Do you have an idea for how to improve children's lives?

The application period for 2013 is now open. The deadline for submitting applications is 11:59 pm on November 29th.

Then you can apply to the Tigo Reach for Change Program. If selected you will receive financial support (beginning with seed funding of $25,000 in Year 1) as well as coaching from experienced business people to help you turn your idea into a sustainable venture.

The criteria they are looking for includes:

• Be innovative, creative, and fresh.
• Be early-stage or ready to grow.
• Be something doable, clear and focused.
• Have potential for great social impact, being able to improve the lives of children (up to 18 years).
• Have potential to be system changing. By system changing, we mean ideas that can create long-lasting change for many children by changing the system which is either causing the problem, or restricting or limiting its solution. System change takes time, but is the ultimate strategic goal of all the ideas which we bring into our Incubator
• Be scalable. Ideas which have the potential to improve the lives of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of children.
• Have a sustainable financing plan. You should be able to explain to us how you intend to generate revenue to finance the delivery of your idea in a way that minimizes the risk of the social impact stopping due to running out of money

The person we are looking for (you!) must have: - Entrepreneurial skill, such as being result-driven, goal oriented, pragmatic and flexible - Leadership skills; able to inspire other and get people involved - A passion for improving the lives of children - You must also be the leader of the organization established to bring this idea into reality. For More Details follow this link.

The Information has been provided with Tigo reach for change Team.

You need to know the type of pitch, it is very important to understand the type of pitching that you are going to pitch. Technically there are three types of pitch. The famous one is the elevator pitch, there is a 30 minutes pitch and there is a “investor deep pitch”; this is when investor has given you the total attention and need to hear about your idea or product intensively. Most of the time is when the investor is attracted to your idea.

You need to know characteristics of each pitching technique, when it is elevator pitch 5 minutes or less is all you need to make your point clear. It should cover very few topics. Within those 5 minutes you should be able to make the investor knock is head and say yes this is the good thing. 30 minutes pitch provides a room of short but detailed explanations and rooms of questions so be prepared. Investor deep pitch this is when you get your facts together, most of the time you can carry your study of the market, product statistics in terms of usability, ROI and so on.

Three things each pitch should have, the pitch is never complete  if it misses  these three things first, problem that you are solving, why is important to solve this problem and proof that you have enough experience and resources to solve that problem.

The biggest mistake in pitching; first is practicing to pitch during the pitch session. We never practice pitching in front of real investors you have thousands of people to try your pitching simulations. Never jump into the solutions; investors are not interested with the solutions. They always want to hear stories and real time user experience and how users have embraced your product.

Questions you pitch should answer, any pitch should answer the following questions, why should I put money in your product, problem or opportunity you have seen, how this opportunity matters to the users and what is the best solution that you have come up with.

Structure of the pitch, in one statement any pitch should contain problem, solution and team. It doesn’t matter how you rotates those stuffs they can give you the perfect structure you need to attract investors into your products.

Pitch practice, never practice pitching with the investors remember there is only one first impression. Practice pitching with your trainers, co workers, team members, friend and family. Sometimes look for people who always criticize you and hear what they have to say about your product. Only a strong flame can make a fine steel.

Investors and their numbers, “over 200,000 users just one month of operation” these are the type of statements investors expect and like to hear during pitching but whatever you do, make sure you know what you are talking about. Fake statistics they won’t help you at all.

Crazy pitch, singing your product like a new released song of Psquare. You need people to know your product and to say something about it. At early stages these are among the best ways to draw people attentions towards your products although some might think you are going mad.

Jumanne Mtambalike

Tech360 Founder

After being cost effective startup for some time you realize you need to stop innovating and working with the limited resources possible and start to look for venture capitals. The question is “when is the right time to do this”. Most of us we like venture capitalist to invest into our products and ideas at the very early stage something which totally not advised since it might make you lose a very large chunk of share from your company.

