African Technology News, Startups, Mobile and Social Media

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Fri, February 24th, 08:52 · Elly Okutoyi

MXit Ranked Top in Forbes Africa Start-up List

South Africa’s mobile messaging service MXit, has been ranked number one technology start-up in Africa according to Forbes Magazine. → Read more
Thu, February 23rd, 16:39 · Gythan Munga

Day One @ Mobile Web East Africa

Mobile Web East Africa (#mwea2012) competition, organized by All Amber (UK) and hosted by ICT Board, kicked off at the Southern Sun in Nairobi Kenya yesterday morning. Here are some of the ideas which prevailed. → Read more
Thu, February 23rd, 14:02 · Vincent Matinde

FloCash: Africa’s Answer to Paypal

We will never hear the end of it, and with good reason. Money transfers and e-payment solutions are fires that simply won’t be put out. With more and more telcos jumping into this pool, African citizens are spoiled for choice on which e-payments to choose from. → Read more
Wed, February 22nd, 17:46 · Elly Okutoyi

Africa’s First Touch Screen Medical Tablet

A young Cameroonian Engineer Arthur Zang, 24 years old, has invented Africa’s first Touch Screen medical tablet, called the Cardiopad. → Read more
Wed, February 22nd, 07:14 · Gythan Munga

Facebook Verification to Control Impersonation

Facebook, with its over 37.7 million users in Africa, had until recently stayed away from verifying the identity of high profile users, unlike Twitter that provides an indisputable way of identifying VIPs through the blue ‘Verified’ badge. Impersonation as a result has long been an issue of concern. → Read more
Tue, February 21st, 14:19 · Vincent Matinde

Robbery Stopped by a Tweet

It reads like a movie script. Thieves broke in a rural neighborhood in Kenya, plan in hand to commit somewhat a familiar illegalities. Little did they know that a neighbor was on his phone sending a distress call through his Twitter account. Dozens of followers, who received the tweet through an SMS text alert, responded to the message and foiled the robbery attempt. → Read more
Tue, February 21st, 12:55 · Elly Okutoyi

Significant Growth in African Mobile Money Transactions

Africa is now showing a significant embracing of Mobile Money Transfers than before. More people in Africa’s poorest countries have mobile phones than bank accounts. Projections show that 68% of Africans will have a mobile phone by 2015. → Read more
Mon, February 20th, 08:27 · HumanIPO

Startup Garage Nairobi Launched!

For HumanIPO and Kenyan accelerator/seed fund 88mph, February 17th was a big day. On Friday, they launched Startup Garage Nairobi and opened the doors to Africa’s largest co-working space for web/mobile startups. → Read more
Sun, February 19th, 16:08 · Gythan Munga

Startup Weekend Goes to Nairobi

A 54 hour start-up event, Startup Weekend, that canvases cities around the world will be in Nairobi on February 24-26. → Read more
Fri, February 17th, 13:28 · Vincent Matinde

Orange Launches Facebook Access For Low End Phones

You have an Orange line and your phone lacks GPRS? Good news! Facebook will be in your reach in the coming months. Orange has announced its intentions to provide Facebook access through USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) in basic GSM phones. This is a major step to try and connect users with low end phones to enjoy the networking capabilities of Facebook. → Read more
Fri, February 17th, 10:30 · Elly Okutoyi

Nokia to Increase Investment in Kenyan Mobile Application Development

Nokia, the world’s largest handset manufacturer, is set to increase its investments in Kenya’s and East Africa’s mobile application development, by up to 25% compared to last year. This was said by Nokia’s Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop, during his high profile tour, which will see him tour only Kenya and South Africa, out of Africa’s 57 countries. → Read more
Thu, February 16th, 13:21 · Gythan Munga

Vodacom Smart Tab Launched in South Africa

Vodacom, South Africa’s 1st cellular network, quietly launched a range of 7 and 10 inch screen tablets to be used with the mobile operator’s contract and pre-paid plans. → Read more
Thu, February 16th, 10:28 · Gythan Munga

134 Million African Internet Users in a Decade

A decade ago, the number of African Internet users stood at 4.5 million. Today the figure has risen close to 140 million users which is a 2 988.4% growth according to a research by the Internet World Stats. → Read more
Wed, February 15th, 10:54 · Vincent Matinde

Startup Brings Pharmacy Closer to You with 37,000 Euros Investment

“The current ratio of doctor to patients in Kenya is 7,000 [patients] to one [doctor] most of whom are in the urban centres. The figure is almost triple that for practising community pharmacists,” says Dr. Louis Machogu, founder of Drugs.co.ke. Machogu highlights the problem that people face trying to access medical services in Kenya. → Read more
Tue, February 14th, 12:49 · Vincent Matinde

Watch Out World Pave Way for the Silicon Savannah

What is the future for African Technology scene? Nothing but an upward trend is being predicted. With over 50% of the African population being under 20 years, the fast broadband internet penetration in most of the African countries, then the developing countries need to take heed to this continent. → Read more
Mon, February 13th, 09:59 · Gythan Munga

iCow Introduced Livestock Trading on Mobile

ICow, the winning application in the Apps for Africa Competition in 2010 introduced a new feature the iCow Soko, allowing small- scale dairy farmers to trade livestock on their mobile phones in Kenya. → Read more
Fri, February 10th, 21:31 · Gythan Munga

Kenyan Businesses Going Online with Payment Aggregators

Just 8 years ago in Kenya, online businesses had to contend with international payment and money transfer services such as Paypal that offered little or no option of withdrawing money locally. Today, the invent of mobile money has businesses using the mobile payment to transact online via payment gateways. → Read more
Thu, February 9th, 12:21 · Vincent Matinde

Huawei Unveils Challenge Winners

The winners of the Huawei Challenge were recently unveiled. KaroPay, an Android app by Masai Abel Jevayi from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), was one of the winners with his app KaroPay. “Karo” is a Swahili word meaning fees. KaroPay enables parents and students to pay school fees using their phones. → Read more
Wed, February 8th, 15:53 · Vincent Matinde

Nigeria’s “Netflix” Attracts 100,000 Users in 2 Months

Taunted as Africa’s Netflix, iROKOtv has announced that by January, its user base grew to 100,000 users with over 1,000,000 hours of film viewed online. In December the site saw over 20,000 unique visitors daily. → Read more
Wed, February 8th, 10:56 · Vincent Matinde

Google’s Street View Goes to Botswana

In 2010 Google Launched street view in South Africa and now it has advanced its innovation right in Botswana. Street View is a Google Map’s project that allows users to have a 360-degree view of streets in the specified cities. → Read more