CIO East Africa June 2016 issue

VOL 8 | ISSUE 5 | www.cio.co.ke

DR. JAMES

WANJAGI

Enabling Finance IT for telecoms at MODE Africa #OracleCloud47: Breaking Africa’s myth of not being cloud ready

WOMEN IN TECH : Dr. Azza El Shinnawy at Microsoft

IT & LEADERSHIP:

June 2016

Matt Flannery of Branch

11 28 30

info@accesskenya.com

4

Kenya

Uganda

Tanzania

Rwanda

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Harry Hare EDITOR Davis Weddi TECHNICAL STAFF WRITERS Lillian Mutegi Baraka Jefwa Jeanette Oloo COLUMNISTS Bobby Yawe Sam Mwangi HEAD OF SALES & MARKETING Andrew Karanja BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Njambi Waruhiu ACCOUNT MANAGERS Amuyunzu Oscar Vanessa Obura SUBSCRIPTION & EVENTS Ellen Magembe Mellisa Dorsila DESIGN Jean Bedell Published By

Printed By:

Offset Printing Ltd. Contacts

eDevelopment House : 604 Limuru Road Old Muthaiga : P O Box 49475 00100 Nairobi : Kenya +254 725 855 249, Email: info@cio.co.ke

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The content of CIO East Africa is protected by copyright law, full details of which are available from the publisher. While great care has been taken in the receipt and handling of material, production and accuracy of content in this magazine, the publisher will not accept any responsility for any errors, loss or ommisions which may occur.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

Is Mobile Commerce the best mode for business in East Africa?

It turns out that there is a situation developing where Mobile Commerce is becoming a dominant mode for doing business in East Africa, this is to the extent that one is tempted to think that E-Commerce is instead on the decline.

Mobile commerce has generally been well received in the region due to the fact that mobile money services are important in the provision of; secure and cheap financial services, improved speed of operations and convenience. Kenya is leading the pack in all aspects: Innovation and the money involved – in the last year alone, the country’s Mobile commerce recorded a total of 138.6 million transactions with KES275.8 billion used to pay for goods and services. On Mobile Commerce solutions, we tell you about some pitfalls of Mobile Commerce solutions.

While South African’s seem to have dumped the world’s most popular Mobile Money platform – MPesa, one CIO explains: “MPesa as an innovation is doing greatly in other emerging markets, the reasons maybe it did not pick in South Africa, is because Vodacom looked into a market that was already established and was already using other modes of cashless payments,” says Dr. James Wanjagi, CIO at MODE Africa Group Ltd. Dr. Wanjagi has explained more about his work around Mobile Money.

We will not omit Mobile Banking when talking about Mobile Commerce. We now report that growth of mobile banking has surged over the last two years. An October 2015 report from Juniper found that over a billion phone users in the world would have used their device for banking by the end of last year, and expected this number to double by 2020. In fact, the uptake in emerging markets in particular required the Juniper to revise its 2016 predictions to make allowance for the leap in users. You need to see Dr. James Mwangi the CEO of Equity Bank swiping his smartphone to read updates of transactions going

through his bank’s mobile platform, it is an interesting experience he says, because it is realtime analysis.

On Open Source Software issues, our Columnist points out that Open Source Software tends to deliver higher quality products, as many more developers analyse and evaluate the source code in comparison to proprietary environments where a smaller number of developers debug a closed source code. Could it be that adopting open source software generally has a lower initial cost, and shifts the costs from to customization and implementation of important projects – big or small? Big players like Red Hat are offering encouraging news – they have become the icon for other companies to follow: they established that you can make money from open source, and they are actually making a killing out of it.

On women and IT, this month we bring you an interesting story of Dr. Azza El Shinnawy the Director, Government Solutions at Microsoft 4Africa Initiatives.

She is responsible for supporting countrylevel as well as regional efforts targeting government modernization and applying innovative solutions to support effective, open and inclusive public services in the African continent. Now, that is something you need to read.

Welcome to the June 2016 edition of CIO East Africa!

scan for contacts

5

“We are also moving in to the Big Data space to help drive data driven services. MODE also has its own Telco now called SEMA Mobile, which is addressing a closed user group as opposed to the whole full space. We also have a remittance product that we want to provide and we are as well looking at Content provision,”

Dr. James Wanjagi, CIO, MODE Africa Group.

“As Africa’s urban population grows, and some of the governments undergo devolution, ICT – and particularly cloud computing – is becoming an integral part of service delivery.

Innovation should be at the core of how governments manage their programs and service delivery to its citizens. Citizens are now more than ever coming up with their own solutions in a hyperlocal context. Through Innovate4Gov, we bring together the demand for innovation in the public sector, with the supply of innovation in the private sector.”

Dr. Azza El Shinnawy.

FROM OUR ONLINE LOCATIONS Most popular read stories on the website Vodafone M-Pesa reaches 25 million customers milestone ITU to discuss deliverables for future digital financial services roadmap Huawei taps into FoneXpress retail footprint to reach out to more customers Kenya’s Nyamira County turns to automation for improved health care CA denies corruption allegations over sale of Essar Telecom

Top 5: Facebook reach Ericsson joins the SMART Africa Alliance to drive a digital Africa Strauss Energy wins Demo Africa 2016 Nairobi Innovation Tour Africa digital ELT market will surge to $72.3 million by 2020 Chase Bank resumes RTGS, Cheques Clearance, Trade Finance and Forex Operations

“We are committed to helping our customers move to the Cloud to help speed their innovation, fuel their business growth, and drive business transformation,”

Mr. Janusz Naklicki Vice President Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East & Africa at Oracle.

“I have had the priviledge to work with start-ups both in the USA and in Africa and yes there is quite a difference. For instance, in the USA following the 2009 and financial crisis banks tightened the requirements for money borrowing and so with the absence of this more and more online startups were built to compete for the USAID funding. In Kenya, it becomes quite easy to get lending to scale your start-up,”

Matt Flannery CEO Branch

Easy Taxi exits African Market, eyes Latin America

5 most retweeted items on CIO EA’s Twitter Account Chase Bank resumes RTGS, Cheques Clearance, Trade Finance and Forex Operations - CIO East Africa http:// cio.co.ke/news/top-stories/chase-bank-resumesrtgs,-cheques-clearance,-trade-finance-and-forexoperations#.VzWpjuJ_W5s.twitter …

Airtel, Flickswitch provide enterprises with an online portal to manage mobile connectivity - CIO East Africa http://cio.co.ke/news/top-stories/airtel,-flickswitchprovide-enterprises-with-an-online-portal-to-managemobile-connectivity#.VzWpTfbIJ6A.twitter …

Over 25 percent of the Kenya’s internet users are unsupervised children, CA Warns - CIO East Africa http://cio.co.ke/news/main-stories/over-25-percent-ofthe-kenya’s-internet-users-are-unsupervised-children,ca-warns#.VzWnmR-ihUs.twitter …

KCB, GoSwiff roll out mobile payments in Rwanda at World Economic Forum for Africa - CIO East Africa http://cio.co.ke/news/main-stories/kcb,-goswiff-rollout-mobile-payments-in-rwanda-at-world-economicforum-for-africa#.VzWnFoY8LZE.twitter … #CIOSeries: Internet Solutions @IS__Kenya addresses key concerns for businesses going Cloud http://cio. co.ke/news/top-stories/cioseries-internet-solutionsaddresses-key-concerns-for-businesses-going-cloud …

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

6

GuestEDITORIAL

By Delano Longwe

Next-Gen Nexus The confluence of an influx of ideas, technology and opportunity has brought to the region a veritable plethora on innovations in terms of m-commerce to drive the economy.

One of the greatest, most disruptive newbies to step onto the scene is SWYPE (www.swype.co.ke) a payment gateway designed by Fixxit (www.fixxit.co.ke) the ultra-agile developer house that is part of the HomeBoyz Goup of companies. This radical m-commerce solution manifests as an all access payment gateway that patterns as cross platform and which incorporates a mobile wallet for users as well as comes with a built in swathe of security and ease of use features making it one of the most delightful new platforms to be launched by Kenyan innovators in 2016. The fact that a company that is experiencing extraordinary growth and transformation can in and of itself birth such useful solutions should be celebrated and supported. On the education front JKUAT (www.jkuat.ac.ke) has launched TAIFA STORE an App store to take its veritable plethora of useful innovations developed by its students to the world.

In terms of the maturity model against a global landscape of m-commerce players and deep pocket investors the region seems poised to dive into the waters of possibilities and opportunities on global scale. Some nascent ideas which may not seem to have taken root in our budding economies are answers to prayers for developed nations and the necessary steps need to be taken to drive structures that enable this. Initiative such as Enterprise Kenya (http://innovation.icta. go.ke/) launched last year need to be revisited, financed and empowered to scale the heights of global peaks of success and ingenuity.

Never before has so much attention been paid to so small a region in terms of GDP from a technological perspective in comparison to slightly more mature economies. The region serves as a magnetic pulling point attracting future long term investments whose scale

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

only seems to be growing day by day.

Take for example the LAPSSET project (http://www.lapsset.go.ke) which now has access to a $20 Billion fund courtesy of Sustainable Development Investment Partnership (SDIP) that has formed an Africa Hub that mobilises blended funds from private investors and lenders as well as government and philanthropic funds. Yet all this is only a small part of the $100 Billion that SDIP intends to roll out in this region for infrastructure projects over the next 5 years (http:// allafrica.com/stories/201605120305.html).

Enormous chunks of this shall be driven by technology in order to concretize the sustainability aspect. That’s really a very short amount of time for a huge amount of technology, development, automation and economic growth. My take is that some countries will experience such massive immediate growth that if not prepared will lead to huge amounts of excess, waste and inefficiency. Nevertheless we forge on in hope and anticipation that the good in man’s heart will eventually overcome the vicissitudes of our vicarious nature spurred on by dreams of better days in an economically sound and thriving Africa.

It’s pretty obvious that no one is prepared for the rise of new wealth on a dollar scale now that the region has immortalized local currency millionaires for the last 50 years. It’s going to come as quite a shock then as similar to Silicon Valley our 20 something year old start driving around in ultra-exclusive personalized sports cars and buy large estates and properties at will. We need to get ready Silicon Savanna is steadily becoming a reality that will consume the region with its sheer appetite for ingenuity across the board. The world as always has been carefully watching and waiting for this time, this nexus of next-gen, financial and opportunity aggregation that brings with it the winds of tremendous, transformational change.

We know they are we have the evidence (https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/ these-5-kenyan-startups-prove-innovationisnt-just).

Nevertheless we forge on in hope and anticipation that the good in man’s heart will eventually overcome the vicissitudes of our vicarious nature spurred on by dreams of better days in an economically sound and thriving Africa. It’s pretty obvious that no one is prepared for the rise of new wealth on a dollar scale now that the region has immortalized local currency millionaires for the last 50 years.

JUNE 2016

CONTENTS Cover Story:

7

18

DR. JAMES WANJAGI Enabling Finance IT for telecoms at MODE Africa InBrief - 6 Appointments - 7 Regional RoundUP - 8 - 9

Start up CORNER

IT AND LEADERSHIP

TRENDLINES

10

AccessKenya strengthens its network resilience in current areas of operation in Kenya

11

#OracleCloud47: Breaking Africa’s myth of not being cloud ready

18

28

Why more large organisations are moving to Open Source

Shupavu 291: The Mobile Phone Teaching Assistant

OPINION

34

Red Hat just proved you can make billions of dollars with open source

Women & TECH

35 37

Open Source Software,Success or Failure?

Promising future in telecoms sector, but stakes higher

HARD TALK

40

Encompassing the enterprise . .

22 26 Dr. Azza El Shinnawy,

MATT FLANNERY CEO for Branch

Director, Government Solutions at Microsoft4Afrika

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

8

InBRIEF

Talk of a new subsea cable between Africa and Asia Increased business ties between Africa and Asia has led to the talk of a new mega subsea broadband cable along Africa’s eastern coastline, says Hong Kong ICT firm PCCW. PCCW is reported to have revealed it along with Telkom, MTN, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Telecom Egypt (TE) signed a memorandum of understanding to build Africa-1.

The Africa-1 broadband system is planned to stretch 12 000 km along Africa’s eastern coastline towards Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan and could go live next year.

However, Chris Wood, CEO of African connectivity wholesaler WIOCC and co-chair of the EASSy (The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System) consortium, was reportedly said in April 2016 that Africa-1 was “totally unnecessary”.

Wood said Seacom and EASSy currently provide more than enough broadband capacity to Africa. Seacom, EASSy and WACS (West Africa Cable System) have been connected to Africa since 2009.

Rwanda to get Ericsson M-Commerce Interconnect facility Ericsson and Rwanda’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning have signed an agreement to launch a national interoperability switch based on the Ericsson M-Commerce Interconnect solution.

The solution will enable financial and payments services providers in the country to connect to one common platform for seamless and real-time payment transactions.

Ericsson M-Commerce Interconnect links Rwandan financial stakeholders to create a real-time, irrevocable financial transactions processing solution with 24x7 availability.

