Nokia's Ovi Store offers the world's most popular Football apps and games to Kenyan football Fans

By Dan Muhuni

How are you connected to this year’s football World Cup? Are you waiting for the news in the press, glued to your TV, or is your mobile playing a big part in feeding your addiction?

Football fans in Kenya can enjoy the World Cup no matter where they are through Nokia’s Ovi Store football offering. Instant access to news, apps, games and a growing selection of personalized content from some of the world’s greatest teams are just but a few of what Ovi store has to offer.

Nokia’s Communications Manager for East and Southern Africa, Ms. Dorothy Ooko said: “Nokia’s Ovi Store is an exciting new channel through which to connect and share our football content with millions of football fans around the world. Football lovers can leverage on Nokia’s Ovi Store’s unparallel global reach for the most refreshing and popular football content.”

As part of Ovi’s football offering, football fans can access entertainment, apps and information from the world’s most recognized content providers. From competitions and tournament updates to personalizing your device, football is a lot more fun when you are part of the action. Some of the key content and features to get you involved include:

Real Football 2010 is a Gameloft development that will help you get in the mood for midfield strategies and rekindle your passion for goals. In the game, you get 245 teams from eight different leagues to choose from. On touch devices, the user interface allows you to move the players and pass the ball by tapping on the field. There are several different game modes, such as training, league mode, friendly match and penalty shooting. And you also can select “Legend” mode to choose a player and helping him get to pro stardom.
Nokia Goal, a Java-based resource that brings all the football info you need to the palm of your hand. Nokia Goal presents info from European tournaments (Spain, France, Italy, UK and Germany) and Latin American soccer leagues. The free version offers you championship calendars, info about results and relevant news for all fans. A premium version adds “live” coverage of selected matches, allowing you to personalize goal-based beep-alerts to make you jump with happiness or hang your head in sorrow depending on how much you bet on your favorite team.
AP 2010 World Cup, Associated Press (one of the largest sources of news since 1846 and winner of 49 Pulitzer prizes) has developed AP 2010 World Cup, as a resource for information on the South African World Cup events. This Flash app offers the latest news, images and video feeds directly on your mobile. Also, for must-have info, there are profiles of teams, players and stadiums. And if you feel in need of a conversation starter, you can use the results of the online polls on different World Cup-related topics.

Great goals
Great Goals will whet your appetite for what's to come with a series of free audio and video downloads dedicated to great goals scored by great players.

Football updates and news
No matter where you are in the world, you can't catch every game of the tournament but you can still get live updates. 2010’s football news and update applications are available from the largest football websites in the world. Livemobile Football, ESPN Soccernet, and Goal.com are all available as free applications to keep you up to date with breaking news from around the world, previews and recaps of games for all major leagues in the world and more. 

Games
Experience the latest in mobile football gaming and battle to win the cup for your country. Games available include Gameloft's Real Football 2010 and Real Football Manager 2010, and beat the rest in the next generation of sports radar built for speed shooting, Speedhero Multisport, and the latest football games from EA SPORTS.

Touchnote
A picture is worth a thousand words, but reminding everyone your country beat their country with a postcard is priceless. This app takes digital pictures and makes them into physical postcards in a matter of clicks.

Social networking
Whether heading to South Africa or just down the street to your local bar, stay in touch with your friends and family to let them know where you are watching the game. Share your football experience with fans back home, comment on games, post media, and find out where the nearby parties are.  Social networks like Nimbuzz and Buddycloud make sharing easy from your Nokia device.

danielmuhuni@yahoo.com

Equity Bank revolutionizing the banking industry in North Eastern

By Dan Muhuni (ICT reporter/ EA Correspondent)

As the banking fraternity continues to make forays into the retail segment, an increasing number of banks have seen the importance of taking financial services to the marginalized communities particularly in the North Eastern province.

In North Eastern, Equity bank has defied all odds to transform the banking industry in the region by offering customer focused financial services that have led to great social and economic change among the communities there.

Equity bank Wajir branch, located over 750 KM from Nairobi is one such outlet that is changing the lives of the northern people through provision of relevant alternate banking solutions.

