new one we owe,the ICT companies have been largely increasing in number in other parts of the globe and specifically in Africa.Even though as the number increasing,the problems are not going to stop as we always facing daily challanges especially in innovation of the new technology which is the mother of development.

It is said that most employers underutilize the creativity of their employee hence fail to capture their fertile ideas into their companies.The major reason for these can be;lack of time,absence of effective processes to manage all the ideas and the fear to demotivate the employees when ideas rejected.

Encouraging ideas is the core management task,as the curreant existing business demand great attention;stimulating the ideas is the core task in leadership,this also fascinate and endorse the organizational creativity unwillingly.

With fast changing market challanges,demand customers and smart competitors,we need new ways to innovate and raise the new challanges.Being more creative is our only way to become resilient in time of Change and   Crissie will secure our sustainable success,therefore stimulating and harvesting creativity shall be our strategic priority.

‘ICT policy review coming’

Dar es Salaam. A review of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Policy is in the pipeline to help address cybercrime, deputy minister for Communication, Science and Technology January Makamba has said.
The ICT policy of 2003 is outdated and doesn’t augur well for the current technological advancement, according to Mr Makamba.
Winding up a two-day training workshop aimed at curbing cybercrime as well as launching a website that addresses cybercrime at www.esucurity.co.tz in the city at the weekend, Mr Makamba said there was a need for protecting online transactions.
“We have rushed on online transactions without putting in place a workable mechanism to keep hackers at bay,” he said.
According to Mr Makamba, since ICT business is growing considerably, it is important to contain hackers.
On policy reviewing, Mr Makamba said such a move would help the government move abreast with the fast changing trends in ICT.
“We are reviewing the policy to help our officials acquaint with ICT and you need to know that at the moment many of our websites are never updated,” he said.
For his part, the director of Twiga Hostings Limited, Mr Jacob Urassa, the host of the two-day training programme, said they were determined to make Tanzania a hub of online security that would allow players to enjoy surfing without fear.
“Nowadays we come across a number of cases related to hacking, but with such training we want to see foreigners coming to the country to purchase such software,” he noted.
According to Mr Urassa, 80 per cent of internet users in the world are prone to hackers.
The two-day training workshop brought together webmasters and online editors from a number of government and private institutions.

PRESS LIKE!!! PRESS LIKE!!! ☯☯☯

Ayy Friends!! Show Some ♡ LOVE ♡ By Liking
Wapendwa, mshindi wa shindano hili atapatikana tarehe 31 mwezi wa kumi saa sita usiku. Kupata nafasi kubwa ya kujishindia iPhone 5 na Tigo iCard, anza kushare sasa na marafiki zako wengi uwezavyo! Share itakayokuwa na LIKES nyingi zaidi ndiyo itakayoshinda. Start sharing!!!

Tigo Smart Card Community

Tigo SmartCards are Special SIM card for smartphones with Android, Blackberry and iphone operating systems (Blackberry Card, Android and iPhone SIM Cards) user with this SIM card will be entitled to subscribe to a Package (smart Package) and get unlimited internet services and Tigo will give them airtime for SMS and Calls (On-net, ex-net and international calls). Customers can get Tigo Smartcard at our Tigo Shop country wide or through our sales force. To enjoy benefit of using Smartcard customer should subscribe to smart package via USSD or SMS.

1. BlackBerry Smart Pack

Subscribers will get BIS (Blackberry Service) for 30 days, 3GB volume for downloading and Streaming and airtime worth TSH 30,000 for calls (On-net, ex-net and international calls ) & SMS to any network.

1. 1. 1. Dial *148*01# then OK, choose SmartPack and follow instructions.
      2. SMS – Send Bsmart to 15518
How to subscribe

2. Android Smart Pack

Subscribers will get UNLIMITED internet browsing for 30 days,3GB volume for downloading and Streaming and airtime worth TSH 30,000 for calls (On-net, ex-net and international calls) &SMS to any network.

1. 1. 1. Dial *148*01# then OK, choose SmartPack and follow instructions.
      2. SMS – Send Asmart to 15518
How to subscribe

3. iPhone Smart Pack

Subscribers will get UNLIMITED internet browsing for 30 days,3GB volume for downloading and Streaming and airtime worth TSH 30,000 for calls (On-net, ex-net and international calls) &SMS to any network.