Ericsson will also lead on-boarding and integration of Rwanda payment service providers and financial institutions. The Rwanda Interoperability Switch is expected to be operational by early 2017.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

Google could get huge fine in EU antitrust investigation Google could face a record fine of up to €3 billion (US $3.4 billion) as soon as early next month as part of a six-year European Commission antitrust investigation into the company’s search engine dominance, according to a news report.

A fine in the European Commission’s long-running investigation, launched in November 2010, is expected by summer, according to a report in The Telegraph, which cited anonymous sources.

The $3.4 billion fine cited in the report would be less than the maximum allowed, which is 10 percent of Google’s worldwide revenue, or about $7.5 billion.

The search engine investigation is one of two antitrust queries targeting Google at the European Commission. The commission is also investigating whether Google uses its Android operating system to hinder alternatives to its own smartphone mapping, search, and app store services.

A Google spokesman declined to comment on the story.

Expect new forms of DDoS attacks - security expert says John McAdam the CEO of security firm F5 Networks, has warned that the Internet of Things (IoT) will see new forms of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks hitting enterprises.

Speaking to Computing at F5 Agility 2016 in Vienna, McAdam said that by 2020 there would be about 37 billion endpoints making up the so-called Internet of Things. But he said this would be a good thing for F5 because it would mean more of an opportunity for the company to manage organisations’ app security.

McAdam pointed to F5’s “multi-million dollar transaction with a car company”, which meant that the company was managing the internet traffic coming from those cars, as an example of this opportunity.

He dismissed the notion that IoT was marketing hype, and said that F5 knows of at least one company - a major cable operator - that has had a DDoS attack because of IoT. “The way [the criminals] did the DDoS attack was by pinging cameras and any other internet-connected devices at homes. The camera will automatically say æno’ so they couldn’t get through, but they used the combination of ænos’ to build up traffic and conduct a DDoS attack,” said McAdam.

“If you can correlate all of that data on a global basis, suddenly you’re bringing down sites. But there are scarier examples, such as downloading an app which is not what you think it is,” he added.

APOLOGY: We wish to clarify that Kenswitch is not a subsidiary of Paynet as indicated in a story published in the August 2015 edition of CIO East Africa Magazine.

NewAPPOINTMENTS

Paul Kukubo, appointed in Communications Authority Of Kenya Board Paul Kukubo has been appointed among the seven new members of the Communications Authority of Kenya Board.

Prior to his appointment, Paul Kukubo was the Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Board.

In his position, Kukubo championed the leverage of ICT in both the public and private sector, and amongst the citizenry as a means to enhance service delivery to the citizen and as a tool of socioeconomic empowerment and access to tapping into the knowledge economy.

Kukubo has commanded various senior roles in marketing and advertising, served as Chairman of the Marketing Society of Kenya and co-founded 3mice Interactive Ltd.—East Africa’s premier e-commerce solutions provider.

Other new CA Board members include: Mugambi Nandi, Prof. Levi Obonyo, Guyo Huka, Patricia Kimama, David Kitur and Kentice Tikolo

Dr. Dorothy Okello, President of Uganda Institute of Professional Engineers Dr. Dorothy Okello has been appointed as the President of Uganda Institute of Professional Engineers.

Dr. Dorothy Okello is a Ugandan technologist and engineer, known for her work in the Women of Uganda Network or WOUGNET. WOUGNET founder and director Dr. Dorothy Okello has a B.Sc. in Engineering (Electrical) from Makerere University, Uganda, an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kansas, United States and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from McGill University, Montreal, Canada (where she received a Commonwealth Scholarship) She has worked to get more women and rural communities engaged in the information society. Dr. Dorothy Okello is Africa’s first-ever Digital Woman of the Year, an honor bestowed upon her at an Africa ICT Days gala ceremony for the Digital Woman Award finalists that took place on 16 November in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

She also won the Women Achievers Award for her distinguished service in empowering women and girls through Science and Technology. The award giving ceremony was held on 7th October 2012.

Jean-Claude Geha, Head of the sub-Saharan Africa Region, Ericsson Jean-Claude Geha has been appointed as Head of the sub-Saharan Africa Region at Ericsson effective from July 1, 2016. Jean-Claude replaces Fredrik Jejdling who will take up a new role in the new organisation.

Jean-Claude has been active in the ICT space for over 25 years. Currently as Global head of Managed Services, he has been instrumental in extending Ericsson’s managed services leadership globally, including here in Africa.

Prior to taking on the role as Head of Managed Services in September 2013, Jean-Claude held several key positions in Ericsson including Head of Operations in Region Western & Central Europe and Managing Director for Ericsson in Belgium and Luxemburg. Between 2005 and 2008, he also served as Corporate Vice President for Global Managed Services Delivery at Ericsson and between 2008 and 2009 he was Corporate Vice President for Global Services Delivery for EMEA North.

Before joining Ericsson in 2005, JeanClaude held a number of different executive positions in North America and in Europe with Operators such as MCI and TeliaSonera.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

9

10

Regional ROUNDUP

JEANETTE OLOO

ACIA Awards held on 20th May to disclose this year’s winners The other five award categories are: Young Innovators: This category targets the youth and has 3 subcategories in which they can participate. The Primary and Secondary School students will compete first at a regional level and winners at this stage will advance to compete nationally.

Business Excellence: This award will recognise the best ICT solution that has been developed to address any of Uganda’s challenges in Education, Health, Agriculture, Environment sustainability, Government services, ICTs for the disadvantaged

The ACIA Awards is an annual initiative that was established in 2010 by the Uganda Communications Commission, it fosters innovation through the recognition and reward of outstanding ICT innovations.

The winner and runners - up will be announced during the ACIA 2016 Awards Gala night that will take place at Serena Conference Centre on May 20, 2016, this comes after the voting exercise for the winner of ACIA 2016 Special Award which was a five day exercise that was completed in April 29th - this award aims to recognise the Government of Uganda’s development efforts, especially in the promotion of e-Government hence had all the government ministries contesting.

Overall, there are six major award categories for ACIA 2016.

Service Excellence: Honouring excellence in the development of new products and services that offer outstanding value proposition in terms of sector development.

ICT for Development: This award will recognise the best ICT solution that has been developed to address any of Uganda’s challenges in Education, Health, Agriculture, Environment sustainability, Government services, ICTs for the disadvantaged Digital Content: This award will recognise the most innovative approaches in the compilation of local text, images - including video, or sound into a program, application or product that enhances the value and use of communication platforms in Uganda These winners and runners- up of these five categories will be determined by a panel of eminent and independent judges.

Government of Rwanda collaborates with MasterCard to meet Rwanda’s 2020 vision of a cashless society In a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed by the CEO, Rwanda Development Board and Cabinet Member, Francis Gatare, and Raghu Malhotra, President of Middle East and Africa for MasterCard, Rwanda will promote the move to a cashless economy by collaborating on numerous initiatives.

These solutions include, the digitization of school fees and national healthcare claim payments, providing an online payment gateway for Rwanda Online, contributing to the creation of a common mobile banking platform, and contributing to the effective management of spending activities across borders.

The just concluded 26th annual World Economic Forum on Africa that was held in Kigali, Rwanda, the theme of the 2016 meeting was “Connecting Africa’s Resources through Digital Transformation” saw the Government of Rwanda in collaboration with MasterCard to fast-track the country’s move to include 90 percent of its citizens in the financial mainstream, as set out in its Vision 2020 strategy.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

Gatare said, “We are confident that Rwanda’s partnership with MasterCard will be beneficial to the country and its citizens as we are implementing our vision of becoming a knowledge based service-oriented economy. I believe this can only be achieved as we embrace the fourth industrial revolution.”

Malhotra said, “Our global reach and local experience makes MasterCard a perfect partner to help Rwanda meet its Vision 2020 strategy. Rwanda is a key market in East Africa for MasterCard and today’s announcement marks an important milestone in driving financial inclusion, not just in the country but in the region and Africa as a whole.”

Regional ROUNDUP

Kenya Power, Safaricom sign MoU to increase broadband connectivity implement a pilot fibre optic project aimed at providing internet to homes via Kenya’s Power’s electricity distribution network.

Under the partnership, Safaricom will lease additional broadband infrastructure built and owned by Kenya Power in order to roll out a “last mile” network, with the aim of connecting more homes to its broadband internet services.

According to the quarterly sector statistics report by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) in 2015, which showed that the number of Internet users grew to 31.9 million from 29.6 million in the previous quarter. Consequently, the portion of the Kenyan population accessing Internet services reached 74.2 per 100 inhabitants up from 69.0 per 100 inhabitants recorded in the previous quarter.

According to World Economic Forum-led initiative, Internet For All illustrates that efforts to extend the reach of the internet to the 4 billion people worldwide that are not yet connected will only succeed if a digital ecosystem approach is adopted where access, affordability, skills and content are given equal attention.

In Kenya, Kenya Power and Safaricom Limited, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) earlier this month that will see more Kenyans connected to broadband internet.

Bob Collymore, CEO – Safaricom Limited said, “By leveraging on Kenya Power’s electricity infrastructure we will not only be able to accelerate the rate of connection to homes, we will tackle challenges experienced in roll-out of broadband services and reduce the inconvenience caused to Kenyans when we are forced to dig trenches to lay the underground fibre optic cable grid.”

The project targets more than 12,000 homes in a 12-month pilot to be carried out in residential areas in and around Nairobi

The MoU sets the stage for the two firms to collaborate to

Tanzanian start-up to use drones to curb poaching Kenya torched 105 tonnes of elephant tusks and 1.3 tonnes of rhino horns on April 30 at the Nairobi National Park and it was to reaffirm poachers and the world as a whole of the country’s commitment to protect its iconic wildlife species.

Bathawk Recon is a start-up in Tanzania that proposes a private sector Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV) based anti-poaching service. This is an idea conceived on the plains of the Serengeti and based in Arusha. It brings the highest level of international expertise and technology to bear on the anti-poaching question and will do so in a manner cheaper and more effectively than the public sector.

The success of the Bathawk Recon anti-poaching surveillance plan depends on a marriage between technology and operational appropriateness. Bathawk Recon has carried out three trials (TARANGIRE National Park, SELOUS Game Reserve and MKOMAZI National Park) to be able to finally conclude it had a viable Tech.

According to Bathawk Recon’s official site, “Attention is needed at the market end of this chain and in the middle sections of transit. The new UAV technologies however presents a very real and immediate opportunity to tackle this problem at the source. Bathawk Recon is a practical focused tool to do just that.”

Tanzania is to deploy drones in Tarangire National Park in a new anti-poaching initiative, a six month deployment of Super Bat DA 50. This is because Tarangire National Park is best known for its large herds of elephants as it covers an area of 2,600 square kilometres.

According to Mr. Chambers the kind of drone has day and night capability, which will enable surveillance to be deployed any time, any place in the protection area.

“This will enable us to survey greater areas and protect larger parks and reserves. The concept will find poachers and illegal intruders and lead rangers to the location,” Mr. Chambers added.

Super Bat DA 50 can detect human suspicious activity from thousands of feet in the sky and live feed video back to Bathawk Recon ground station when suspected poachers are detected then the nearby ranger units are called.

Rangers use GPS points from the drone to locate poachers.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

11

12

TrendLINES

By JEANETTE OLOO

AccessKenya strengthens its network resilience in current areas of operation in Kenya

Using fibre for transmission means faster speeds, higher capacities and lower latencies. This means businesses, corporate and NGOs especially interlinking several branches can communicate more efficiently. Businesses are able to share or pool resources from a central location, run ERPs, incorporate MPLS solutions and wide area networks effectively.

Since 2013 AcessKenya has made major milestones including the completion of phase 1 network upgrade with an investment of Kes 300 million which will cover the 18 major towns by this year. It also signed a MoU with inABLE Kenya and Computers for Schools Kenya (CFSK), where the company will provide Ksh. 6 million to support the ‘Assistive Technology Labs” project by inABLE Kenya and Ksh. 1.2 million for the ‘Enhancing ICT use in Schools’ initiative by CFSK. This year AccessKenya is focusing on improving their network resilience in current areas of operation and expanding their fiber network in towns such as Nairobi, Thika, Diani and Kisumu to approximately 900KM of fibre by the end of 2016 in order to enhance service delivery to the corporate segment of the market.

The company is also working on their backend to simplify their systems through automation, improving the communication platform with their clients, create greater visibility for fault diagnosis, all of which will deliver an enhanced client experience.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

From an interview, Network Operations Manager Ndung’u Njoroge said, “In total Ksh. 400M has been set aside for network expansion and to improved resilience.

Approximately half of that is for new infrastructure deployment on our fiber and wireless networks with another Ksh. 200M being spent between upgrades on power in our facilities, improvement on systems, NOC monitoring, equipment upgrades, planning and R&D.” He added that with the integration of AccessKenya and Internet Solutions, the company will be spending a significant amount of time ensuring that the existing networks leverages from and on each other for service reliability for the market.

AccessKenya welcomed the recent directive by the Communications Authority that 30% of new infrastructure should be shared and said that with this the company might just be looking at the age of Monetizing the Quality of Service (QoS) in network infrastructure – where consumers and content providers pay for different levels of service quality by pricing Internet access at various speed or latency levels.