Speaking to the branch Manager Mr Chrispo Maina, he says the establishment of Equity bank in the region was a dream come true to many since majority of the population was sidelined from banking due to logistical challenges that scare off many investors.

Nearly one and a half years since the branch opened, Equity currently holds more than three quarters of the banked population in the region. The branch uses various methods to access the remote areas within the vast district such as four wheel drive mobile vans that are fitted with solar, laptops and satellite connection to enable staff serve the customers. Some of the areas are as far as 100 km from the branch at Wajir town.

“We started by training the locals on the importance of banking and the need to embrace banking,” says Maina.

The manager says involvement of the bank in community projects to a great extent helped demystify banking. Locals found it easier to come to the bank since they had already met the bank’s staff in various events and interacted with them.

Among the activities initiated by the Wajir branch is tree planting where local people were encouraged to plant and nurture trees. Maina says partnering with institutions of learning has also helped raise the profile of the bank in the region. ”Students would nurture a tree for a given period of time. The programme has so far been very successful”, he adds.

Maina says that the clients have appreciated the provision of banking services and it is helping to build savings as people shift people from banking under their pillows and mattresses to saving money in the bank. The clients appreciate the risks associated with keeping the money in the house such as fires and theft or destruction by vermin. On equal strength, the bank’s staff had to enumerate the advantages of keeping money at Equity Bank such as access to credit facilities, securing of customers’ savings through the deposit protection fund, large bank network among other things.

Some of the locals would keep their money with specific trusted people within the community but often got disappointed on realizing that sometimes they could not access their money when they wanted it back. Equity's coming has addressed some of the challenges especiallly convinience , security and easy access to their money.

M-Kesho

On the recently launched M-Kesho product that is a first between Equity Bank and mobile phone service provider Safaricom,  Maina says the banking environment is about differentiating banking products, increased choices, security and accessibility. M-Kesho, he says has become a choice for many in Wajir.

Says Maina: “The ability of a financial Institution to deliver products and services in the most efficient and effective manner is the key to its performance and relevance”.

Maina notes that with the launch of M-Kesho recently, Equity has witnessed an increase in the number of people signing up for it.   “People are happy since they feel the bank has moved more steps closer to them.

”Most villages in north eastern are far apart and people at times have to  travel  as long as 200km to come to the bank. This costs them a lot of money and time.  They therefore find M-Kesho very convenient for them”, he explains.

Among the areas expected to play a crucial role in the growth of the product in the area is Habaswein, Gifti, Eldas, Bute and Elwak.

Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP)

Equity bank Wajir has also seen the success of Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP), a social funds transfer system that is borne out of the partnership of the Bank, the government of Kenya and UK through DFID.  Here, Smart Cards are used to issue cash to hunger stricken and vulnerable families in North Eastern who are identified through biometric means with cash to buy food. The Programme implements cash transfers targeting over 60,000 vulnerable people in the four larger districts of Marsabit, Turkana, Wajir and Mandera.

According to Maina, the programme has so far surpassed its expectations having incorporated more people than initially projected. “We execute this programme with the local traders who form HSNP’s agents. Through our point of sale (POS) the traders disburse the money to the locals and our systems are automatically updated”.

The HSNP programmes currently operate in Wajir, Mandera, Lodwar and Marsabit.

Equity’s role in the programme includes the administration component of collecting all the BIO data making payments, carrying out monitoring and evaluation.  .

Chrispo Maina is happy to head a team that lives the Equity Bank vision of been the champion of the social- economic prosperity of the people of North Eastern.

Nokia Improves Developer opportunities

Availability of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 and improving developer opportunities
By Dan Muhuni

Nokia has made a number of developer announcements today, which significantly strengthen their developer services and offerings. Perhaps most interesting is news of a public beta service that allows developers to get their content Symbian Signed at no cost . Also important is the news that individuals can now register as Ovi Publishers and that the Ovi Store is now accepting Qt-based applications. The most significant in the long term, is the first full release of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 and the accompanying Nokia Smart Installer (previously in beta).
Following the new Forum Nokia developer mantra of “Design, Develop and Distribute”, several developer-related announcements are being consolidated into one main message to show developers the improvements that have been made to the overall ecosystem.