Even though to work and innovate require someone to have some incentives to do so but still the need of running and operating your company your own ways is very important until your company as matured enough to require support and funding from outside. Sometimes it takes more than 3 to 4 years to realize what your customers need is different from what you are offering them. After working with your own company for sometime only then you will be able to go through your revenue model and correct some stuffs to come up with a successful working model.

Is there a period of time during your startup development you can stop bootstrapping? The answer is no, every time you require proper management of funds and resources you have so that to attain maximum profit. So either you got funding from the VC or angel investor making proper utilization of funds and resources remains inevitable.

From my experience, one of the biggest challenges that are facing most of the local innovators and startups owners is seeking fund from the very early stage of the product development and idea generation. The problem not only affects them in the way they run and manage their companies but also tends to push venture capitalists from investing on their products and ideas. Most of the ideas and products at this stage they are too risks for an investor to inject money or even considering supporting them. At this stage it is even difficult for startup owners to understand their business models, their client base and sustainability of their ideas or products.

I agree with the fact that some of the ideas are getting opportunity to attract investors from the very early stage when they are just at development phase but the decision of allowing someone wither to invest in your idea or not still remain something that is very delicate that has to be handled wisely. The call you make that day when you decide to sell your share to someone is when you decide to give the power to control your product to someone else.

So when is the right time to find someone to inject money to your project? The answer is it depends with so many things but these are among the factors you should consider before making the tough call.

How much do you know about your product? Before you run and start looking for investors to put money in your product you should understand your product, the value of innovation within your product and your intellectual property rights. How much you know about your product is directly proportional to being able to convince someone to put money in your product. Always remember good ideas don’t exist every good idea have already implemented and put into practice. This means before starting looking for investors make sure your idea (product) work.

If you were the investor why would you want to such a product? If there is something very difficult is to tell yourself the truth, but if you can manage to do this definitely you can easily realize the right time to look for an investor. When you are half percent sure that your idea will work that is never the right time to approach the VCs, you will just waste your time. If you can’t believe in your product, who will?

Where does the supreme power of your product come from? Some of the products are directly related to consumers and their usage depends solely to the usability of the clients while other products will require intermediate companies that are well established to link you through. For example having a popular android app that have over a million user base means the power solely comes from the users. It’s always about you and the users while having a product that depends on developing USSD based platforms whereby you have to pay a lot of money to a certain local mobile company that power is distributed between you, the user and the service provider. For project that share same execution environment as the second one, you might be squeezed to look for investors from very early stage. Why should you run and start looking for funds while you don’t need to do any major investment in the beginning? If your operation power come from the people make sure you leverage the opportunity and use it.

What are you losing if someone doesn’t invest on your product? Opportunity to grow, which is the easiest answer someone can offer for that question. I don’t believe the only thing you require for your company to grow is funding. A lot of companies receive funding at early stages of their operation and ended up bankruptcy due to lack of proper management of funds and organizational skills. Sometimes what you real need is something far from funding.  

The speed of growth of your product and usability, they say patient pays. You should ask yourself one does someone run quickly to you and offer millions to buy shares from your product. You might not have enough knowledge on investment skills but always know that investor only invest money were the possibilities of positive returns are very high. When they came in running to you it is the time you realize the product you own has the ability to grow fast than you think. Take your time and be prepared for the bigger offers.

Finally, you only can decide the right time to go for external funding of your innovative idea and there is no replacement for bootstrapping the concept itself is the reason for success of most of the startups. If you read this article and you want to understand more please check the concept of venture funding, frugal innovation and startups management online. 

Jumanne Mtambalike
Tech360 Founder

One of the winner of "Miliki Biashara Yako" promotion

A COUPLE of weeks ago, Elias Hamisi Mbamo (47), received a weird phone call from an unknown number. A resident of Tabora region, western part of Tanzania, he was not sure of the intention of the other guy speaking to him over the phone.