TrendLINES

LILIAN MURUGI

13

#OracleCloud47:

Breaking Africa’s myth of not being cloud ready

Cloud is generally viewed as the future of IT services and companies are equally rushing to respond to this paradigm shift. This has seen companies like Oracle Corporation invest heavily on cloud through its Platform-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service and Infrastructureas-a-Service offerings, following a launch of series of cloud solutions globally.

However, even with the growth of the Cloud Market, and most organizations shifting to adopt cloud solutions, Africa, has been viewed as a market that is not yet ready for the cloud solutions. To break this myth, Oracle held for the first time Oracle Cloud 47, an initiative that demonstrated how organizations in Africa can innovate and transform their business as they embark on their journey to the cloud.

Reaching more than 2000 attendees across approximately 47 African cities, the Oracle Cloud 47 Day committed to helping organizations transition to, and embrace the cloud; enabling them to transform their business with Oracle solutions.

“Cloud Day 47 was a success story for us. The event was carried out across 47 countries simultaneously in Africa reaching several thousand customers at the in-person events and through the live webcast. Africa is currently in an adoption and experimental phase, when it comes to Cloud technology and it was an objective of the event to break the myth that Africa is not ready to adopt and implement Cloud. We have already seen successful adoption of the Cloud in many of our customers in Africa and the momentum is growing rapidly,” said Mr. Janusz Naklicki Vice President Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East & Africa.

With eight offices located across Sub Sahara Africa and approximately 750 Oracle PartnerNetwork members, a network that is growing rapidly, the one day event brought together IT Professionals to discuss cloud technologies.

On what Oracle was doing to get more and more SMEs into the cloud since SMEs across Africa, contribute widely to African Countries’ GDP, Mr. Naklicki stated that although Oracle is well-known amongst large corporations and in the public sector, today’s offerings from Oracle will make worldclass solutions available to even smaller organisations.

Among what is tailored for the smaller organizations, is a Oracle’s recently launched new family of offerings designed to enable organizations to easily move to the cloud and remove some of the biggest obstacles to cloud adoption. These firstof-a-kind services provide CIOs with new choices in where they deploy their enterprise software and a natural path to easily move business critical applications from on-premises to the cloud.

“We are committed to helping our customers move to the Cloud to help speed their innovation, fuel their business growth, and drive business transformation,” added Mr. Naklicki.

Although not necessarily around Cloud, Oracle has also offered a number of initiatives in to the African Market. In Kenya for instance Oracle has been involved in a couple of initiatives. These include supporting Innovation Hubs through Knowledge Transfer sessions for local tech entrepreneurs and developers to help them drive home grown “made in Africa” technology solutions. This particular programme has been run with 16 Innovation Hubs across 9 African countries reaching nearly 400 developers so far.

“At Oracle Cloud Day late last year we hosted a graduation ceremony for 48 participants of the Presidential Digital Talent Program who were trained on Java; Database and IFMIS in Kenya,” added Mr. Naklicki.

Oracle has supported a number of Public Sector Workshops on eGovernment trends in areas such as Smart City and Data management reaching 220 C-level government employees across 3 countries (Kenya; Nigeria & Botswana) to build internal capacity to support Oracle related projects.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

14

TrendLINES

By JEANETTE OLOO

DEMO AFRICA participant pitching during the Nairobi Innovation Tour

DEMO Africa 2016 Innovation Tours start in Africa

The DEMO Africa 2016 Innovation Tours have kicked off with East Africa being the first Launchpad of the tours. The Nairobi Innovation Tour which was held at Pawa254 Hub had a panel of judges declared Strauss Energy the winner with WavuH and Ujuzi Software Solutions Software garnering the second and third position respectively. The Uganda Innovation Tour was held at HIVE COLAB and Lipa Mobile(is the fast and easy online mPayment platform to securely send and receive mobile money across all networks in Uganda.It offers a simple and secure cashless service with complete financial management system)was the winner Winning the Innovation Tours puts the start-ups one step closer to a fully paid trip to Johannesburg where Demo Africa 2016 will be held at the Sandton Convention Centre from 22 to 26 August 2016 where they will pitch at the Demo Africa Alpha stage.

The DEMO Africa Innovation Tours started in East Africa, and are set to continue in different countries with: Ghana on May 24 at Mest, Accra Nigeria on May 26 at Idea, Abuja Egypt on May 31 at Ice Cairo, Cairo Ivory Coast on June 2 at Akendewa, Abidjan Dates for Zimbabwe and South Africa are yet to be released.

Eng Martin Obuya at Uganda DEMO AFRICA Innovation Tour

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

“This tour will bring together startups, innovators and technology industry players to look at ways through which innovations can be turned into business ventures. Entrepreneurs from East Africa will get a chance to pitch to a panel of highly placed individuals in the tech sector,� an official from DEMO Africa said.

TrendLINES

15

BARAKA JEFWA

KRA’s fight against counterfeit products goes Mobile Mr. Benson Korongo, acting Commissioner, Domestic taxes, KRA.

The Anti-Counterfeit Agency (ACA), in 2013, announced that Trade in counterfeits in Kenya was losing the Government a whopping Sh70 billion a year. Local dailies reported that the most affected items were pharmaceuticals drugs, electronics, farm inputs, mobile phones and alcoholic drinks.

“The tragedy of the counterfeiting story is that it is an underworld crime that leads to crime advancement,” ACA Chief Executive Officer Stephen Mallowah said during the launch of phase three of its public awareness campaign dubbed “Fagia Bandia”.

With such loses, the Government needed to come up with ways of finding and stopping counterfeiters, entered KRA to the rescue with the 2013 launch of its Excisable Goods Management System (EGMS).

“EGMS is one of our most important innovations that we have implemented to manage Excisable goods manufactured in this country.” Mr. Benson Korongo, acting Commissioner, Domestic taxes, KRA, said during an interview with CIO East Africa.

“We started implementation of EGMS targeting the tobacco industry and then we went on to spirits and wines and then beer, all the manufacturers and importers now comply. Now we are going through the process of expanding the application of EGMS to cover nonalcoholic beverages particularly: juices, sodas and water. Which we are hoping to take effect from the beginning of the financial year, what we are doing now is we are going through the process of engaging the stakeholders,” He added.

The EGMS is a technology solution that comprises of three elements: Factory floor labeling, a hand held scanner and a Smartphone App. The factory floor labeling process is based on the use of digital stamps and codes; the stamps are paper based, while the codes are system generated codes. Both the stamps and codes are placed on product as they come off the production line.

“These codes, as well as the stamps have got in- built features that enable different players in the production chain to authenticate them. With the stamps stakeholders can use their eyes to spot and notice whether goods are authentic or not because the stamps have a shift in color,” Mr. Korongo said.

The Smartphone App is EGMS’ last line of defense in the fight against counterfeit products, the App is available for Android and iOS devices, Mr. Korongo said that with the App tax payers will be able to place the phone over the product to read the code which is later passed to the KRA database for verification.

“Tax payers are able to transmit that data to us, if you are using a Smartphone you are actually able to communicate to KRA when you come across a suspicious product,” he continued.

Korongo says that KRA is currently educating the public on how to utilize the color shift feature. With the code on the other hand, one requires a hand held devises such as a scanner to detect the code’s authenticity.

Mr. Korongo spoke on how the EGMS is helping the KRA to grow its revenue, stating that by minimizing the illicit goods production and consumption the authority is shifting the demand to the genuine products. He also said that other ways the system helps to increase revenue is by detecting counterfeiters who are then apprehended leading to legal actions which leads to fines which is also a source of revenue for KRA.

“Our inspection teams have portable devices. For other mid-level operators, for the purpose of detecting what we would call semi covert features, we have a validator, a small card the size of a Visa card, you put against the stamp and you see the shifting of the color,” he added.

“The other key thing is that with the system you are able to control and monitor the production of all the products produced on the automated lines, the production line is subject to taxation, that’s also how we are able to enhance our revenue,” he concluded.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

16

EnterpriseMobility

By JEANETTE OLOO

Mobile Device Management takes automated actions to curb cybercriminal attacks Mobile security techniques with advanced malware and fraud protection solutions and Security Information and Event Management tools that consolidate log source event data from device endpoints and applications distributed throughout a network and perform immediate normalization and correlation activities on raw data to distinguish real threats from false positives.

Recent findings from the 2015 Kenya Cyber Security Survey show that of the 275 organisations in Kenya that participated, 21 per cent of respondents within these organisations in Kenya are not concerned about cybercrime at all.

At least 80 per cent of Kenyans and 70 per cent of Kenyan businesses connected to the internet are vulnerable to cybercriminal attacks, according to a report titled “THE STATE OF CYBERSECURITY IN KENYA” released by security consulting firm Serianu.

Mobile device management (MDM) is the administrative area dealing with deploying, securing, monitoring, integrating and managing mobile devices, such as smartphones,tablets and laptops, in the workplace. The intent of MDM is to optimize the functionality and security of mobile devices within the enterprise, while simultaneously protecting the corporate network.

CIO East Africa interviewed Ben Mann Program Director, Offering Management, IBM Africa. He focuses on software and cloud solutions for Africa hence is capable in IBM’s Security portfolio and strategy for helping clients secure their Mobile devices.

“IBM’s MDM solution has been recognized as the only cloud-based EMM solution certified and accredited under the Federal Information Security and Management Act (FISMA) and the U.S. The IBM MDM cloud infrastructure only captures device inventory information (e.g., hardware, software, network and security-related

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

information required for managing the device and ensuring compliance) your data remains safe. IBM’s cloud platform relies on the network-within-a-network topology of cloud infrastructure for physical network security. This networkwithin-a-network architecture ensures that systems are fully accessible only to authorized personnel,” said Mr. Mann.

IBM’s solution for Mobile Device Management (MDM) is called MobileFirst Protect (formerly known as FiberLink MaaS360) which delivers a comprehensive enterprise mobility management (EMM) platform to help secure and manage mobile devices, apps and content. MobileFirst Protect enables organizations to provision devices for business use, separate work and personal data, and take automated actions based on security policies.

“MobileFirst Protect SaaS is provided from a single cloud platform offered as a subscription service that includes on-demand access to the platform, setup, upgrades, maintenance, and 24 x 7 x 365 support. With IBM MobileFirst Protect in the cloud, our clients have the flexibility to start managing a small group of devices now, and scale up as needs change,” he added.

Talking on security, Mr. Mann said that between container and non-container operational options a consumer would be better of using container-based

“Given the fact that cybercriminal activity is advancing globally and as Internet usage grows (with the estimated figure of 26.1 million Internet users in Kenya), with more businesses in Kenya relying on technology and aspects like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or the Internet of Things (IoT), for work purposes – this is a major cause for concern!” said Bethwel Opil, Channel Sales Manager for East Africa at Kaspersky Lab. IBM offers both on-premise and cloud (MDM-as-a-Service) Mobile Device Management (MDM) capabilities deployment and its solution provides default policies which can be centrally configured and remotely applied. It also enables policies to be applied to individual devices, and to custom groups of devices including based on location and other parameters.

It can enforce automated compliance rules on your enrolled smartphones and tablets—and take the actions you specify when those rules have been broken. Compliance rules include: passcode policy adherence, minimum OS version, remote wipe and encryption support, Jailbroken (iOS) or Rooted (Android) devices, application policies, SIM changes, roaming or surpassing data usage thresholds. Automatic actions include alerting the user and/ or administrators, blocking it from accessing the network, changing the policy, conducting a selective or full wipe, removing MDM control or hiding the device.

TrendLINES

By Staff WRITER

17

Redington Shines At Vmware’s Partner Innovation Awards Regional VAD Redington Value was recently recognised by VMware at the vendor’s Partner Innovation Awards during the Partner Leadership Summit held in the US. Redington Value won the ‘Emerging Markets Distributor Partner of the Year -Regional’ and ’Emerging Markets Distributor Partner of the Year - Global’ award.

Every year, virtualisation solutions vendor VMware recognises its partners for demonstrating excellence and achievements throughout the year with the Partner Innovation Awards. The awards were designed to highlight the efforts of all partner types in relation to growth, sales, net new customers and marketing.

“It is a great honour to be recognised by VMware at a global stage, especially at a time when the industry is going through massive transformation and VMware being right up there on the innovation curve.

Redington will continue to focus and invest in the new and transformational technologies and intensify efforts in areas like network virtualisation, SDDC and hyper converged infrastructure,” said Ramkumar Balakrishnan,president at Redington Value.

In another development, Redington Value Distribution has also announced that it was recently awarded with the distinction of Distributor of the Year for Cisco for Africa.

Receiving ‘Cisco Distributor of the Year‘ Award for the Middle East is an achievement which represents Redington Value’s commitment to the region and tireless hard work.

According to the distributor, a large amount of the credit for this award goes to all its partners in the region who have been and continue to be excellent in developing the market and believing in the Redington brand.

In addition to being a moment of immense pride, the award is also a reminder for us to never let up in our efforts and continue to help grow the channel community in the region further while reaching greater heights in the process.

Ramkumar Balakrishnan, president, Redington Value (second from right) and Sayantan Dev, VP, VCG, Redington Value received the two awards at the VMware Partner Innovation Awards.