1. 1. 1. Dial *148*01# then OK, choose SmartPack and follow instructions.
      2. SMS – Send Ismart to 15518
How to subscribe

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• Package can be subscribed at any time of day.
• SmartPack are auto renewed.
• Customer can swap its existing SIM Card with one of the smartcard and after that buy smartcard package or can use his/her existing SIM Card to buy smartcard pack.
• FREE 30,000 TSH worth of airtime will be provided immediately after you activate the package. And it will be used for SMS (to any network) and Calls (On net, ex net and International).
• The SmartCard Package is for pre-paid and hybrid customers only.

SmartCard Community
SmartCard Community is a strong bond network of smartcard customers who shares the same interest on the same smart community, someone to be in smartcard community must subscribe to smart packages. Also customers in this community will have a chance to win monthly, quarterly and or Annual Prizes.

Tanzania: Dar es Salaam to Build Undersea Cable to Uganda

Dar es Salaam — Tanzania has entered into a contract with Uganda to build an alternative route for the undersea cable via Mutukula to overcome the inconveniences caused by businesses persistent internet cable breakdown.
The move comes after Uganda government invited an international firm for the construction of an alternative internet cable in the country to end the ongoing connectivity blues in the landlocked country.
Mr. Nicodemus Mnungu the Tanzania Telecommunication Company Limited (TTCL), Commercial Executive, said the alternative broadband backbone will enable Uganda widen the internet transmission through and ensure internet reliability.
"Uganda is connected to Kenya cables but it also wants to have an alternative route in case of inconveniences or breakdown," Mnungu said.
Mnungu added that Uganda would be leasing the circuits to transfer their internet contents from Dar es Salaam to Mtukula border and into Uganda to boost the connectivity. The tariffs for the connectivity will depend on connection and on how much bandwidth Uganda would be using through the circuit.
"So far TTCL is also negotiating with Burundi, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique to be connected with TTCL Broadband which is the custodian of National Information and Communication Technology Back Bone (NICTBB) that would in turn get the countries connected to world," he said.
The government said the countries were still in dialogue with TTCL and by next year if the talks go on well the connectivity procedures will start immediately.
The Director for Technical Services at National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) Mr. Peter Kahiigi, said his government will embark on the project starting in November this year.
Kahiigi stressed every time the fibre cables are damaged in Kenya they get affected, the Mutukula- Tanzania route will ensure that they have an alternative route to tackle this challenge. The alternative route will be a welcome move by the players in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector that have for long suffered internet breakdown affecting their businesses.

Dar es Salaam Leads in Submissions to ICT Competition

AFTER the launch of the international competition of ICT (App Star Challenge) earlier this month, Tanzania has recorded the highest registrations and submission of programmes as preparations for the competition get underway.
Sponsored by the Vodacom Group of Companies, the competition has been designed to motivate and reward contestants who develop innovative, creative, functional and original mobile applications. The competition also presents participants with an opportunity to technological solutions that can be used in emerging countries to solve common problems and challenges facing the public.
According to Vodacom Tanzania Head of Brand Communication and Marketing, Kelvin Twissa, 141 registrations and two submissions have already been reached. "South Africa has registered 89 and five submissions, Lesotho has registered 18 with no submission and Egypt has registered eight people with two submissions,"

Precision Air join forces with Vodacom Tanzania on e-ticketing project…..

Precision air customers will be enjoying the new service whereby they will be purchasing their tickets via their mobile phone using Vodacom M-PESA. Using the highly distributed Vodacom network the customer will be able to make these transactions at any place in any time and they will be provided 20 percent discount if they purchase the tickets through Vodacom M-PESA accounts. 

The service will enable the customer to save time and resources as the purchase of the e-ticket would simply be done using their mobile phones. Precision Air commercial director Mr. Patric Ndekana when making the announcement in Dar es Salaam yesterday he said “Previously customers could either pay online using credit cards or physically visit Precision Air offices or agents, but with M-PESA things would be much easier”. 