It was around 1pm local time, he remembers. The guy asked me a lot of questions before telling me that I have won, the tri-cycle commonly known as Bajaj through the ongoing "Start Your Own Business" win a Bajaj promotion by a local mobile phone company operator known as Tigo.

A once in a lifetime opportunity in mid July this year landed on the feet of Tigo subscribers in the country where they can win an auto rickshaw, popular as Bajaj, through a lucrative promotion.

At the launching of the promotion dubbed 'Start your own business', Mr Mpinga was quoted to have said that 60 auto rickshaws had been

issued for a competition to run through eight weeks.

Tigo Tanzania wanted to change the lives of Tanzanians through that they have recognised the importance of Bajaj in improving the lives of Tanzanians and its aim was to enrich and impact peoples' lives, he said.

"We believe that this promotion will give our customers another reason to smile where 60 lucky winners each will walk away with a brand new Bajaj that they can use to start their own businesses," he said.

Mr Mpinga said that Bajaj transportation was a lucrative business where the owner makes a conservative figure of 25,000/- to 30,000/- per day earning him around 900,000/- a month and roughly 10.8m/- a year.

Tigo customers stand a chance to win one Bajaj every day by recharging with 1000/- on a daily basis and this doesn't have to be in lump sum as long as by the end of the day, it credit totals 1000/-.

"I thought someone was playing pranks on me. How could a man living in Tabora, more than 460 miles from Dar es Salaam, win a promotion by a mobile phone company? "You know, I thought that promotion like these were for people who live in major towns like Dar, Arusha, Mbeya, Tanga, Mwanza and the likes. Not for us who live so far away from the centre of attention.

"But they called again, on another day and asked if I had any document verifying that I am the real Elias Hamisi Mbamo. They wanted to be sure of that and I told them I did have them.

Tanzania DailyNews 

It’s fashionable in this fast-paced era of exponentially accelerating technology to deride the value of a traditional M.B.A. Indeed, some people believe that even an undergraduate degree is not particularly useful for a would-be entrepreneur, and the most vocal adherents of this school of thought are encouraging ambitious young people to drop out of college and immediately start their own businesses.

I could not disagree more.

The M.B.A. degree was created in the early 20th century as “scientific” approaches to business management were first being developed, and gained its foothold in the booming post-war years when rapidly expanding American industries needed a steady supply of new managers to administer their ever-increasing workforces. It saw its apotheosis with a pivot as the financial markets of the late 20th century glorified the arcane financial analysis and marketing skills required of the so-called Masters of the Universe in investment banking and consulting.

When I received my M.B.A. from Columbia University Graduate School of Business in 1983, there wasn’t a single course or activity with the word “entrepreneurship” in its title. Many — if not most — of my classmates were fast-tracked managers from utility companies, large retailers, consumer goods conglomerates and financial firms. But over the past few decades, as companies began to shrink and brand new upstarts like Apple and Microsoft became the most valuable companies in the world, Newsweek identified the country’s most endangered species as the “Bached White Male” corporate middle-manager.

There is no question that the game has changed, fundamentally and irrevocably. As I noted in my closing talk on The Evolution of Success at TEDxWallStreet we are moving at an ever-accelerating pace to a time in which entrepreneurship will be the cornerstone of the business world, large companies will continue to shrink, agile methodologies will replace traditional top-down management, and “career management” will be a personal rather than institutional responsibility.

In response to this core shift in the commercial world, M.B.A. programs have not remained stagnant, as some would seem to imply. Rather, they are themselves pivoting with the changing market, and squarely addressing the new realities.

I serve on the advisory boards of the entrepreneurship programs at both Columbia and Yale, and was mentor of the year at NYU’s Stern School of Business, so I have had a first-hand view of these fundamental transformations.

Originally pioneered by schools like Babson, where entrepreneurship is embedded into every class and activity, and picked up and expanded by top-tier schools such as Stanford, where their online Technology Entrepreneurship course has been taken by more than 25,000 students, academic business programs have adapted to the times. At NYU Stern, the annual business-plan competition organized by the Berkeley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation is the heart of the program, with more than 500 teams participating in recent years. This is where companies like Pinterest and Comixology found their initial teams and their seed investors.