It is a great honour to be recognised by Vmware at a global stage, especially at a time when the industry is going through Massive transformation and vmware Being right up there on the innovation curve. Redington will continue to fo􀁽cus its investments in the new transfor􀁽mational technologies and intensify efforts in areas like network virtu􀁽alisation, sddc and hyper converged in􀁽frastructure.

- Ramkumar balakrishnan, President, redington value CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

TrendLINES

18

Four major trends in enterprise mobility These four trends mean that enterprises have a lot to think about and work on where mobility computing is concerned.

The Author - Linda Musthaler is a Principal Analyst with Essential Solutions Corp. which researches the practical value of information technology and how it can make individual workers and entire organizations more productive.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

TrendLINES

LINDA MUSTHALER

19

Security models are evolving, cloud is changing the game, the desktop and mobile worlds are converging, and new regulations are emerging.

If you want to get some insight to the trends of mobility in the enterprise, the guy to talk to is Ojas Rege, vice president of strategy for MobileIron.

I caught up with him recently and he talked about four major trends that will have a big impact in the years ahead.

The first trend is what is happening from the application security perspective. Enterprises started to get interested in mobile apps about five or six years ago. The larger screen real estate of the Apple iPad really opened companies’ eyes to what could be done with mobile apps. The earliest applications were rather ad hoc, usually project-based. Then organizations began building apps around their business workflow, and security became a bigger issue.

With this in mind, a new security initiative was launched at Mobile World Congress this year. The newly formed AppConfig Community has a mission to streamline the adoption and deployment of mobile enterprise applications by providing a standard approach to app configuration and management, building upon the extensive app security and configuration frameworks available in the mobile OS. The members of the AppConfig Community are making it simpler for developers to implement a consistent set of controls so that enterprise IT administrators can easily configure and manage apps according to their business policies and requirements.

Apple is behind the effort, as are several companies from the enterprise mobility management space (including MobileIron). It’s getting good traction from the app developer community already because it’s the first time developers have had one place to go to get the tools, the schema and best practices to build secure enterprise mobile apps. The first mobile platform to be supported is Apple iOS, but there are tools for Google Android and plans to support Microsoft Windows as demand picks up.

The second trend is the move to cloud when a mobile device is the front end. Much of the discussion on cloud security has been focused on securing the back end – the cloud itself – and then authenticating user access to the cloud. This primarily assumes a web interface to the cloud, with no data being stored on the local PC client.

This model doesn’t work when you consider mobile, because no one uses a web browser on a mobile device to access cloud applications. Instead they use native mobile apps, and just managing the authentication of the user is not enough. Now you have to have device trust and app trust, because there is now data that is local to the device.

MobileIron is addressing this need with a new product called MobileIron Access. It sits between the cloud service and the authentication service, and before the authentication request is given to Active Directory Federation Services or any other authentication broker, MobileIron first checks to make sure the device is secure and the application is secure. Only if both are secure does the authentication request get passed on to the identity and access management system. If there is an issue with either an unauthorized device or an unauthorized app, the user is prohibited from bringing enterprise data from the cloud service down to the device until the problem is remediated. MobileIron Access completes the security model for cloud services.

A third mobility trend is the convergence of desktop and mobile, which is being accelerated by Windows 10. Later this year, Microsoft is scheduled to release a final set of capabilities that will really blur the distinction between a desktop OS and a mobile OS. Rege points to a move that Gartner is making to emphasize this new direction in client management. Gartner is discontinuing its Magic Quadrant on

traditional PC lifecycle management tools. Gartner says this industry is mature and there’s little innovation left, and in the future enterprises will manage and secure their endpoints using enterprise mobility management (EMM) tools. From a Gartner perspective, they are moving their focus of how security will evolve post Windows 10 to the EMM model. Rege says MobileIron expects that legacy devices will continue to be managed by traditional lifecycle management tools while newer devices, mobile or otherwise, will move entirely to the EMM model.

Rege believes the more interesting aspect of this shift will have to do with people, not technology. Enterprises typically have a distinct desktop support group and a mobile support group. As operating systems like Windows 10 close the gap between the two styles, companies will want to streamline their support teams as well.

Rege says the support will shift to the mobile team, and be done at a much lower cost than traditional desktop support. Given the fiefdom of the current desktop team, this might not sit well, but companies have a few years to work through the organizational changes.

A fourth trend affecting mobility has to do with the regulatory environment, largely led by the state of California.

This past February, the attorney general of California released a report indicating that the CIS Critical Security Controls are now considered the minimum security requirements for companies that operate in California. In addition, the Center for Internet Security released a companion document to the 20 controls that is basically a mobile version of the controls. What seems to be happening now, at least in California, is the baseline for security is going to be moving from discretionary to being a core part of the governance and compliance model.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

20

OpenSource

By Lillian MUTEGI

Why more large organisations are moving to Open Source and tweak it to suit their needs. Since the code is open, it’s simply a matter of modifying it to add the functionality they want. Open source software is generally free, and so is a world of support through the vibrant communities surrounding each piece of software. Most every Linux distribution, for instance, has an online community with excellent documentation, forums, mailing lists, forges, wikis, newsgroups and even live support chat.

However, recently Open Source platforms have introduced paid support options on most open source packages at prices that still fall far below what most proprietary vendors will charge.

However, Mr. Ng’etich further explained even with the Open Source platfform proving to have more addvantages over Proprietary Sytems, in some instances especially where software developers are dealing with sensitive data for example in the health or financial sectors, the prorietary system will be the go to system.

Gone are the days when open source software were used only by start-ups and small corporates. Today big companies are using and promoting open source software.

For example, Google, the internet search giant uses Linux for most of its servers.

Also Google is funding open source projects like Chromium which forms the backbone of a popular chrome web browser from Google. So we see that one of the biggest IT company is both using and contributing to open source.

When Apple announced some time last year at the Worldwide Developer Conference that it was releasing Swift, its new programming language for Apple iPhone app development, to open source, the developers community received the news with so much joy.

On the enterprise software side, Facebook invented Cassandra and later on left it out to move to Open Source which now is used at big companies like Apple,Twitter and Netflix because there was just no good existing way to sort huge amounts of data in a user’s Facebook Messenger inbox.

Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb, and many other technology companies have released their software as open source.

This change in outlook of big corporates towards the open source was not come overnight. There has been a long struggle for open source to make everyone believe that it is as good as (or even better) than its proprietary counterparts especially

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

around security.

So what could be the key contributors to this shifts? According to Nicholas Ng’etich, Senior Software Developer at Okaki Africa Limited, the shift could be mainly because of availability accessibility and the fact that there is a large community that is willing to share information on Open Source platforms unlike in the proprietary systems where developers want to keep things to themselves. Open Source philosophy is mostly on the lets share side.

But still as more and more corporates open uo their platforms, proprietory systems have been viewed to be more secure as compared to open source since the Source Code is accessible to anyone but with time and advancements in technology, this perception is slowly changing.

“The Open Source software is far more secure because anybody in the community can identify a bug or loophole and can quickly fix it. The open source code combined with the fact that large number of contributing developers prepares an ecosystem where bugs are fixed at a quicker speed than they are exploited. This results in a secure software.The big corporates now know that there is little security transparency while using proprietary software as compared to OSS,” he added.

Apart from security more businesses are still shiffting to Open Source due to its customizability capabilities.Business users can take a piece of open source software

“ Okaki Limited is in the health space, we fully use the proprietary systems due to the sensitivity of the data we handle but we have have strong Open Source Softwares like ReddHat,” he said.

In Kenya however, Open Source Software is not a big undertaking, another Developer James Mwangi of EcoLab and also part of the developers of the Smart Matatu told us.

“I would not go as much as to blame Kenyan developers but the Kenyan economy. Most people work on open source codes for fun and it’s difficult for a Kenyan programmer(probably jobless) improving on someone else’s code knowing that it will probably be a source of money for the said person. Also, developers that are actually employed here in Kenya rarely have the time to debug, add code, comment on these open source codes. I believe that is one of the major reasons we have not embraced OSS,” he said.

However, Mwangi still believes that Open Source is quite innovative and helpful, both socially and economically as developers get to share code, correct each other, use others code to create something meaningful and that can generate money.

“Most people, both developers and nondevelopers actually prefer using open source software as they are at liberty to use it however they like unlike proprietary software that delegates how one will use it,” he said.

BUILDING AFRICA’S DIGITAL FUTURE IN THE GROUND AND IN THE SKY Investment and innovation in satellite services is helping to transform businesses across parts of Africa. Scott Mumford, Group Managing Executive – Satellite & VSAT at Liquid Telecom, explains why satellite is the perfect complement to fibre.

L

iquid Telecom may have gone on to build Africa’s largest independent cross-border fibre network, but the company in fact began life as a satellite operator.

Today, its satellite heritage can still be felt strongly throughout the organisation and its satellite services play a valuable role in supporting existing customers, while also helping to attract new business for the company.

There are many wonderful qualities to fibre – it delivers higher bandwidth and reduces latency to name just a few – but deployment is not always economically or logistically viable. A versatile and more cost effective alternative is satellite, which neatly complements Liquid Telecom’s pan-African terrestrial network by providing seamless broadband services to some of the most remote parts of the continent.

Offering speeds of up to 50Mbps, Liquid Telecom’s satellite network serves an ever-expanding base of customers, which include some of Africa’s largest mobile network operators, ISPs, multinationals, SMEs, government and public sector bodies.

Growing demand for satellite Due to growing demand from these customers, Liquid Telecom has significantly expanded the reach of its satellite network, which now supports over 2,500 sites across Africa. In many cases, satellite services are helping to transform businesses and stimulate local economies in areas with otherwise limited infrastructure.

Take, for example, Liquid Telecom Kenya’s partnership with Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB). KCB has

one of the largest banking networks across East Africa, and has been able to expand its reach further by using Liquid Telecom’s satellite services. In particular, it has been able to connect 24 of its branches in South Sudan by using VSAT technology, which has allowed faster and more efficient banking services for its South Sudanese customers.

The absence of critical ICT infrastructure in countries such as South Sudan can have costly implications for regional banking institutions. Satellite services are an excellent solution for the banking sector in these areas, enabling them to establish reliable links for ATMs and point-of-sell devices as well as be used for any other internal connections.

In addition to helping banks attract a wider customer base, high-quality satellite services can help bridge the economic divide, enabling local populations to have access to banking services for the first time.

It’s not just the financial sector which can benefit from satellite services across Africa. Tourism is the fastest growing industry in many African nations, with millions of tourists

attracted to the region’s spectacular wildlife reserves.

Many of the most desirable tourist hotspots are located in national parks far away from critical infrastructure.

Satellite is a great fit for many of these safari lodges, enabling them to provide reliable, high-quality voice and data services to their guests.

As well as serving enterprise customers located in areas where fibre is not available, Liquid Telecom’s satellites services are also helping to support Africa’s broadcast sector.

In December 2015, Liquid Telecom became the broadcast service provider for Africa’s largest new pay TV provider, KweséTV, which has been granted the exclusive rights for major sporting events including the English Premier League Free to Air and the NBA League.

Investing in satellite Liquid Telecom has demonstrated its commitment to satellite by making major investments to its satellite network.

Last year, for example, it invested US$3.5 million in a second satellite hub at a data centre in South Africa, while more recently Liquid Telecom signed a multi-year agreement with Eutelsat to use multiple transponders on its 7B satellite.

As well providing additional capacity, these investments ensure Liquid Telecom’s satellite services utilise the very latest equipment and technologies, in order to support the rapid growth of its enterprise and broadcast customers.

Satellite services will continue to be a compelling and widely-used solution for many African businesses as they grow across the continent. Liquid Telecom is well positioned in the ground and in the sky to support them on their journey.

For more information about Liquid Telecom visit www.liquidtelecom.com

MAKING BUSINESS-SPEED INTERNET POSSIBLE ANYWHERE IN AFRICA (and we mean anywhere) Liquid Telecom’s award-winning VSAT offers you internet via satellite anywhere in Africa. From banks in remote towns, mines miles from anywhere to luxury Safari lodges in the isolated bush.

Liquid Telecom VSAT makes high-speed internet possible for business in Africa, no matter where that business is.

www.liquidtelecom.com/vsat

O

UP T

S P B 0M D

1

OA L N DOW ED SPE

Building Africa’s digital future

24

MAINFEATURE

BARAKA JEFWA

Start-ups Key to growing Kenya’s M-Commerce space Kenya has been a forerunner of mobile commerce supporting technology in the globe since the invention and launch of M-Pesa in 2007. Since the launch, Kenya’s m-commerce sector has grown significantly. A 2013 TNS Mobile Life survey found that Kenya was leading the world in m-commerce revolution. The survey also found that three quarters 73 per cent of 30 million Kenyan mobile subscribers use their handsets to pay for products and services compared to just 15 per cent worldwide.

The report indicated that the numbers were being driven by a large number of M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Orange Money and yuCash subscribers who use their mobile phones in money transfer and banking services. Kenya’s CA recently released Sector Statistics report showed that the m-commerce industry is still growing, CA’s report for the Financial Year 2015/2016, stated that the number of mobile money transfer subscriptions was recorded at 26.7 million subscriptions.