Key points

Developers can get Symbian C++ and Symbian Qt content signed at no cost. With free tools and free signing, the only up-front cost for developers distributing via the Ovi Store is a one off 50 Euros fee to register as an Ovi Publisher.

Individuals can become Ovi Store Publishers which widens the number of developers who can upload applications and content to Ovi Store.

 

Nokia Qt SDK released. Nokia's next generation, cross platform (Symbian and Maemo), Qt-based developer tool kit, which is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It provides developers with a modern, robust and easy to use development environment for all of Nokia's existing and future smartphones and mobile computers (Symbian and MeeGo).

 
Availability of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0
The Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 is available starting today (http://www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Qt/), and it offers a true cross-platform development environment allowing developers to create applications for both Symbian and Maemo devices. Installation is easy, as it only requires one installation package that downloads all of the Qt and Symbian/Maemo components that developers need using the same Qt Creator 2.0 as standard Qt SDK’s for use on Windows, Linux and Mac (beta). The Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 includes the Qt 4.6 libraries plus additional API’s for mobile development. With a fast, new simulator along with on-device debugging and the ability to compile to both .sis (Symbian) or .deb (Maemo) packages, it provides developers with a great opportunity to start creating amazing apps right away.

Individuals can now register as Ovi Publishers
Individuals (i.e., people that are not part of a specific company or business) can now register as an Ovi publisher (https://publish.ovi.com/register/country_and_account_type) and easily distribute their apps worldwide through Ovi Store. Individuals will still have to pay the one-time 50 Euro registration fee, and they can submit apps that are written in Qt, Symbian, Java, Flash Lite or Web Runtime (WRT). Allowing individuals to publish their applications to Ovi Store is competitive to what Apple and Android allow today and helps to provide parity for Ovi Store.

Public beta of Nokia signing Symbian apps for free
The goal here is to lower the barrier to entry for developers by simplifying the tools and the process, as well as removing some of the cost associated with developing mobile apps for distribution in Ovi Store. For developers creating Symbian apps there are initial investment costs such as obtaining a Publisher ID and paying a third party to have their apps Symbian signed. Currently, this can take around four weeks, and impose expenses for the developer up to $215 (USD). With this public beta, we are exploring a developer workflow to reduce the time for developers to two weeks and bring the cost involved to $0 (USD). Eliminating the fee for signing Symbian apps makes our investment story for developing for Ovi Store competitive with Apple and Google.

Availability of Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian
Qt developers can use the new Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 to easily bundle the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian SIS with their app SIS to reach millions of users with Nokia Symbian devices worldwide. When an end user downloads an app, the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian will check for dependencies, and if any missing files or Qt libraries are detected the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian will download them from Nokia servers.

Ovi Store intake for Qt apps
Finally, Qt developers can upload Qt Symbian apps targeting both the Nokia N97 mini and Nokia X6, as well as Qt Maemo apps for the Nokia N900 mobile computer. The Nokia N8 will be supported when it’s released later this year, and additional Nokia Symbian (5.0 and 3.1/3.2) devices will be supported in the future, allowing Qt developers to reach a growing market of Nokia users worldwide. Applications will be published to Ovi Store beginning next month.

Cellulant Kenya show the way in mobile innovations on the continent

By Dan Muhuni

As the mobile telephony sector continues to be the country’s most dominant technology in use, having grown by 34.2 per cent in the last year, from 12.9 million subscribers in 2008 to 17.4 million subscribers in 2009, Mobile services Company Cellulant has come up with various innovative products in what is set to revolutionalise mobile commerce in Kenya and in Africa as a whole.

Cellulant Kenya early this week announced a new product dubbed Lipuka, that will enable integration of services to allow easy mobile access to information and banking services. Speaking during a media workshop in Nairobi, Cellulant Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenya Mr. Ken Njoroge said: “There is a clear trend of convergence because mobile commerce has fuelled the demand for content and this is what most business are now centered around.”

