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Kenya’s Web And Mobile Apps Grant Applications End On Monday

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Tekedia Editors
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Call for proposals: July 21- Aug 22 2011

Grant amount: $ 10,000 per individuals; $ 50,000 per company; $ 150,000 matching grant for established companies

 

Number of grants to be awarded in 2011: at least 30

Eligibility: Kenyan citizen, companies registered in Kenya

Categories: Private Sector Innovation, Government Data Applications

 

The Ministry of Information and Communications, through the Kenya ICT Board is now accepting proposals for the Tandaa Digital Content Grant. The grant is offered to Kenyan citizens and companies registered in Kenya for the development of innovative web or mobile phone applications. Grants of up to $ 50,000 for companies and $ 10,000 for individuals and teams will be offered through the program.

 

The objective of the grant is to stimulate ICT innovation and creativity while promoting economic growth in the sector. For many companies that develop web and mobile solutions, access to funding to grow their company is a huge challenge. By supporting entrepreneurs with the funds they need to successfully take their products to market, the grant hopes to grow the number of relevant and local web and  mobile applications available to Kenyans.

 

The Kenya ICT Board awarded fifteen grants in 2010 and hopes to award at least 30 grants in 2011. The grant is available to individuals and companies in any sector and the Kenya ICT Board encourages any individual or company with ideas for web or mobile applications to apply.


Category 1: Private sector innovation 

The Tandaa Digital Content Grant is divided into two categories: Government Open Data and Private Sector Innovation.

 

In the Private Sector category, the Kenya ICT Board will select the most innovative proposals that demonstrate long term business viability. Proposal in this category must respond to a demonstrated market need and have a positive impact on the community it seeks to serve.

 

In 2010, the Kenya ICT Board awarded seven grants in this category including a diary farmer payment application and a social media marketing product.

 

Category 2: Government Data Applications

On July 8, the Government of Kenya made 290 datasets publicly available and accessible through an Open Data portal. Now, the Kenya ICT Board will support entrepreneurs to develop web and mobile applications that utilize the data to provide services or products for citizens.

 

Eduweb, an online school portal that use data from the Ministry of Education to provide a service for parents selecting schools for their children, was among seven grants awarded in 2010.

 

Eligibility

Kenyan citizens above 18 are eligible to apply for the grant. Companies officially registered in Kenya are eligible to apply for the grant.

 

 

Matching grant for established companies

A new feature of the second round of the Tandaa Digital Content Grant offers established companies an opportunity to participate in the program. Companies founded at least 10 year ago with  over 40 members of staff are invited to summit their proposals for a web or mobile application. The companies must match the grant in full. This categories allows otherwise profitable ICT companies to develop innovative projects within a short period of time.

 

 

Business Plan training

Another new feature of the Tandaa Digital Content Grant is a training component designed into the proposal process. Over 2,000 people participated in the first round of the Digital Content Grant. However, more than half of the applicants struggled with the business plan sections of the proposal. As such, the Kenya ICT Board will offer business plan training to the top 150 applicants. The training will equip the most innovative applicants with the tools to help them secure funding and grow the business–regardless of wether they are awarded the grant.

 

Application Forms:

Companies sample form online application form
Individuals/teams sample form online application form
 Matching grant sample form online application form

Africa In Mobile + Cloud Era – The Conversation At Tekedia REDESIGN, Aug 27th

By
Tekedia Editors
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In the last few years, most parts of the world have morphed into an electronically interdependent economic unit where a disruption in one marketplace affects the others. New technologies have emerged, transforming the ways we do business and, consequently, redesigning the world. Innovation in disruptive technologies pushes new and more agile firms to set new benchmarks, and forces established companies to incorporate evolving breakthroughs into their models or re-invent themselves to stay competitive.

 

Innovation thus remains a key driver in wealth creation, but the way it happens is changing as a result of new technologies, processes and tools. As social media networks advance, outsourcing ideas to the crowd has become common, while inter-company R&D that pools resources together is a new normal. From agriculture to print media, finance to mortgage and across sectors, industries, and disciplines, the world is being redesigned.

 

Two technologies that are playing major roles in this redesigning process are mobile and cloud computing.They continue to shape how new companies operate. A business without a mobile strategy will fail in this age because the future is mobile, just as today is mobile.  Aligning with mobile in this emerging change is cloud computing. It opens the opportunity for companies, irrespective of size, to access huge computing power which traditionally they cannot afford. So, with cloud computing and mobile systems,  global business has moved into  a new era.

 

In this conference, we will be discussing these two important topics in the context of Africa.  Right here on Tekedia.com on August 27, 2011.

 

The theme of the Virtual Conference is

 

 

Africa In Mobile + Cloud Era

 

 

You will watch feeds from experts and pros as they discuss the future on mobility and cloud computing and how that will affect Africa. No ticket, no travel, it is all in the cloud. We guess the best way to experience mobile and cloud is to do a conference in the domains of mobile and cloud!

 

 

Date: August 27, 2011

Time: We will start 3pm Lagos time or 10am New York Time for the video feeds.  Exclusive mobile and cloud focused articles will begin to appear on Tekedia from 5am Lagos time the same day.

 

We are inviting people with experience in this area. Send us contents. If you want to contribute, please send your video or audio to tekedia@fasmicro.com. If you cannot make a video or audio, please send us an article on this topic. We will dedicate that date simply to share insights in these very important topics and their huge implications for Africa.

 

This is going to be huge,   and we promise to offer you a good time.