Kenyan innovators have been able to leverage on mobile money technology to come up with more innovations to improve existing industries in the country. One such industry that has benefited from such innovation is the retail sector. According to the CA’s report, Mobile commerce recorded a total of 138.6 million transactions with 275.8 billion Kenya Shillings used to pay for goods and services.

There are three types of m-commerce models in use today. The first model is illustrated when the bank owns the m-commerce service. The second model is when the service is owned by the telecommunications provider. The third model is when the service is owned by a third party, who then provides interfaces for various mobile providers as well as banks. A good example of third party owners includes e-commerce start-ups. CIOEastAfrica held interviews with some of these start-ups, including; Jovago, Jumia and Kaymu, to understand how they are enabling m-commerce in the region.

The start-ups entered Kenya as e-commerce platforms breaking down the barriers set by traditional brick and mortar businesses, by the fact that businesses built around the electronic commerce model are globally accessible, as long as one has access to the World Wide Web. “This business-without-border ideal is important in promoting regional as well as global interaction therefore contributing to and promoting the ‘global village’ fabric. The consumer community can access

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

BARAKA JEFWA

a convenient service without having to move around,” said Cyrus Onyiego, Country Manager, Jovago, Kenya.

The start-ups have, generally been well received in East Africa. In 2015 Jumia was ranked among the most visited websites in Kenya according to Alexa.com.

“In 2014, we increased sales by 900% and have maintained a double digit growth rate consistently over time. The uptake is high and the demand is massive,” said Robinson Murage, Communications Manager, Jumia, Kenya.

“We’ve observed a double digit growth through the last two years. For instance, within the last two years, we were able to establish operations in 16 countries across the East and Southern Africa; all managed from the Nairobi hub. We’ve also opened country offices in Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa and Maputo,” added Onyiego.

With time and advancements in technology the start-ups started to incorporate m-commerce to their platforms due to a shift in their customers’ preferences. All three startups have mobile Applications: Jovago’s is compatible with Android and IOS. Jumia has an Android App. And Kaymu’s App is available on iPhone, Blackberry and Android.

Onyiego said that apart from the Application, Jovago also uses SMS to inform their customer data base of ongoing promos, discounted rates, as well as information on season offers.

“We have also integrated mobile payment such as Mpesa and Tigo Pesa on our platforms, making it easier for people to move across the region without worrying over cash payment issue,” added Onyiego. “In the last one year, our bookings via mobile devices have gone up from 10% to an average of 64% every month. This again is influenced by more smartphones in the market as well as developments of our Android app,” he continued.

Mobile commerce has generally been well received in the region due to the fact that mobile money services are important in the provision of; secure and cheap financial services, improved speed of operations and convenience.

Mobile Commerce in Kenya is not without its challenges though, as a recent Nielsen Study on Kenyan Retailers and Technology revealed that despite the massive uptake in mobile usage in Kenya, there is still significant scope for growth in the market, particularly in the retail environment.

The research revealed that the Kenyan retail arena remains dominated by direct dealings in terms of both transactions and communication, with 96% of customers still preferring to use cash in-store, and 88% of retailers relying on face-toface interaction to inform customers about new products.

“Currently shoppers on Jumia via mobile phone app accounts for 55% while desktop shoppers stand at 45%.

Payment via mobile money transfer ranks as the second payment method for us after cash on delivery showing a major shift to M-commerce,” added Jumia’s Murage.

“With the kind of business model that we (Kaymu) have most people prefer to shop at the comfort of their desktop.

About Transactions, most people still prefer cash on delivery (COD) only a small percentage pay on Mpesa before hand,” said Jean-Jacques Maikere, MD Kaymu Kenya.

MAINFEATURE

Nielsen’s study revealed that the mobile channel seems hugely under utilised, with mobile money being used by only 12% of customers, and only 3% of retailers using SMS to inform customers about new products, and 1% using WhatsApp. In light of this, Nielsen East Africa MD Jacqueline Nyanjom said; “In a country with 96% mobile penetration, the findings are somewhat surprising - but they do point to enormous potential for growth.”

The study found that the scope for growth in the mobile market extends to retailer engagement with customers and suppliers. A major channel to engage with these stake holders is social media.

“Kaymu has not been left out in this social media bandwagon. We launched Facebook shops aimed specifically at increasing sales for our sellers,” added Kaymu’s Maikere.

“The shop is an automated feature that displays the seller’s Kaymu shop on their Facebook page. The shop allows sellers to share their products on their Facebook feed, access analytic s and tracking on their shops performance and also create and manage Facebook campaigns. Mobile transactions are currently at 30% the biggest percentage approach online shopping sites on desktops,” He continued.

“Social media adoption and use is very high in Kenya.

Customers will first check your social media authenticity before proceeding to do business with you. This they do through their mobile devices. If you are able to come up with social media competitions that factor in the users, they will be able to click on links that redirect to the site and make a purchase directly influencing purchasing decisions,” said Jumia’s Murage.

“The larger fractions of social media users access it through mobile devices as compared to other table top gadgets.

This generally means, ‘that is where the customer is’,” said Onyiego. “Companies should aim to personalize their social media strategy through m-Commerce as well as make it interactive for the user, this will in turn strengthen their ‘human face’ which can at times be a challenge for most online based businesses,” He added.

M-commerce has gained massive traction and will continue to do so in the region as internet and mobile penetration continues on a rise. All three interviewees agreed that it is only a matter of time before m-commerce overtakes e-commerce in the region. Part of the reason for this predicted shift is the entry of affordable smartphones and the rise of easy-to-use, secure and convenient mobile payment systems. The cost of internet has also considerably gone low, due to the entry of different companies all offering high speed and reliable internet.

“Currently, consumers see the same thing on mobile as they do on desktops so the variations are no longer as high as they used to but there is still a great margin,” added Kaymu’s Maikere.

“For Jumia Kenya, it’s (M-commerce) leading the desktop.

Mobile and internet penetration currently stands at 88% and 74% respectively as the numbers continue growing so will M-commerce growth.” Jumia’s Murage concluded.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

25

26

COVER STORY

By Lillian MUTEGI

DR. JAMES WANJAGI: Enabling Finance IT for telecoms at MODE Africa Recently Safaricom posted its Q1 2016 results where M-Pesa growth revenue grew by 24.1 % to KES19.4 billion while M-Pesa agent footprint grew to reach 91,249.

However, even with Kenya posting such positive results around mobile money, Vodacom announced around the same time that they were stopping M-Pesa in services South Africa due to slow adoption.

This doesn’t change the mind of Mobile Decisioning (MODE) Africa Group CIO, Dr. James Wanjagi who believes that the largest disruption in the Telecom industry will still remain to be Mobile Money, “M-Pesa failing in South Africa doesn’t mean that it was a whole fail for mobile money in the industry. M-Pesa as an innovation is doing greatly in other emerging markets, the reasons maybe it did not pick in South Africa, is because Vodacom looked into a market that was already established and was already using other modes of cashless payments. There are places where mobile money will work for instance in countries with large population and people still depend on cash payment.”

A look into what MODE Africa does, MODE is a cutting edge, data driven FinTech mobile phone platform focused on emerging markets. It was founded in 2010. MODE has operations in 31 countries with a customer base of over 250 million.

“MODE’s mission is to provide access to financial services namely micro and nano loans to all the unbanked by turning their SIM cards into credit cards. MODE’s foundation product is Airtime Credit Service (ACS) – a cashless micro loan within 35 live operations carried out in partnership with 10 Telcoms on 3 continents,” he said.

MODE has recently started mobile based cash lending, called Nano. Nano is a multi-channel loan service that allows qualified mobile phone users to request an advance either on their salary or based on their mobile usage when a user needs a quick, convenient, and reliable access to funds on a short notice to bridge a possible gap between the regular pay cheques.

Dr. James Wanjagi, Group CIO Mobile Decisioning (MODE) Africa

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

Other products include Air Rewardz and Remittance. Air Rewardz is a new app based mobile application offered by MODE that allows users to access free airtime as a reward

COVER STORY

Dr. James Wanjagi, Group CIO Mobile Decisioning (MODE) Africa

for downloading and installing third party application on their Smartphone.

MODE’s mission is to provide access to financial services namely micro and nano loans to all the unbanked by turning their SIM cards into credit cards. MODE’s foundation product is Airtime Credit Service (ACS) – a cashless micro loan within 35 live operations carried out in partnership with 10 Telcoms on 3 continents,” he said.

Remittance on the other hand is an app, which allows users send and withdraw money, as well as make payments via mobile phone. It is a much cheaper, convenient and faster way of moving money, comparing to those offered on high street. Funds can be used for a bill payment, balance top up or withdrawing cash from ATM. MODE being IT Company, Mr. Wanjagi’s role is to oversee and implement all the projects within the company. “I also ensure that the infrastructure that we deploy across our markets is maintained from an operational perspective. I also drive the database and business continuity, project management and the network within MODE Africa operations. Being the group CIO too, I also ensure I meet with the other CIOs because any project that is IT related has to come through me for approvals,” he added.

Among the key offerings for MODE Africa to her clients who include telco providers like Airtel, MTN, Orido, Etisalat, are value add services that include Airtime and Credit services and looking into offering cash services. Operationally with key clients MODE Africa has over 150 projects running.

“We are also moving into the Big Data space to help drive data driven services. MODE also has its own Telco now called SEMA Mobile, which is addressing a closed user group as

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

27

28

COVER STORY

“Our focus on big data, content provision and cash remittance in the coming three years simply because we have seen so much competition in the market and it is time to up our game. You see we are in 27 markets and in all the 27 markets we do not own the customer, the customer is owned by the telecoms, through the three platforms we want to shift to a place where we own the customer rather because when we own the clients we are able to use their data.”

Dr. James Wanjagi, Group CIO Mobile Decisioning (MODE) Africa

opposed to the whole full space. We also have a remittance product that we want to provide and we are as well looking at Content provision,” added Dr. Wanjagi.

He added: “Our focus on big data, content provision and cash remittance in the coming three years simply because we have seen so much competition in the market and it is time to up our game. You see we are in 27 markets and in all the 27 markets we do not own the customer, the customer is owned by the telecoms, through the three platforms we want to shift to a place where we own the customer rather because when we own the clients we are able to use their data.”

Data, mobile money to remain king On his perspective of the Mobile telephony sector and its potential in the region, Dr. Wanjagi said that the mobile telephony world was moving away from voice and moving into a space where everything will be data driven and how stakeholders play in the mobile money space.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

“For instance if you look at the Safaricom quarterly earnings there was a drop in their voice but there was an up in their data and mobile money. That’s where the shift is going, in to content provision. How can we provide content to you on demand, because everyone today wants everything on Demand, May it be Video or even normal content. Everyone is refreshing their infrastructure to drive data, major telecoms are now looking into and rolling out 4G to still drive data. So, this is an opportunity provided and the only thing we have to look at is how we can tag monetary value out of this,” he said.

He also added that the consumer was changing and so was the industry, therefore major key players in the industry had to play around this. For instance WhatsApp, Skype offer free calls which are slowly killing voice as core businesses for many telecoms while data still remains king.

COVER STORY Business challenges and role of technology in addressing the challenge Mr. Wanjagi pointed out that as a CIO his biggest challenges were people processes and systems. “When I joined MODE we had to enhance our processes partly because we had lots of written but they were not enforceable. We had to re-engineer our processes looking at where we want to go. I also had to refresh our systems as well because they were running on VMware meaning that we were running on systems run by software, so my decision was it was hard to acquire a server but it was cheaper to acquire a bigger server and partition it into smaller servers using software. So we started rolling out that change and said all markets that had our blade servers we were going to transition them to our VMware Server. “ “On people we had the issue of skills which we have since tried to address this. Another challenge was our database, a lot of the markets we had built databases were for as long as over four years because of the much data we had obtained, we wanted to refresh and increase this data. We also rolled out a project management methodology to drive consistence flow of our projects,” he added.

Another challenge Mr. Wanjagi experienced as a CIO is that most of MODE’s employees were not on the MODE Domain this of course paused a threat on Information Security since as a CIO he couldn’t control what most of the employees did with the company’s data since they were outside the network, “but we have since deployed a single sign on that is in progress right now.

In addition we have rolled out Active Directory ability across the different regions,” said Dr. Wanjagi.

“A big challenge we are trying to grapple with is Business Continuity. We had a disaster recovery but it wasn’t effective and efficient but we have started rolling out disaster recovery systems and business continuity across our markets,” he concluded.

Great innovation in the pipeline Mode is looking into launching SEMA Mobile in partnership with Chase Bank. SEMA Mobile will be an MVNO focused on transforming communities into networks by converging mobile communication with financial services.

“Currently we are riding on Airtel’s infrastructure but in a year’s time, we looking at getting our own infrastructure. After building our own infrastructure we will allow our users to do seamlessly everything on our SIM Card and shift from an MVNO to an MNO. Our targets are the closed user group’s for example Stima SACCO, JoyWO and many others.”

Advice to CIOs moving forward “One challenge we have with CIOs is the fact that CIOs are quite technical but they do not understand their business structures and lack leadership skills. I encourage CIOs to focus more on building teams, building leadership and priorities seeing trends and adding business value. Key aspect for a CIO should be layering the organization on technology to drive revenues. CIOs should as well drive Digital Governance,” he concluded.