On the mechanism on the service he said the customers would have to book for a ticket through the airline’s call centre to obtain a booking reference number needed to effect the transfer. To make payments customers would follow the normal procedures of paying for a service via M-PESA, whereby Precision Air company number 333777, would be followed by the reference number provided earlier. The customer would then be notified of their ticket number, currently in Tanzania there over 20,000 M-PESA agents.

Tanzania the first E.A broadband covered country.....

The race for the East African regional ICT hub is on for Dar es Salaam has the government of the United Republic of Tanzania is completing the installation of the massive broadband cable throughout the local towns and cities. One the greatest achievement of the President Kikwete’s Government is the installation of the wide sophisticated and efficiency broadband network in Tanzania. The broadband network will be used to supply network connection even to the neighboring countries. The government has done a lot of effort to make sure the underground sea cable reaches the border cities ready to connect the countries which would be interested to the service and some of the countries including Rwanda have shown their interest in the project.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania has completed construction of Phase II of the countrywide broadband backbone linking all major urban centres, a move that would bring down internet connection costs, according to the Broadband management entity.

The National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) the government board that have been given the responsibility to handle the broadband connection management  issued a statement which was  released yesterday, showed that the Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) tariff structure would see a reduction of 33 per cent effective from September 1, this year.

IRU is the effective long-term lease (temporary ownership) of a portion of the capacity -- to other service providers -- of an international cable, that is, an agreement between operators of a communications cable, such as a submarine communication cable or a fiber optic network and a client. The revised tariffs would include those for ten years, 15 and 20 years lease contracts. 

Under phase II, the completed and commissioned routes are Dar es Salaam – Lindi – Mtwara – Songea – Makambako – Mbeya – Tunduma – Sumbawanga –Mpanda – Kigoma – Manyovu –Biharamulo – Bukoba –Mutukula – Nzega – Tabora.  

   

“This development has come following the adjustment of tariff for an annual lease structure that was done in April this year,” said the statement made available to the media yesterday. 

The development is the country’s major breakthrough in the Information, Communication and Technology (ICT), whereby the backbone would link with similar backbones in all the neighboring countries and enhance connection.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is it really going to work……

I saw it on the East African news headlines about the initiative One Child Per Laptop plan ready working in Rwanda, oh not again I meant One Laptop Per Child, actually the first slogan is what the critic sees about the program they say is just “getting laptops to the poor kids”  . The project is aiming at educating the young generation aged between (6-12) years old through computer believing that, the teaching would become more efficiency, speed their mind and the way they reason and prepare them for the fast growing tech world.  The harsh reality is that most of the kids are using for playing more than the targeted goal which was for them to learn through the computers.

Fact, “More than 2.5 million laptops have been distributed in 46 countries since 2007 under the innovative initiative”. The effort is just great, but the issue is that are the people to whom the digital devices “the laptops” provided to them  prepared for the big changes? On the study made on Peru alone, Peru distributed more than 800,000 low cost computers to the children across the country, is among the most committed country to the cause. On the study done there on 319 schools in a small rural communities which were supplied the laptops the proof of their success is very low.  The critics believed that the government was not yet prepared when they dwell into the program.  “In essence what we did was deliver the computers without prepare the teachers,” said Sandro Marcone, the Peruvian educational officer who now runs the program. The study has found that no increase in math or language skills, no improve in classroom instruction quality, no boost on time spent on homework, no improvement on reading habit.

In Africa the Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana and Sierra Leone are the countries which are involved in the program. The program seems to be promising in Ethiopia the reports said. Dutch researchers from the University of Groningen, published last year in the journal computer and education that the OLPC laptops have improved abstract learning. Ethiopia received 5000 laptops from G1G1 program, Ghana ordered 10,000 laptops, Rwanda received 20,000 laptops from G1G1 program while Sierra Leone ordered 5,000 laptops. Some industry stakeholders have been given they are thought about the program  some are suggesting the program would at least be more efficient in a country like Rwanda whereby the population  is small and recent they have been working intensively to combat corruption. But the questions that remain is, would the laptops survive the bureaucracy and hard Africa corrupted systems?

Practically for some African countries, where the teachers are on strike day in day out due to the harsh working conditions, low salary and no bonuses, it is very difficult for this kind of project to see through it purposes.