As The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania notes in its online introduction to its M.B.A., a modern business school degree provides a host of benefits that have great value in the new world of fast-moving, entrepreneurial innovation. In addition to the network and brand-validation that comes along with a high end M.B.A. program, these courses of study provide a true grounding in the “hard skills” of economics, finance, marketing, operations, management and accounting, as well as the “soft skills ” of leadership, teamwork, ethics and communication that are so critical for effectively creating and managing both innovation and growth.

Whether it is internalizing crucial concepts such as the time value of money, or really understanding the core values of agile project management, a 2013 version M.B.A. from a strong program represents to me an indication (along with many other factors) of someone who can potentially make a major, positive contribution to our team.

* Original post can be found on Wall Street Journal Blogs @ http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/04/04/david-rose-m-b-a-programs-have-adapted-to-the-startup-model/ *

Among 2o startup funded in a month,only 5 startups are subjected to be funded and come into existing companies with success in Africa.This statistics always rises the questions such as Why are the other 15 failed to be successiful in time?or what are the reason for their failure? But before we jump on answering those questions above,we must ask our selves these question;What are the general success factors of the modern busines in Africa?

Like other business firms in other part of the globe,the success factors for business in Africa are the same,but environment consideration is important especially when you are thinking of how to  create  the next business in Africa.The following are the business success factors:

Viable business concept
A clear business concept is that intend to solve a certain problem in a society as the way to fix the customer needs.Everything can be  customerly  in a certain society but the culture and governmental regulations play the important role to make the business concept viable in that community.

Understanding of the market
A clear understanding of the market is the key of the business to prevail since if you understand the market you are automatically having the trick to play with your revenue streams and maintain your customers and beyond adding more revenue streams.

Management capability
In order for a firm to exist in a business process;the firm's team means everything for the service.Maintaining the positive relationship in a firm,(a relations towards business  existence);especially on production, quality assurance,and marketing is the most important roles the managers must endorse so as to make the firm come into success.

Strong financial understanding and control
In order to call you name that is in businesss,you must know what goes in and what goes out of your business and controling as well as expanding the in and out flow pipes so that the business can be big and successiful as you wish.

Consistent business focus
Above all the consistency of the firm business focus is very essential since the future of the business intend to give solutions.

Being aware and live the success factors is the only way to avoid failure which are on the way due to;lack of business plan,Insufficient market research,underestimating of competition,inadequate insurance,lack of customer service,Lack of experience and knowledge on the industry you are trying to compete,insufficient operating capital,change in the governmental regulation and lack of fear of failure.

It is how simple to know why most startups fails or not see the success in time;since most of them do not know their critical success factors to which they should be founded and being able to withstand the unforeseen chalanges which they differ each other.

The next Savannah Fund  accelerator class deadline on the 26th July.  The accelerator program is now open for the 2nd class scheduled to start in around August 2013. The accelerator program will invest $25,000 in each company in exchange for 15% common equity stake, non negotiable.  

They have also recently created an FAQ to address common questions regarding their Accelerator and have begun reviewing applications.  They look forward to reviewing your applications! If you have already applied, thanks, they are currently reviewing applications and will get in touch soon if you have progressed to phone/skype/in person interviews.

TECH360 Correspondent

iHub Research and Research Solutions Africa conducted a 6-month study in 2012 to increase the understanding of usage of mobile services, products, and applications at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) and to understand their potential for economic and social empowerment. With the cost of mobile devices decreasing and such devices increasingly being considered as basic commodities, even amongst the BoP, iHub Research was commissioned by infoDev to conduct a follow-up study with a small sample of Kenyans living on less than $2.5 USD/day to better understand how they use their mobile phones for work-related activities and to earn a living. 