“For instance if you look at the Safaricom quarterly earnings there was a drop in their voice but there was an up in their data and mobile money. That’s where the shift is going, in to content provision. How can we provide content to you on demand, because everyone today wants everything on Demand, May it be Video or even normal content.

Everyone is refreshing their infrastructure to drive data, major telecoms are now looking into and rolling out 4G to still drive data. So, this is an opportunity provided and the only thing we have to look at is how we can tag monetary value out of this,” he said.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

29

30

IT & LEADERSHIP Matt Flannery: Changing the world of money lending in developing countries through technology A decade ago, Matt Flannery founder of KIVA.org and now Branch changed the world of lending in developing countries when he co-founded Kiva, a peer-to-peer lending model that allowed consumers to support women and microentrepreneurs in emerging markets with loans in increments as small as $25.

Growing up as a religious person, he wanted to serve the underserved through the church and that’s how Matt ended up travelling around the world in Latin America and Africa. When he went to college he discovered Computer Science and wanted to use technology to help women and entrepreneurs in marginalized areas scale-up.

“After college I got interested in Micro finance and that’s how I moved to East Africa and started off in Uganda, Kenya and later Tanzania.

I set up a website to help young entrepreneurs raise capital for their businesses. I started off in Kenya’s Kakamega region and moved to Uganda.”

This was KIVA, an organization that has since worked across 80 countries since its launch in 2005.

According to Matt, KIVA. Org which is a Swahili word meaning “ Unity” was started in 2005

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

BY LILIAN MUTEGI | IT& LEADERSHIP and was inspired by a 2003 lecture given by Grameen Bank’s Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Prize winner) at Stanford Business School.

The organization was founded by Matt Flannery and Jessica Jackley. Matt travelled to East Africa and soon after, they began working as a consultant for the nonprofit Village Enterprise, which worked to help start small businesses in East Africa. They spent time interviewing entrepreneurs about the problems they faced in starting ventures and found the lack of access to start-up capital was a common theme.

After returning from Africa, they began developing their plan for a microfinance project that would grow into Kiva, In April 2005, Kiva’s first seven loans were funded, totaling $3,500, and the original entrepreneurs were subsequently deemed the “Dream Team.

By September 2005, the entrepreneurs repaid the entirety of their original loans, and the founders realized they had developed a sustainable microcredit concept. After the success of Kiva’s initial stage, Flannery and Jackley founded Kiva as a non-profit.

In 2006, notable entrepreneurs and businessmen joined Kiva’s staff, including Premal Shah from PayPal and Reid Hoffman CEO and founder of LinkedIn. Shortly after its first anniversary in October 2006, Kiva reached $1 million in facilitated loans and acquired its twentieth field partner. To the present day, Kiva has continued to grow and expand its field partners while acquiring support from the media and the public.

KIVA allows people to lend money via the Internet to low-income entrepreneurs and students in over 80 countries. Kiva’s mission is “to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty.

XXXXX

Since 2005, Kiva has crowd-funded more than a million loans, totaling in excess of $800 million, with a repayment rate of between 98 and 99 percent. As of November 2013, Kiva was raising about $1 million every three days. The Kiva platform has attracted a community of well over a million lenders from around the world.

Kiva operates two models Kiva.org and KivaZip.org. The former model

relies on a network of field partners to administer the loans on the ground.

These field partners can be microfinance institutions, social businesses, schools or non-profit organizations. KivaZip. org facilitates loans at 0% directly to entrepreneurs via mobile payments and PayPal. “Kiva itself does not collect any interest on the loans it facilitates and Kiva lenders do not make interest on loans.

Kiva is purely supported by grants, loans, and donations from its users, corporations, and national institutions.

Kiva is headquartered in San Francisco, California,” said Mr. Flannery.

After ten years of running KIVA. Matt, wanted to start something new around mobile technology, and M-PESA and that’s how he started experimenting with lending money to people from San Francisco to Kenya on M-PESA through in 2015.

In 2015, Matt decided to look more broadly at commercial lending space in Sub-Saharan Africa and how data science can be applied to make small business lending smarter and more accurate. He stepped back from an operational role at Kiva and founded Branch.

“It feels just like I’m back in 2005 and I’m coding and programming all day,” he said For his new concept of a “branchless bank,” Flannery is going the startup route with some of Silicon Valley’s best known investors.

Early in 2016, Branch, also raised $9.2 million in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz as well as seed investors Khosla Impact and Joe Lonsdale’s Formation 8 second fund.

The money will help Branch’s team of six in San Francisco and more than 30 in Kenya expand into a second country, Tanzania, then launch in Uganda later this year.

“With rapidly maturing mobile banking networks like M-Pesa, there’s a wealth of data on a potential borrower’s history of transactions and payments that can supplement or replace what conventional commercial banking staff examine. Not only that, you can leverage mobile money networks themselves to send money directly to borrowers.

Then, trust networks and a borrower’s community can also validate their creditworthiness,” he added.

Unlike Kiva, Branch is like a bank in your pocket and has a similar concept as Safricom and CBA’s M-SHWARI. Branch is digital micro-finance institution that could offer a suite of financial services entirely from a phone and make lending decisions in seconds based on machinelearning techniques.

On how the app works, Mr. Flannery explained that a user downloads the Branch mobile app which asks them for access to some of the social and transactional history already stored on their phones thanks to their use of m-pesa and Facebook, among other apps.

Then, the software analyzes details like: how much a user spends on a typical day, whether or not they have loans from other lenders, how much money they have deposited in their accounts, and who their friends and business associates are.

Users who may not look ould request to borrow a very small amount of money, like $5 for starters, and repay it on time, working their way up a within the Branch app.

If they succeed in timely repayment, they can soon become eligible for a larger loan of say $20 within the app.

“This helps the company to avoid virtually redlining particular groups,” he said.

Having worked with start-ups in USA and East Africa, Matt, feels there is so much potential with the African startups, “I have had the priviledge to work with start-ups both in the USA and in Africa and yes there is quite a difference.

For instance, in the USA following the 2009 and financial crisis banks tightened the requirements for money borrowing and so with the absence of this more and more online startups were built to compete for the USAID funding. In Kenya, it becomes quite easy to get lending to scale your start-up,” he concluded.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

31

32

Women & Tech Dr. Azza El Shinnawy, Director, Government Solutions Microsoft4Afrika

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

Being the Second largest continent, Africa with about a fifth of the world’s total land area and the second most populous continent with one-seventh (about 950 million) of the world’s population, Africa was once labeled a technological desert with respect to technology adoption and use.

LILIAN MUTEGI However, in the last decade, African governments have followed the trends towards adopting egovernment with the objective of enhancing free flow of information, citizens’ participation in the public policy processes, promoting productivity among the civil servants, and improving the delivery of public services.

This is witnessed by the initiation of several e-government initiatives across the continent including web sites and portals that promote reasonable access to government information and services by citizens and businesses making Africa one of the most dynamic regions in terms of ICT growth over the last decade.

It is in this context that e-government in Africa has evolved, thanks to initiatives paused by African Women like Dr. Azza El Shinnawy, who is Director, Government Solutions with the Microsoft 4Africa Initiatives, where she is responsible for supporting country-level as well as regional efforts targeting government modernization and applying innovative solutions to support effective, open and inclusive public services in the African continent.

Having been born and raised in Egypt then later on moved to United Kingdom, Dr. Azza is a woman in the IT Industry creating impact through using and promoting African Innovations through the Youth Spark programme under Microsoft4Afrika initiative to help Governments deliver services seamlessly to their citizens..

For Dr. Azza, it is a more an interesting story, unlike most people in the Industry Azza has a totally different background as she holds a background in Economics.

A little background on who Dr. Azza is, Azza joined Microsoft in November 2009. Prior to joining Microsoft, Azza was Ministerial Advisor for Research and Information to Egypt’s Minister of Investment during the hype of the country’s growth spurt, where Egypt was ranked as the top global reformer and top recipient of FDI in the African continent.

Azza also worked with the World Health Organization as a regional expert on trade liberalization in health services, and has been a lecturer at the American University in Cairo, having taught graduate courses towards the attainment of the Master of Public Policy and Administration. She is an expert in the domain of regional industrial and trade policy reform, and is considered one among the few regional experts on the highly dynamic

Women&Tech

pharmaceutical industry.

of Morrocco” she added.

She is a published strategist in the domains of trade, industrial and FDI strategies in emerging markets, the most notable with the Oxford Journals-Health Policy and Planning and Edward Elgar Publishing on FDI Strategies in Emerging Markets. Azza has undertaken numerous consultancy and advisory roles with government bodies, as well as with multilateral organizations such as UNDP, UNIDO, UNCTAD the World Bank and the EU.

It was later on that through Microsoft 4Afrika initiative again, a programme innovate4Gov was evolved, which Dr. Azza still oversees.

So, how did she end up in the IT Industry, “For me it was more of bringing two worlds together. The World of Development policies and what the whole Domain of ICT and Technology can bring,” she said.

“The two worlds’ converged easily, having worked with Governments previously. I worked in the education domain at Microsoft first before I decided to move into the Governements Domain again. When I started working with the Governments, my first move was to look into vulnerable areas and most interesting areas within Governments and converge this with what technology can bring on the forefront,” she added.

She also added, “We looked into areas that could be more interesting to the Governments and would like to see Microsoft play a role and contribution and one area we saw direct relevance and impact for deeper partnership was in the area of investment policy and environment of doing Business and hence Africa open for Business programme was evolved into direct programme to engage with the Government one which is pure investment from Microsoft. We have invested in building solutions areas that tire directly to doing business in any country plus we have invested in a stuck of applications that put Governments in areas of investment.”

After the engagement with a few Governments, Dr. Azza started off the programme with the Egyptian Government where they built an investor app for the Egyptian Government which is divided into sectors and Geographical areas. “The whole idea is digitizing investment opportunity and making ease access of investment opportunities to investors. Through this application the Government of Egypt won an international prize. We plan to use this Application across other countries through customizing into in a way that best suits a country. We are currently engaging other African Governments and we are working with the Kingdom

Launched in 2015, Innovate4Gov is designed to promote innovation in the public sector space. It encourages startups, independent software vendors and developers to create local solutions in direct response to challenges and opportunities for better service delivery identified by governments. The program also works with governments to train civil servants in embracing innovation and information technology.

“In recognition of the critical role played by governments in the economic and social spheres, and in partnership with key stakeholders in public sector and in the Microsoft Partner ecosystem, Innovation 4Gov is the framework program designed to harness the power of Cloud and mobile technologies to transform the delivery of public services to citizens and businesses, as well as intragovernment operations, “said Dr. Azza.

She also added, “As Africa’s urban population grows, and some of the governments undergo devolution, ICT – and particularly cloud computing – is becoming an integral part of service delivery. Innovation should be at the core of how governments manage their programs and service delivery to its citizens. Citizens are now more than ever coming up with their own solutions in a hyperlocal context.

Through Innovate4Gov, we bring together the demand for innovation in the public sector, with the supply of innovation in the private sector.”

In her concluding remarks Dr. Azza said that Governments should look into ways of adopting IT since if ICT is properly designed and implemented, Information, Communication and Technology can improve efficiency, simplify compliance with government regulations, strengthen citizen participation and trust, and save costs.

Governments are hungry for innovation in this space to help identify and fill gap Azza holds a PhD in International Development from the London School of Economics in the UK. She earned an MA in Public Administration from the American University in Cairo, and an MA in Development Economics from the University of East Anglia in the UK.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

33

34

PRODUCT REVIEW

JEAN BEDELL

CAT S30 SMARTPHONE The Cat S30, from Caterpillar, was unveiled at a Sony press event at IFA Berlin on September 2nd, 2015.

The rugged phone plans on making an entry into the Kenyan market together with its brothers and sisters s60 and s40.

Affordable yet exceptionally rugged, the S30 combines Android Lollipop technology with military grade credentials in an easy-grip, durable device.

The CAT S30 is an entry level rugged smartphone, which trancend in being Strong, while also having a great specification for the price.

Cheaper alternatives exist from other brands, but they do not always look or feel like they could take the same number of knocks and falls that more cost effective alternatives may.

Design The 4.5� touchscreen is extreme on the smaller side for many phones in this space but is made to feel bigger by the thick but rounded bezel around the handset.

Below the display is a loudspeaker and below that 3 physical buttons that give feedback and resistance a capacitive button on screen cant.

Designed for 2 nano sized sim cards, these sit in a tray that slides in and out of the device. Due to being recessed into the body it is not easy to remove and you need patience and a delicate touch.

The base of the S30 is home to the microUSB port, naturally under a cover Display.

S30 offers wet finger tracking, meaning you can use the phone when wet and you can use it with gloves on too. Screen size is 4.5� though It lacks sensible punch to the colours and image due to the low 480 x 854 resolution.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

Software As a Dual SIM smartphone the CAT S30 runs on version 5.1 android as the operating system which is relatively up to date.

Connectivity Its a dual sim you can also turn each SIM on and off from the settings to save battery life and manage your connections. Connects to the internet via WiFi and the mobile network with 4G. Common features like bluetooth for peripheral connection, gps and a microSD card slot are also accommodate.