 

 

Tekedia REDESIGN Organizers

tekedia@fasmicro.com

Tekedia.com

Communications & Tech Ministry Swallows NigComSat, NIPOST, NITDA, NCC, And Others

By
Tekedia Editors
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The minister of Communications and Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson,  has noted the agencies that would be under her new Communication and Technology Ministry. This announcement was made when she visited Nigeria Communication Satellite Limited (NigComSat) early this week.

 

The agencies include the following, among others:

  • Nigeria Communication Satellite Limited (NigComSat) (previously in the Ministry of Science and Technology)
  • Galaxy Backbone
  • Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST)
  • Nigeria Communications Commission,
  • National Information Technology Development Agency of Nigeria (NITDA).

Kenya ICT Board Commissions IDC For National ICT Market And Indicators Survey

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

With the arrival of broadband connectivity through three (3) submarine cable systems, the Kenyan IT market and indeed many business sectors are to grow rapidly; allowing for the introduction of new and advanced services, further setting the stage for the development of ICT as a valid contributor to Kenya’s GDP. Kenya is retaining IDC,  a global market research firm to help them make sense of this evolving dynamics.

 

Developing ICT skills remains a constant issue to be addressed by end users, vendors, and even governments. Public?private partnerships between vendors and governments to set up facilities for technology and knowledge transfer continue to gain momentum, especially in view of the Government long-term plans to make ICT a key part of the Kenyan Economy.

 

Rationale for the Proposed Survey

Given the dynamic changes happening in the Kenyan IT market and its vision to become the hub for IT in the region; Kenya ICT Board plans to conduct a detailed analysis within the with the aim of understanding the following issues:

 

  •     Understanding the Kenyan ICT Ecosystem, its players, factors for growth and trends in the market;
  •     Sizing the ICT Market and its sub segments (hardware, software, services, etc.) in Kenya;
  •     Compiling a baseline of key ICT indicators (access, usage, penetration, etc.);
  •     Benchmarking key competitive ICT indicators against six countries in emerging markets; and
  •     Understanding the ICT Skills availability, demand and gaps among vendors, end users and residents.

 

Beneficiaries of the Proposed Survey

The key beneficiaries of this survey’s results include the following groups of stakeholders:

  •     ICT vendors and their channel partners;
  •     Education institutions (Kenya Education Network);
  •     Businesses as ICT end users;
  •     Residential consumers at large; and
  •     Other ICT Stakeholders (MoIC, CCK, e-government directorate, Kenya BPO Society, etc.)

 

Below click to download the presentations (these are samples for data)

Julisha launch ICT Board (.pdf 355Kb)

IDC Julisha(.pdf 923Kb)

BlackBerry Bold 9900 With The New OS7

By
Guest Author
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Research in Motion, the Canadian company that produces BlackBerry phones, has been struggling to keep afloat in the world of smartphones in recent years. While the traditional BlackBerry form factor remains popular with some professional phone users and, strangely, school kids (largely due to BlackBerry Messenger which effectively offers a free alternative to SMS messages), RIM‘s market share has taken a bit of a tumble as many people make a transition to touchscreen phones such as the iPhone.

 

The full touchscreen BlackBerry Torch 9860 is a shining example that RIM knows how to make these sort of phones as well and this phone may very soon completely reverse the company’s recent misfortunes. But longstanding fans of the brand need not despair as the Bold 9900 combines the best of modern touch screen features with a more traditional BlackBerry form factor. With BlackBerry 9900 deals to be on offer at competitive prices this is the obvious choice for serious fans of QWERTY phones. What these phones both have in common is the new BlackBerry OS7, a truly modern interface that is giving BlackBerry handsets a whole new lease of life.

 

The Bold series has been one of the most popular line of phones released by BlackBerry, and it is nice to see it getting a revamp with the 9900. This is the first Bold to come with a touchscreen display, and the screen is a little larger than the previous Bold. Obviously, the Bold 9900 will not offer the same sort of experience as a phone with a full frontal touchscreen display like the Torch 9860, but it offers a nice set of additional features that were not found on previous models.

 

BlackBerry OS7 has been designed with this functionality in mind as well. The interface is a great deal more visually appealing than the ones found on previous Bold phones, and now features Liquid Graphics for smooth transitions and a more pleasant user experience. OS7 now comes with native support for HTML5 video and an improved JavaScript compiler affords it a speedy and smooth web browsing experience.

 

Although BlackBerry is not joining the ranks of HTC and Samsung in the dual core club, the 1.2GHz processor on the Bold 9900 is one of the fastest chips to be found in a BlackBerry phone. Because of this the whole interface is much slicker, and apps load at a faster rate than on earlier BlackBerry phones. Of course, the Bold 9900 comes with the usual array of BlackBerry services including BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry Maps.

 

Like all BlackBerry phones the Bold 9900 comes with excellent email support too. The Bold features Docs To Go so you can update and amend your business documents while commuting to and from the office and the phone doesn’t forget a decent amount of entertainment with music, video and games – plenty of which are available from BlackBerry App World.

 

Although the 5 megapixel camera on the Bold 9900 offers the same resolution photos as the earlier Bold 9780 it also includes improved video recording with 720p video support. This camera has an LED flash and features like geo-tagging and face detection. Photos and videos can also be shared through online services such as social networks like Facebook.

 

The Bold range have always been the most popular BlackBerry phones going and the Bold 9900 is easily the best yet. Physically it is not a whole lot different to previous models, but the addition of a touchscreen display, a vastly improved interface and some major upgrades in the hardware department make this a phone that is not to be missed for all serious BlackBerry addicts. This latest Bold will be introduced to the market with some fantastic cheap mobile phone deals in the various markets where it is to make an appearance.

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