More Details on their Site

Tech360 Correspondent 

Signed and sealed with with a kiss: Burberry and Google put their own spin on the digital postcard with the launch Wednesday of "Burberry Kisses," a visually immersive experience that allows you to send a digital copy of your lip imprint through the world of Google Maps.

Head over to kisses.burberry.com using your desktop Chrome browser or the web browser on your smartphone or tablet. You'll then be prompted to capture a kiss by pressing your lips to the screen — or, on the desktop, by capturing the shape of your lips with a webcam. The longer you press, the bolder the imprint.

Once you've captured your kiss, you can fill out a postcard to send from your town or city to that of a friend. Send a postcard from Newport Beach, Calif., to Tokyo, for example, and you'll catch a glimpse of your letter taking leave from Newport Beach's ocean-facing Cliff Drive, watch it fly across the ocean and descend upon the Tokyo skyline. Its journey will be set to the tune of Burberry Acoustic singer Misty Miller's "Evergreen Love."

It's an experience designed, in the words of Burberry Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey, to give technology "a bit of heart and soul." It's also a marketing opp — after you take an impression of your lips, you'll be able to color it using one of five Burberry lipstick shades. (Alternatively, you can opt for no lipstick at all.)

The initiative is part of Google's Art, Copy & Code project, an ongoing series of storytelling collaborations between Google and brands.

Sending and receiving a postcard is itself fun and engaging, but equally cool is the map of kisses you can view at the end, which shows cards being sent from city to city in real-time.

To try it out, check out kisses.burberry.com.

Images courtesy of Burberry and Google.

KARIBU Solar Power is an innovative solar social enterprise that makes high quality solar power affordable. We produce a modular solar lamp (solar panel + rechargeable battery + light) and employ an innovative social business model that allows the average Base of the Pyramid (BoP) consumer to enjoy the benefits of solar lighting and mobile phone charging. By paying in small increments which replicate the required cash flow for kerosene, we make solar affordable.

See the website: http://www.karibusolar.com

The above statements are the pitch of the Karibu company at the Venture Capital for Africa,whilst showcasing their products;is one of the product that  you must use for lighting as well as charging mobile phones,and other home equips.

Solar energy is an important part of life and has been since the beginning of time. Increasingly, man is learning how to harness this important resource and use it to replace traditional energy sources.

Solar Energy Is Important in Nature

Solar energy is an important part of almost every life process, if not, all life processes. Plants and animals, alike, use solar energy to produce important nutrients in their cells. Plants use the energy to produce the green chlorophyll that they need to survive, while humans use the sun rays to produce vitamin D in their bodies. However, when man learned to actually convert solar energy into usable energy, it became even more important.

Jordan Kalyembe

""Automatically track your customers service cycle and identify which customers need reminders to renew their service, payments, or anything else. Send customers reminders directly from your Rasello account anywhere and everywhere via Email or SMS.

Rasello is free for your first 100 customers, join Rasello onhttp://www.rasello.com/register""-One of the advert from the rasello face book page.It is real awesome application you can try to see your self from the link above ,created for enterprenuers for good business process.

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.

-Jordan Kalyembe

"The natural way of expressing the  visions in Africa's style It is unique and quite simple and artistic settle"-explained by one of the developers from the session held by the Hackathon,when enteprenuers had little sharing outside of the session.

Some of the  ting bats  and icons for developing have it's origin in Africa     are the sign in forms,and these helps them to express the African taste of reality in the Interface design industry.

Most of interface developing softwares such as those under Adobe license,have made  the way easier to African developers to develop Interfaces that potray the African nature and reality and in turn promotes usability of their apps.

     -Jordan Kalyembe

Zantel is proudly introducing 3G Service in Zanzibar. Faster internet service which never had in Zanzibar. Get the best internet value and connect today and enjoy high internet connectivity at affordable rates that suit you.

With 3G Network a customer will enjoy and get fast Internet service and have various services like Video Calls, Online TV, downloading with a speed up to 21Mbps.