Camera The S30 has a rear 5 megapixel camera and a 2 megapixel on the front. The flash accompanies the rear camera to helps out in low light situations.

You can change the flash mode, storage location, picture size and quality generally the Images are perfectly usable and functional .

Power A 3000mAh battery is fixed internally to the S30, it cannot be removed by the user. The battery saver mode can help save battery life but you have to either switch it on or off.

Price 349.93 US Dollar

Conclusion If you work in an office all day long and do not partake in any adventurous outdoor activities then the S30 will not be ideally suited to you. But If you work in an office and visit sites, spend a lot of time in the outdoors or in wet, cold or dusty environments and find your current phone takes a few tumbles then the S30 is calling out to be used by you.

Startups Corner

Baraka Jefwa

Shupavu 291: The Mobile Phone Teaching Assistant A teaching assistant is an individual who assists a teacher with instructional responsibilities. Teaching assistants come in handy when a teacher is not available. During such times an assistant may assume the reigns and cover for the teacher.

In 2014 the Kenyan government released the Basic Education Statistical Booklet; the 2014 booklet informed that the Pupil Teacher Ratio at public schools level stood at an acceptable range. According to the study there was an existence of regional disparities in distribution of teachers.

According to recent reports by local dailies, Kenya’s Education Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang’I, blamed the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for poor distribution of teachers in public schools, which he pointed to as the main reason why Kenya seems to be having shortage of teachers.

“We have enough teachers. The problem lies with deployment and posting of teachers,” said Matiang’I during the launch of National Education Sector at Kenya Institute of curriculum Development (KICD).

This perceived shortage of teachers has led to outcries, by teachers’ unions, for the recruitment of 80,000 more teachers.

While the government deals with this issue in its own way, innovative minds from Eneza Education have joined hands with Safaricom to launch a mobile study tool dubbed Shupavu 291, a digital “teacher’s helper”.

“Shupavu 291 is a mobile learning platform that is accessible on a basic mobile phone and allows learners across the country to access the Kenya National Curriculum aligned lessons through SMS,” said Kago Kagichiri, CTO and Co-founder, Eneza Education, during an interview with CIO East Africa. “This service is not just for the students alone, teachers and parents too are be able to check reports on individual student performance as well as school performance via an SMS,” he added.

Shupavu 291 targets both primary and secondary school students. The tool is accessible to students from class four to form four. It also caters for school drop outs up to the age of 25. With only sh10 per week, students can access unlimited content, quizzes. There is also the Ask a Teacher Service where a student gets to engage in a one on one question and answer session with a live teacher and Wikipedia.

“The partnership with Safaricom has allowed us to innovate in a lot of ways,” Mr. Kagichiri said. “At the time we were coming to Safaricom, we didn’t have a lot of content scope, SMSs were being charged at the normal rate of KSH 1 per SMS, but through the partnership with Safaricom we were able to do a lot of research to find out how people in lower income brackets topup their phones and we noticed that it would be beneficial to have a subscription service,” he added.

The service can be accessible from any phone including a “Mulika Mwizi” (feature phones) or any other basic phone. This makes it easier for students from all backgrounds to access the service wherever they are. The service is however only available on the Safaricom network. To access the service, pupils need only to dial *291# and follow the instructions.

Shupavu 291 has reached 600,000 mobile learners with the number of active users currently at 40,000 students. The tool has 17,000 teachers enrolled on the platform to assist the learners. Eneza Education is hoping to reach at least 10 million learners in primary school and secondary school across Africa with the service. In trying to reach this number the Eneza team has already started expanding to other countries..

We have also expanded to Ghana and Tanzania so we are offering the same services to these other countries.” Kagichiri concluded.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

35

36

OPINION

SWAPNIL BHARTIYA

Red Hat just proved you can make billions of dollars with open source Red Hat has become the icon for other companies to follow: they established that you can make money from open source. And they do it the old fashioned way, selling subscription and support.

What makes Red Hat an important case is that while they retain their business model they are an extremely dynamic company that continues to transform itself.

Red Hat made the right bet at the right time by announcing its transformation from a client-server company to cloudmobile company. It invested in technology, either acquiring or developing open source components like OpenShift, Ansible, Jboss, OpenStack, Gluster, etc and it’s paying off. It shows in their financial results.

Red Hat yesterday reported that it generated $2.05 billion in revenue in 2015. Yes, that’s billion with a “b,” purely from open source software. Red Hat earned over $544 million in the fourth quarter alone, which is up 17% year-on-year.

Jim Whitehurst, President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Hat said that those record earnings were driven by “enterprises increasingly adopting hybrid cloud infrastructures and open source technologies,” adding that “the fourth quarter marked our 56th consecutive quarter of revenue growth, contributing to ReHat’s first fiscal year crossing $2 billion in total revenue.”

The company generated $391 million of subscription revenue from infrastructure-related offerings for the quarter, an increase of 15% in year-over-year.

Subscription revenue from application development and other emerging technologies offerings for the quarter was $89 million, an increase of 38% in year-over-year.

If we look at the entire year, subscription revenue from infrastructure offerings got the lion’s share. It was $1.48 billion, an increase of 12% year-over-year. Full fiscal year subscription revenue from application development and other emerging technologies offerings was $323 million, an increase of 37% year-over-year.

The company is expecting revenues of $2.380 billion to $2.420 billion in fiscal year 2016. And as more and more companies are turning toward software-defined everything and open source that should not be a hard target to hit.

This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network.

The Author - Swapnil Bhartiya is a journalist and writer who has been covering Linux & Open Source for 10 years.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

“enterprises increasingly adopting hybrid cloud infrastructures and open source technologies,” adding that “the fourth quarter marked our 56th consecutive quarter of revenue growth, contributing to Red Hat’s first fiscal year crossing $2 billion in total revenue.”

OPINION

SAM MWANGI

37

Open Source Software, Success or Failure?

The most popular Open Source product is Google’s Android OS for mobile devices which is eating into the market share of incumbents like iPhone’s iOS and Nokia’s Windows OS. According to Kantar’s latest report, a British research firm, this is the first time since August 2014 when the market share of iOS hasn’t grown in urban China. Compared to February 2015, iOS’ market share has declined 3.2 percentage points, sitting at 22.2% in February 2016. Meanwhile, Android devices have sold like hot cakes during the Chinese New Year, and their market share has grown by pretty much the same amount that iOS has lost between February 2015 and February this year - 3.4 percentage points that now place it at 76.4% market share in the Chinese market. Android also had varying degrees of success in the top five European markets, with the OS managing to sit at 90% in Spain, while not making it to 56% in the U.K. As we look at year-over-year performance for iOS and Android, we can’t help but notice that Windows phones are not doing very well, and although we do know from Gartner that sales of Windows handsets have been more than disappointing for 2015, that trend has yet to show signs that it can reverse.

The growth of Open Source Software has notably been on the server space and mobile but less on desktops. Open source has continued to be attractive with software giants like Google and other popular websites like Facebook and Twitter are all powered

by Linux. There are examples of open source operating systems on desktops such as in City of Munich local governing body.

The switch from proprietary software to open source has saved the city more than €10. By 2012, €6.8 million had been saved on Microsoft licensing alone. This is despite the always raging debate on whether Linux is much more secure than Windows or iOS. Open source evangelists have continuously maintained their position in the invulnerability of open source operating systems.

Is it secure to use a source code developed and shared publicly by a community of software programmers from all over the world? The source code is made available with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.

The main driver of open source growth is avoidance of vendor lock-in, which means saving on license cost and continual hardware and software upgrade expenses. Companies that offer open source software are able to establish an industry standard and, thus, gain competitive advantage by customizing based on the market requirements. Using open source software yields a lower total cost of ownership when compared to closed source and proprietary alternatives. Adopting open source software generally has a lower initial cost, and shifts the costs from to customization and implementation. Interestingly, Open Source Software tends to deliver higher quality products, as many more developers analyse and evaluate the source code in comparison to proprietary environments where a smaller number of developers debug a closed source code. There has been criticism of proprietary software where bugs and vulnerabilities affect the bottom line, and thus there’s a disincentive to make their details widely publicized.

There are situations where use of open source software is discouraged. The general perception is that open source is not user friendly. When working with unskilled staff, it may be advisable to stick to the more user friendly proprietary software.

Most users learn their basics in computing using the Windows Operating System and Microsoft applications such as MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and so on. This presents a challenge to migrate the users to new applications such as Open Office.

There are scenarios when the vendor provides better support due to their physical presence of better skill in a specific industry.

Some vendors develop specific software to control and manage medical equipment for example; it would be risky to use open source software to accomplish the same. When you are looking for Software as a Service, proprietary software provides a better option due to its requirements for security and support. In case a company wants to build a platform for a product for resell, warranties and liability indemnities are important; these are offered by proprietary software vendors.

Sources http://www.cnet.com/ https://insights.ubuntu.com https://opensource.com/life/15/12/why-open-source http://www.wikipedia.org/ http://www.cio.com/

The growth of Open Source Software has notably been on the server space and mobile but less on desktops. Open source has continued to be attractive with software giants like Google and other popular websites like Facebook and Twitter are all powered by Linux.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

PETER MUYA

38

OPINION

Managing Business Process Inventory There is a brand of soft drink that I like and few retail stores stock it. One hot sunny afternoon I was psychologically prepared to quench my thirst by getting my favorite drink. As I walked to one store that stocked it, I was delighted to find it in stock. I asked the attendant to get one half litre for me. To my dismay, he said the keys to open the fridge were unvailable. The key keeper had stepped out for an errand. The product was available but inaccessible. I walked away thoroughly disappointed. incapable of executing the process of picking and releasing the item for me. That part of the process was impaired by the carrier of the key to unlock the fridge.

This is a simplistic look at poorly managed inventory of business processes. Enterprises big or small fall prey to this malady which ultimaltely frustrates the customer journey. Just as it is important to manage physical inventory so that it is available when needed, so it is with logical inventory in the form of a business process.

While customers don’t actually pick a business process and pay for it, whatever service or product they shop for has business processes tied to it and part of the sale price includes the cost of servicing the order.

Investopedia defines inventory management as, “overseeing and controlling the ordering, storage and use of components used in production of items sold well as the overseeing and controlling of quantities of finished products for sale”. Inventory is an asset item in the balance sheet. In an earlier post, I had shared my thoughts about how business process are assets.

Business processes are somewhat like inventory. They remain held in “store” until an order for them is raised. Take the example of a customer who calls or makes online inquiry about a loan product in a bank. Before the customer inquiry, the process for that loan product remains in “store”. The mere fact that the customer presses some buttons to access the right service is akin to entering the store and picking the business rules associated with the product or service of interest.

Broken processes are similar to damaged goods or goods out of stock. Going back to my situation at the retail store, when I pieced together the sales process of soft drink, I discovered one critical part was out of synch. The ability for me as a customer to activate the process was available. I could access the retail store because it was open. I could access and even see for myself the item of interest on display. I had access to an attendant who would help me complete my customer journey. However, this attendant was

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

It is important to regularly perform stock take of business processes and interrogate their relevance in the face of a dynamic business environment. Few if any enterprises do this. Most of them do it when procuring or implementing an IT system. That stock take often exposes some process ripe for “write off” but the mandate of the team performing the stock take then is limited and mostly doesn’t include any radical decisions to change how things are done. The result is, a realization of the need to write off some inventory or declare obsolence but for purposes of managing stakeholders, workarounds are developed to incorporate “dead stock” of a process into a change initiative. The result is more structural complexity which requires more maintenance.

The key to note is that processes are not in isolation. Processes determine people’s importance in the enterprise. They are tied to culture. Therefore while decision to write off physical stock may be much faster, it is not so fast with processes. Write off implies diminishing the importance of those who created these processes or are in charge of them. Diminishing their importance in the enterprise without any compensating alternative can be met with resistance. It is not uncommon to find some of these processes being kept under lock and key by the respective owners, just like my experience at the retail store.

Transforming the way process inventory is managed is critical in making an enterprise to be agile in an environment that is in constant state of flux.

JESSE KISENYA

OPINION

Promising future in telecoms sector, but stakes higher The telecommunications industry in Kenya has been on a very progressive journey and it has covered a great distance in a very short period of time. According to the latest regulatory data, Kenya’s mobile phone subscription now stands at 37 million, translating into a mobile penetration level of over 87 percent.

This growth is driven by the players’ need to continue growing their market shares, thereby promoting products geared towards luring and retaining subscribers to their networks. Players are investing heavily in technological innovation, and the development of technology and innovation. Each operator looks to capture shares from the other through aggressive promotions and new value-added propositions that are driving the consumer spending behaviour.

As a consequence of the enormous growth of this industry, there are a number of factors that might undermine its further development as the stakeholders in the industry fight in an uncertain regulatory context to get the biggest possible share of the pie. The sector’s regulator, the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA), finds itself legislatively limited from ruling on issues such as market structure that continue to affect the sector.

While competition between players is intense, many argue that there is still room for additional market players and clear market structure to support the sector’s growth. Supporters of this position highlight the fact that the market should be able to sufficiently support multiple operators. But is this really the case? Why are some operators exiting the market? Kenya lacks clear-cut laws prohibiting anti-competitive behaviours, and the sector regulator, by its own admission, lacks the legislative powers to intervene on certain matters without parliament passing into law some of the globally known best practice remedial regulations.