Njoroge said that  Lipuka, which goes into effect next month, seeks to provide a convenient solution to mobile commerce procedures by integrating all banking services and enabling easy access of information by mobile phone users.

 The company said the service will function as a "mall" for mobile payment services, allowing users to access bills and make payments from bank accounts. Cellulant, which was established in 2004, serves over 60 million subscribers across the continent and intends to penetrate 25 countries across Africa by 2012.

Among its products are: Commerce 360-an ecosystem of converged text described as a ‘content-aware’ platform powering the services of different organizations; Lipuka - a larger ecosystem integrating services to allow for easy access to information.

Cellulant, which was established in 2004, has over 60 million customers spread around the African continent. It started off its business in Kenya and Nigeria before spreading to Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana but is looking cover 25 countries by 2012. The company is set to launch services in Malawi next month

The company is currently working on a convergence platform to be launched soon in the market and is optimistic that integration of content and services will greatly improve mobile commerce, which has already proved integral in modern business models.

Mr. Njoroge is of the view that that the mobile commerce has provided a platform for shared services and this is bound to impact positively on the economy besides improving the general business environment.

“The rate at which people are accessing information either through mobile phones on cheap internet is growing faster and this is providing the largest media platform upon which information can be shared,” he said.

Mr. Njoroge maintains that the mobile commerce industry poses great opportunities for growth and is urging young people to take up Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and innovations as a perfect opportunity upon which they ride to success.

“We are now in seven countries but we will be launching our services in Malawi next month,” said the CEO. In Kenya, the Cellulant Group, which has other branches in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria, boasts of over 40 corporate clients, among them banks and mobile service providers. 

“We have served over 12 million unique customers in seven different countries since we set up shop, Mr. Ken Njoroge said. 

With over 20 million mobile phone users in Kenya and an indicative increase in mobile phone penetration in Africa, mobile commerce is set to revolutionalise business on the continent and arguably spur economic growth. 

Kenya ICT Board to Bank on local content development

By Dan Muhuni (EA ICT Reporter/ Specialist)

With the arrival of the fibre optic cable in our country Kenya, its usage still remains a challenge to many since Kenyans have so far not fully utilized the cable. Kenya ICT Board in its effort to encourage Kenyans to bank on the idle huge bandwidth yesterday the release of Sh300M grant for the development of digital content and software.

The grant, which targets local content developers including software developers, film, animation, advertising, publishing, gaming and education professionals and other content creators, will provide the funding required for the development of quality applications relevant to the Kenya government and private sector.

While making the announcement yesterday, Kenya ICT Board Chief Executive Paul Kukubo said the grant intends to propel the emergent lucrative but underexploited local content industry to growth.

“This local content issue is a major issue globally. The big discussion now is content and what to do with the large platform and internet infrastructure that is in place,” Mr Kukubo said.

With over 3.4 million users of the Internet in Kenya, research indicates that the importance of the internet outstrips those of several key developed countries. However, Mr Kukubo was quick to point out that the grant aims to spur entrepreneurship with Internet penetration being a by-product of the available content.

“A lot of bright young Kenyans have very good ideas but are thwarted by the fact they don’t have access to funding because the nature of what they are doing is so new and novel they cannot go to a bank with it,” he said adding the new applications will lead to increased Internet usage.

The availability of local content is also aimed at driving up interest in Kenyan websites, which have had to play a secondary role to international websites.

A TNS Research International survey commissioned by the Board shows that the penetration of Internet has not improved as anticipated despite the landing of two fibre optic cables.

Applicants are expected to submit their proposals before 19 July 2010 with the Board expected to choose 105 successful proposals. The grant will be disbursed from October and the recipients will have 12 months from the date they receive the money to complete the projects.

The move has been received very positively by Kenyans and Anthony Kamau an IT student from the University of Nairobi could not hide his joy saying “The funding will encourage most of local developers who have in the past lacked money to spearhead their projects ”.

Lucy Gachui, KICTB Communications Manager said the move is to make sure Kenyans utilize the Fibre optic cable and that Kenyans themselves benefit from the cable. “ It would be sad to see foreigners coming here and making use of the cable where else it was brought to benefit Kenyans” added Gachui