In line with 3G service in Zanzibar, we are introducing an UNLIMITED bundle among our range of bundles on 3G service to keep being competitive in the market and attract more data customers. For a recharge of TSH 20,000 a customer will enjoy unlimited internet for 3 consecutive days. The introduction of this new unlimited bundle maintains Zantel’ s data services attributes of being fast, reliable, convenient and affordable and now even more so with the introduction of 3G.

With 3G service a customer will enjoy various bundle offers on 3G modem as well as their mobile handset.

How to subscribe into the bundles:
To subscribe into any of 3G bundles, users will dial *149*07#. Select options 3, 4 and 5 which are for 3G services and then select the bundle they want.

• Users who have 3G Modem, they will have option to select their desired bundles within the Zantel 3G mobile partner.

• Other users will dial *149*07# on their handsets and select their desired bundles.

ZAN TEL.COM

Tech360correspondent

DESPITE huge growth in mobile devices, applications development, data services among others in Nigeria and other markets, the newly appointed Head of Region, Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa, Frank Jejding, has said the potential of the African markets are yet untapped.

Jejding, which took over from Lars Linden noted that investments in Africa is yielding fruits, but that governments in the continent must find a way to accelerate the current level of development.

Besides, Jejding said operators should embrace managed services, stressing that this promises reduction in capital expenditure among others.

Speaking in Lagos at his media unveiling, he said Nigeria and other African markets must fashion out ways to deepen broadband penetration.

According to him, the benefit of mobility in broadband connectivity has become very critical and government must support its growth.

“The fact remains that where broadband connectivity has been rapid and as reports have it, a 10 per cent broadband growth brings about 1.3 per cent growth in GDP.

“Africa needs to combine mobility, cloud technology and broadband. This will improve the continent’s development. I believe that ICT solutions will address poverty, increase expansion and boost productivity.”

On the managed service process, Jejding said the process allows the operator to do everything technology on its business without hindrances and be able to concentrate on other business functions including marketing, outsourcing among others.

Managed service is the practice of outsourcing day-to-day management responsibilities as a strategic method for improving operations. This can include outsourcing HR-activities, Production Support and lifecycle build/maintenance activities.

According to Jejding, Africa jumped late on the managed service train, but he believed that soonest, managed service will be what operators will adopt, stressing that this is already operative in India.

Jejding, who restated the commitment of Ericsson to getting about 50 billion devices connected by 2020, stressed that the firm was also working towards its Networked Society project for Africa.

To the out-going Ericsson chief—Linden, connectivity is critical to the next level of development on the African continent.

Linden, who said there has been strong demand for data services, noted that this has been constrained by poor infrastructure.

For the Managing Director, Nigeria; Head of Regional Accounts, RSSA for Ericsson, Kamar Abass, the lack of physical infrastructure is a problem in the development of broadband facilities.

Abass believed that to move the bandwidth from the shores to the hinterland, there is need for a unified access control mechanism, stressing that this will help to identify where the fibres are and needed.

According to him, for maximum usage, government should create a national broadband network like Australia.

The Guardian Nigeria

The Executive Director, Development Information Network Mr. Bankole Olubamise, on Tuesday said that improved Information Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure would enhance the development of small businesses.

He said that the SMEs were generally perceived as engine of growth in developing countries.

``But due to the galloping development of ICT worldwide, SMEs in developing countries like Nigeria face a formidable task surviving and competing in a global market,” he said. Olubamise said that the presence of enabling infrastructure would also propel ICT to deliver unprecedented opportunities to SMEs in Nigeria.

``SMEs case studies provide substantial evidence of increased ICT adoption in low-income countries and positive ICT effects on SMEs performance,” he said.

Olubamise said the wide usage of the available technologies showed that adoption of ICT could be key element in giving SMEs in the country an edge and to be globally competitive. ``Most SMEs owners believe that being connected to the internet is being ICT compliant. There are so many other things that will make SMEs to be ICT compliant, but we lack the infrastructure.