The ICT sector is one which falls under what is known as network industries which exhibit high entry barriers such as high licensing and initial spectrum costs, capital intensive infrastructure and therefore given that it has taken over a decade to develop the appropriate infrastructure, distribution channels and brand development for existing players to reach the current population coverage of over 80 percent, one would imagine how difficult it would be for a new market entrant to create any competition.

Under the new legal regime, the CA will have to consult the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK)- which by the way doesn’t understand how this specific sector operates – before making a declaration of dominance and when assessing critical industry factors such as Significant Market Power before making a declaration of dominance.

Transferring the power to regulate competition in the ICT sector from Communications Authority, whose responsibility is to manage competition ex-ante, to the Competition Authority, which is established to manage the competition for the entire economy expost, will undermine the CA’s ability to assert itself as the ICT sector regulator. This inhibits its ability to intervene on matters that could promote competition as well as creating conducive environment for all the players to feel confident enough to continue investing heavily in the sector.

It should be clear that the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) role should be licensing and regulating all systems and services in the telecommunications industry, managing competition, regulating tariffs for communications services, and monitoring the activities of licensees to enforce compliance with the license terms and conditions. The CA is also expected to ensure that customers have the right of choice to accessible, quality and affordable telecommunications services.

The ever increasing demand for mobile communications casts a promising future, but also raises the stakes for all major players involved. Interesting times most certainly lie ahead for Kenya’s telecommunications sector.

It is crucial for the government and all the stakeholders within this industry to adopt policies that support more investment in order to sustain the growth momentum.

(Kisenya is a communications practitioner with interest in the telecommunications sector)

It would be good to note that the Telecommunications sector regulator (CA) lost powers to independently monitor serious issues facing the sector such as dominance and act against its abuse – leaving it with a narrow mandate. If you may remember, early this year, Parliament stripped the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) of the mandate through the controversial Statute Miscellaneous Amendments Bill, 2015 that President Uhuru Kenyatta signed into law in December last year.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

39

40

OPINION

By Moses KEMIBARO

What Defines A World-Class Corporate Website In 2016?

In a world hooked on social media, its easy to imagine that the corporate website has lost its relevance where businesses are concerned. Nothing could be further from the truth. Increasingly, the corporate website has become a key channel for brand building, sales generation, customer service and operational streamlining. Therefore, from this perspective, what constitutes a world-class corporate website in 2016? Here are the 5 attributes that matter the most: Mobile Responsive

Contextual Content

Today, more than ever, a corporate website has to be designed to be mobile responsive. What this means is that it can be seamlessly rendered on desktop computers, mobile devices as well as tablets. Its also known as having one website for every screen.

The need for a mobile responsive website has never been greater since April 2015 when Google launched its mobile-friendly search results whereby websites that not conform to this approach are penalized in search results if they fail to conform to the standard.

Its also generally good practice that any modern corporate website is mobile responsive as the majority of consumers globally use mobile devices as their primary Internet device which ensures a great end-user experience.

It is often said that content is king when it comes to the Internet.

This has never been truer when it comes to corporate websites.

Indeed, website visitors could quite happily visit a poorly designed corporate website just because the content is of incredible value to them. Therefore, any decent corporate website MUST have content that is contextually relevant for its intended audience.

This content should also be updated on a regular basis as Google uses quality content and the frequency it being updated as a major signal for SERPs. The easiest way of ensuring content changes regularly is having a corporate blog as part of the corporate website which would serve up fresh and high quality content on a regular basis that is specifically designed to appeal to the target audience of the website, as well as Google’s algorithm(s).

Conversion Optimization A corporate website should be designed to drive specific actions where end-users are concerned. This can be anything from generating sales leads via online forms, social media shares or enewsletter sign-ups. All of these actions can be classified as forms of conversions which are normally triggered though what are called ‘calls-to-action’ or CTAs. In order for a corporate website to be conversion optimized it must be designed from the bottom-up to achieve the designed actions that will lead to conversions that will make it add value to the business. Conversion optimization can involve website design, copy & structural and/or back-end improvements based on a data-driven approach.

Social Signals Social media is increasingly the entry point for content discovery and consumption where users are concerned. This means that having a social media integrated corporate website is essential so that visitors can easily share it on their social media profiles.

This is important since Google uses these ‘social signals’ as a key criterion in determining where websites are ranked in search engine results pages or SERPs for short. One of the ways that this is achieved is by having social media sharing buttons installed throughout a corporate website so that its super easy for visitors to share pages of interest on their social media profiles

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

User Experience In addition to having great content, the user experience of a corporate website has to be such that its not only visually compelling, but is also intuitive to use. User experience or UX is a term that is regularly used these days when defining not only how a digital product or service looks but also how it works. UX is essentially the intersection of design, technology and business all converging to deliver a digital offering that resonates with the end-user and meets business objectives as well. Therefore, it is essential that a corporate website incorporates UX practices so that it meets the needs of the intended target audience through various approaches and methodologies. Put simply, UX ensures that a corporate website ‘works’.

Byeline Moses Kemibaro is a leading digital services professional in Kenya and the rest of Africa having served in senior roles at Dotsavvy, InMobi, Naspers and the Perform Group for over fifteen (15) years on a Pan-African basis. He is also an award-winning TechBlogger at MosesKemibaro.com where he rants and raves about all things digital in Kenya and Africa. You can reach him at moses@ moseskemibaro.com.

By James MURITU

OPINION

The pitfalls of mobile commerce uptake The demand for design and development of mobile commerce solutions is on the rise across the globe and won’t slow down anytime soon. As of 2015, research indicates that there were 1.6 million apps available for download in Google Play and 1.5 million on Apple App Store. The demand is especially high in Africa and Asia where mobile penetration is astoundingly high. It’s a daily routine across the world, with excited marketers and individuals waking up with an app dream and a mission to change the world. After weeks and weeks of development and burning resources, it soon dawns on the app owners that it was just an idea afterall with zero uptake.

East Africa is even a more interesting market place where, with the success of M-PESA, an inset belief set in that ascribes to the school of thought that any M- christened mobile commerce initiative should be an instant hit. To that effect, logic almost states that East Africa has the highest concentration of M- christened mobile commerce solutions from m-duka to m-soko to m-insure to mbank. Unfortunately it’s not been a smooth sailing at all and what we’ve witnessed is thousands and thousands of apps on various Stores with little or no downloads whatsoever. Without watering down on the success of the various mobile commerce initiatives in the industry, it’s worthwhile taking stock to understand why most mobile commerce initiatives have failed, especially on the mobile apps space. The first failing point of a mobile commerce strategy is to invest money and resources in developing a mobile platform without proven research that a need exists. As with any customer facing initiative, there needs to exist supporting research and customer demand that will warrant venturing into this space. An idea is not good enough and needs to be validated, quantified and qualified.

The second failing point is a mobile commerce strategy with no supportive marketing and awareness initiatives; the same strategies of promoting e-commerce portals apply to mobile commerce solutions. Users need to be sensitized and made aware that the solution exists and can be downloaded or accessed via a short code. It therefore follows that laying down a robust and thorough marketing strategy is of essence. It’s also worthwhile to note that most mobile commerce initiatives fail due to a lack of incorporating user experience aspects. When you consider that the attention span of a user using a mobile solution is less than ten seconds, compared to one accessing a website, then you appreciate the value of taking into account user experience. The latter takes into account all aspects of an end users interaction with the mobile solution and how easy it is to navigate and transact. If an end user is faced with multiple clicks and complex navigational journeys, it won’t take long before he proceeds to uninstall the app or unsubscribe if it’s a USSD based platform. A good user experience maximizes the chances of a user sticking longer to navigate and discover what the platform does and finally even transact. Lastly a mobile commerce strategy that doesn’t take into account a holistic encompassing approach is bound to fail; the bottom line is that a mobile strategy can’t work in silo and needs to integrate with other

players in the ecosystem. This encapsulates such components like e-commerce and back end systems. It therefore follows that a good user experience and the look and feel within the e-commerce space should replicate on the mobile. To further enhance this integration, the ecosystem needs to connect to a common back end platform rather than have multiple domains. The end result is a myriad of customer facing touch points supported on mobile and web and achieving the same desired objectives of reaching the market place.

Without watering down on the success of the various mobile commerce initiatives in the industry, it’s worthwhile taking stock to understand why most mobile commerce initiatives have failed, especially on the mobile apps space. The first failing point of a mobile commerce strategy is to invest money and resources in developing a mobile platform without proven research that a need exists. As with any customer facing initiative, there needs to exist supporting research and customer demand that will warrant venturing into this space. An idea is not good enough and needs to be validated, quantified and qualified.

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

41

42

HardTALK

Bobby YAWE

Encompassing the enterprise There is a serious need for those in the technology space to realise that our responsibility moved beyond the data centre ages ago, we are now responsible for the entire enterprise.

For a long time, for those “wazee” like myself, we transitioned from data processing departments to information technology after taking over the PBX and copiers you added communication to the list of our responsibilities.

We have over time taken over even more responsibilities but we are yet to have them officially handed over thus allowing a grey area to exist in the organisation.

When you walk into the premises of a leading technology enabled organisation and find sentries left to their own antiques on how to handle the check in process one gets most agitated when you know how aimlessness of most of this activities.

Recently I walked into one of those major organisations carrying an empty laptop bag which was scanned in some complex looking machine manned by a person who was busy talking on the phone as the bag passed through to the other side.

After being scanned for dust, keys and coins I picked up the empty bag and proceed to my destination within the building where I picked up a Kes. 180,000/- worth laptop placed it in my bag and left.

Before you start screaming “muivi” (pan intended), it was officially handed over to me and the owner is well aware of the laptop current location.

I then proceeded down to the lobby and walked out the building without anyone caring about what I was carrying. It seems we have become so scared about what someone might bring into a building that little to no attention is given to what is leaving the building.

Fortunately this was a sanctioned departure of a device but number of organisations have not been so lucky when thieves have come into their offices and made off with laptops and other technological gadgets.

When this happened to a former client of ours, they become former before the incident, management was not too concerned as they were sure that the person who opened the door using his biometric

CIO EAST AFRICA | JUNE 2016

signature aka thump print would be easily identified.

In addition, the organisation had CCTV cameras installed within the office and the building management also had cameras throughout the entire building as per the marketing material that was presented to them before they took up the premises.

The shocking reality was that the security system had an override using a key whose receptacle was on the outside of the door and the keys had been issued together with the ones for the toilet to all personnel including those of the cleaning company.

So that was a dead end, but at least there was the CCTV system within the office, when the relevant personnel where tracked down from administration, they went looking for the DVR long story short it was set to record only during the day so as to save on disk space.

All was not lost, dash to the building management office to look for their copy of the surveillance tapes, only to get there and be told that they only record the main lobbies on the various floors, the thieves came up through the staircase.

All this could have been avoided if the technology experts in the building had taken responsibility for this opt ignored technology application.

I then proceeded down to the lobby and walked out the building without anyone caring about what I was carrying. It seems we have become so scared about what someone might bring into a building that little to no attention is given to what is leaving the building.

For HIRE or SALE call 0722 702 187

Capacities & Resource Development Center ICT programmes and courses offered Telecoms Technology • Telecoms Mini MBA • The Real Telecoms MBA • VSAT for Telecoms Managers • Satellite Communications A to Z • Intensive VSAT Field Engineering • Intensive WIFI Systems Engineering • Certified Fiber Optic Design Specialist • Certified Fiber Optics Technician (CFOT ) Information Management • Social Media Marketing • Knowledge Management • Supply Chain Management • Enterprise Resource Planning • Electronic Records Management • Financial Information Management IT Services Management • COBITv4 • ISO/IEC 20000 & 27001 • ITIL v3 Foundation • ITIL v3 Intermediate • ITIL v3 Expert program • Cloud Computing & Virtualization • PRINCE2 Foundation & Practitioner • TIPA® ( Tudor IT Process Assessment) IT Management • Linux Administration • GIS for Disaster Management • IT Networks & Security Systems Management • Computer Forensics & Investigation • IT & Telecoms Project Management • Ethical Hacking & Penetration Testing

Partners & Accreditations

AeRC is registered and recognized by the National Industrial Training Authority (NITA)

Advanced Networking • IP Network Planning • IP Convergence & IMS • IP to EDGE & UMTS/HSPA • LTE & Advanced Communications • IP Convergence for Sales & Marketing • Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) • Exploring SIP, VoIP & IP Convergence • GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSPA+ Technologies • Mobile WiMAX Access Network Signaling • Exploring Mobile Devices & App Platforms • GSM Core Network Planning & Optimization • GSM Radio Network Planning Optimization • Quality Assurance & Installation Techniques • Exploring Wireless Technologies & Networks • Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) • Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)

Vendor Based Training • Oracle • VMware v6.1 • Microsoft • Cisco

Contact Us eDevelopment House, Old Muthaiga, 604 Limuru Road P.O. Box 49475-00100 Nairobi, Kenya www.africanedevelopment.org

AeRC is a registered FOA school number 716