Origin of tech giant companies names…..it’s time to think for yours

The name COMPAQ was formed by using COMP for computer and PAQ to denote small integral object. Recently COMPAQ has joined forces with HP in the digital gadgets world. The name HP was formed from the two tech guys Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard when they had to toss a coin to decide whether to call the company  Hewlett Packard or Packard Hewlett am sure you know who won the honor definitely Hewlett that is why we have Hewlett Packard (HP) today.

The legendary Google started its name as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search engine would be able to search. It was originally named Googol a world for the number represented by one followed by 100 zeros. After founders   Stanford graduates students Sergey Bin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they receive a cheque made out to ‘Google’.

Recently there have been tremendous changes in the internet tariffs for Blackberry users. While many people in the Tanzanian communities especially in urban areas have been addicted with the use of BBM the mobile company want to exploit this chance. The current Airtel tariffs for Blackberry includes the monthly Blackberry bundles of Tsh.30,000/-,17,500/ -, 12,000/-, depending on the user requirement weekly Blackberry  bundles of Tsh.5,000/-,3,500/- and Daily Blackberry bundles of Tsh.1,000/- and 700/-, the user has to dial *148*77# to select the bundle of their own choice.

Vodacom has also released their bundles for the Blackberry service to compete with Tigo and Airtel. You will have to spend Tsh 6000 per week to receive the BlackBerry services on your phone and 17,500 per month. While Tigo provides gives people the offer of Tsh. 17, 500 per month and Tsh 7000 per week all you have to do is to send the text SMS BB30 to 15518 for a 30 day subscription. 

Dar Fashion Festival looking for tech ladies!

After a few Girls’ Night Out events we seem to have a Fashion Festival looking for ladies in tech!
I met Tina from Dar Fashion Festival by coincidence in a coffee shop, and we agreed to meet up after their event. Click the picture to find out more about the festival!
They also do entrepreneurship events and training for women, and are interested in exploring how ICT can help the female entrepreneurs in fashion industry. So watch this space, and in the mean time go check out what the Dar Fashion Festival has to offer!

Monitoring & Evaluation Essentials for Practitioners on August 30th

Here is information on another community-organized training workshop at the Innovation Space: Guido (CEO, Blackmark Corporation Ltd) and Nathan (Business Development Manager, DTBi) are organizing a Monitoring & Evaluation Essentials workshop for sharing basic elements of projects and projects designing, mostly for practitioners. This workshop will take place on 30th August 2012 from 9am-12noon at COSTECH in the Innovation Space. Please note the timing will be concurrent with the Innovation Summit.
Audience involves mostly public officials heading monitoring and evaluation units, agencies and departments, but Guido and Nathan also welcome other participants excluding welfare amenities that are planned for the invited guests.
The workshop aims to shade some light on;
1. M&E Fundamentals.
2. Result-Based M&E
3. Basic of M&E Plan.
4. Policy-based-planning using M&E Systems.
5. M&E and Strategic management – Tanzanian Experience.
If you would like to participate, please sign up by sending an email to Guido at blackmarkcorp@gmail.com, so we can ensure seats for all participants.

5th South African Innovation Summit taking place in Dar!

What is Africa’s competitive edge? The Innovation Summit invites all Africans to collaborate: share your lessons learnt, ask questions and participate on the topic of innovation! The African Stream of the Innovation summit will include themes such as:

• Explosive new trends, making Africa a world of possibilities.
• Design with Africa – advancing inclusive innovation in majority world contexts
• Exploring BIG DATA
• Creating an ecosystem for technology innovation and commercialisation
• The truth about innovation
• Systems thinking in innovation
• Stimulating dynamic entrepreneurial environments
• Can teen entrepreneurship be a catalyst for innovation, social and economic development in SA & Africa?
• Case studies on innovation leadership skills in Africa.

This is already the 5th year the Innovation Summit event is organized in South Africa, but the first year it has jumped the country borders and will be co-hosted concurrently via video streams and local facilitation also in Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Windhoek!
In Dar es Salaam the event will be hosted at the KINU Hub together with TANZICT. We will the follow renowned speakers presenting in Johannesburg via video stream, and carry out some sessions and discussions locally with Tanzanian themes and insights. Check out details from the Dar es Salaam event programme.
Event schedule:
Wednesday August 29th 09.30-18.00
Thursday August 30th 09.00-17.00