``These are just few of such technologies necessary for SMEs in the country to be locally and globally competitive,” he said. Olubamise said that low penetration rates in ICT usage were responsible for the low usage of ICT by SMEs generally.

``In addition and perhaps more important, the lack of complementary infrastructure may reduce the opportunities for firms adopting ICT to perform better,’’ he said.

Daily Times Nigeria

 Africa’s mobile phone market, the fastest-growing in the world, is the last frontier for the industry with the promise of unlocked riches luring global interest including from Chinese handset makers.

But there are two significant challenges in Africa, according to industry leaders and analysts at the world’s biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain: lowering prices for handsets and services and boosting a patchy network.

The use of mobiles is exploding among the one billion people in Africa, where landline networks are poorly developed. Many people rely on the devices for financial transactions — Africa is a leader in the use of “mobile money” — or to link to the Internet.

“Africa is the last frontier of mobile telephony in the world,” said Manoj Kohli, chief executive of Indian group Bharti Airtel, which has a big presence in the continent.

“But it is tough to maintain a network,” he added.

According to global consultants PwC, the number of mobile telephone subscriptions in Africa exploded from 16 million in 2000 to 246 million in 2008 and more than 500 million now.

It expects there to be 600 million subscribers by 2016.

Many Africans have two SIM cards to profit from cheaper calls on each network, however, and industry analyst Wireless Intelligence estimates only a little over one third of the population actually had a mobile telephone in the second quarter of 2012.

Average revenue per consumer in Burundi, Rwanda or Egypt was about $5 (3.80 euros) a month, it said. Price is a challenge for handset manufacturers, too.

Chinese manufacturer Huawei this month launched a sleek new smartphone adapted for Africa, the 4Afrika, running on Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system and with a four-inch screen.

Adapted for each market, the Nigerian version has a dictionary for the local Yoruba language and local news, along with an application related to the popular low-budget movie industry, called Nollywood.

It is expected to sell for less than $200, a Microsoft executive said, with the first devices being offered as early as this month in Angola, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa.

According to PwC, total investment in fixed and mobile networks in Africa should rise from $78.8 billion in 2008 to $145.9 billion by 2015.

Extending coverage to rural areas means bridging long distances but also requires energy, and the electrical grid is often unreliable or nonexistent, industry players said. Operators often resort to costly solutions such as solar panels or diesel generators.

Sifiso Dabengwa, chief executive of South African operator MTN, the leader on the continent, said the challenge was to provide a network from one end of the the chain to the other. Fierce competition for African customers was hurting profits, he added.

“Five or six operators in a country makes it a difficult market for us,” he said, accusing some players of charging at below cost and urging consolidation in the sector. Some operators, including Barthi Airtel’s Kohli, called for players to share infrastructure so as to ensure coverage of the continent and to have any chance of offering Africans third generation fast networks, let alone the superfast fourth-generation.

“We cannot duplicate networks. Only Americans and Europeans can do that, not Africans,” he warned.

By Agence France-Presse
News Sources

Local firms are setting up operations in neighbouring  East African countries and beyond, in the hope of tapping into the fast growing ICT industry in the region.

Nairobi, Kenya

According to a new report, Kenyan firms are dominant in the region, with 17 per cent those that were surveyed saying they either have operations or implementing projects in the neighbouring countries. Larger and mature firms have been able to spread their tentacles further a field, with some setting up operations as far as West and Southern African countries, and a select few selling their products or undertaking projects in other continents — including Asia and Latin America.

The darling

The Julisha survey released last week notes that Uganda seems to be the darling of Kenyan firms, with 24 per cent of the local ICT firms that responded to the study saying they had operations in Uganda, despite being relatively smaller compared to other markets in the region.

“While Uganda is a smaller market than Ethiopia and Tanzania, more local players have invested there (23.9 per cent) compared to 14.1 per cent and 19.7 per cent in Ethiopia and Tanzania respectively. This is mainly due to the more relaxed investment environment in Uganda,” said the survey by Kenya ICT Board.

Main focus

“Southern Sudan has recently become a main focus area for local players, despite the high risks of operating in that country and its high dependence on oil for foreign exchange. Nonetheless, some companies are willing to take risks, especially to pursue opportunities in government and with International NGOs.”

Among the other countries where about 17 per cent of local players either have a presence or are undertaking major projects include India, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Ghana and Nigeria. Other countries where Kenyan firms have a presence are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

 By Macharia Kamau ,standardmedia.co.ke

Join us at KINU on Monday February 18th at 7:00pm for the first in a series of discussions focusing on securing venture capital and funding in the Tanzanian and Pan-African context.

Speakers will include -
Mbwana Alliy Managing Partner – Savannah FundMbwana Alliy is the founder and managing partner of the Savannah Fund, an Africa focused Technology Venture Capital fund. He is passionate about product development andlaunching new ventures in technology. He is an experienced Product Manager within consumer web, enterprise Software & SaaS.

Natalino Mwenda Founder & CEO Rasello
Natalino Mwenda is an entrepreneur and innovator whose passion for design, creativity, and developing strong brand visual identities has allowed him to develop multiple visual identities for brands. He is the Founder and CEO of Rasello, Africa’s upcoming cloud based relationship management system.

Eric Mutta Managing Director Problem Solved
Eric Mutta has been dismantling things to see how they work since he was a little boy. Now, 29 years later, he enjoys putting things together to change how the world works. A software engineer, with 16 years in the field, Eric loves a good challenge and spends his time building software to help small businesses grow. He believes technology in the hands of inspired people is the fuel that will drive Tanzania onto the global stage. 

From KINU Website

Finland Ambassador to Tanzania, Sinikka Antila

Tanzania has been challenged to empower and support innovations of poor people which would ultimately help the poor people themselves.

The challenge was thrown yesterday by Finland Ambassador to Tanzania, Sinikka Antila when speaking at a public seminar on the role of entrepreneurship, innovation and incubation for development. The seminar was organised by Dar Teknohama Business Incubator (DTBI) in collaboration with Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH).

She said poor people may have the best innovation ideas if given the chance to participate.

“Inclusive innovation in development means including poor people’s innovations just like what scientists do in their labs and other scientific forums,” she said.

She said there are many examples of innovations that have helped poor people to survive in their everyday life.

“A good example is the women telephone business in Bangladesh which is supported by Grameen Microfinance Bank…. this simple business innovation has empowered thousands of poor women in their communities as it helped them earn money to sustain their families,” she said.

“A simple adaptation of mobile phone airtime account became a bank for the poor that had no real bank accounts. It has also made it possible for them to pay bills and send money home from a distance,” she said.

She said many innovations were not reaching the poorest of the poor because innovation frameworks and policies are not pro-poor.

The envoy said the collaboration between Tanzania and Finland under the TANZICT-Tanzania Information Society and ICT sector development project is encouraging.

This project supports Tanzania in the revision and implementation of the national ICT policy and supports the Ministry of Communication, Science and Technology and the Tanzanian innovation programme with the total budget of 5 million Euros granted by Finland.

DTBI’s Chief Executive Officer, George Mulanula, revealed that Finland would support them in terms of finance and training programmes.

“As I speak to you, Finland has already donated 5 million USD to the Ministry of Communication, Science and Technology which will be used in a period of three years to pay personnel selected to review and improve the National ICT policy,” he said.

He said the main objective of the seminar was to understand the crucial linkage between academia and industry in innovation and entrepreneurship.

The seminar was also on understanding the role of incubation, innovation and entrepreneurship in a developing economy like Tanzania saying that, COSTECH and DTBI have received visitors from different organisations and entities to understand the COSTECH/DTBI philosophy and model on entrepreneurship, innovation and incubation.

The Guardian Tanzania