AfICTA e-Newsletter (July 15th, 2020)

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AfICTA e-NEWSLETTER 

15/July/2020 Vol 91

Register to Join AfICTA  (Africa ICT Alliance) Today

Hi, are you concerned about the realization of a Digital Africa? If yes, AfICTA (Africa ICT Alliance) welcomes you to register and join other group of concerned IT National Associations, Companies, Multinationals and Organisations in Africa to engender the delivery of the digital age for everyone in Africa.

AfICTA is a 32 member nations' alliance, in partnership with the African Union, with the vision to fulfill the promise of the digital age for everyone in Africa and to connect IT role players on the continent.

Due to COVID-19 Pandemic, IGF-2020 to Hold Online

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fifteenth meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be held online. The IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) together with the IGF Secretariat and UN DESA have begun preparations and consultations on how best to carry out this virtual IGF annual meeting.  We will keep you updated on the progress.

The Government of Poland will now host the IGF 2021 Annual Meeting in Katowice in the 4th quarter of next year and the Governments of Ethiopia and Japan will be hosting the IGF annual meetings in 2022 and 2023, respectively, pending organizational ...  read more

Why You Shouldn't Believe Network Speed Tests

The media is filled with hyperbolic claims that "Our network is the fastest!" And there are many so-called "Speed Test" tools available on the Internet. Most are easily run in a web browser.

Should you trust those tools? Not really. The popular speed testing tools provide a very narrow and limited measure of network "speed." It is quite possible that a network that is rated as "fast" could actually deliver poor results to many applications. 

Why is this so? sound... read more

Protests and Coronavirus Shows Meaningful Connectivity more Important Now than Ever

Without a smartphone, Darnella Frazier would not have captured the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis. 

If not for amplification on social media networks, it’s doubtful Floyd’s murder, along with that of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless other Black women and men, would have sparked a movement against institutionalised racism starting in the US and spreading across borders.

And if those protesting in cities across the world didn’t have cell phones, mobile data...  read more

We Must Cooperate to Secure Affordable and Meaningful Connectivity for Everyone

Sonia Jorge, Executive Director of the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) and Head of Digital Inclusion at the Web Foundation, participated in last week’s launch of the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ Roadmap for Digital Cooperation.

The Roadmap aims to foster global cooperation to tackle the big challenges and embrace the many opportunities that digital technologies offer around the world.

Sonia called attention to the digital...   read more

Malawi: President Tears into Industry Regulator, National Broadcaster

Malawi’s new president Lazarus Chakwera has dissolved the board of directors managing the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) and that of the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), barely a week after his election.

According to a statement from the office of the Chief Secretary Zangazanga Chikhosi, the action is with immediate effect. Chikhosi said Chakwera has received reports from various state institutions regarding the status of their operations in order to chart the way forward.

“The dissolution of state institution boards...  read more

Public Cloud Cybersecurity Incidents Hit 60% of SA Organisations

Six in ten South African organisations experienced a public cloud security incident in the last year – including ransomware (25%), other malware (28%), exposed data (28%), compromised accounts (27%), and cryptojacking (26%). Globally, organisations running multi-cloud environments are greater than 50% more likely to suffer a cloud security incident than those running a single cloud.

This is according to The State of Cloud Security 2020 global survey released by cybersecurity firm Sophos. 

Research shows that Europeans suffered....  read more

Mukuru perseveres to become African fintech powerhouse

Acombination of resilience and robust digital technologies resulted in tech start-up Mukuru emerging from humble beginnings to becoming one of Africa’s fintech powerhouses.

So says Sandy Rheeder, CIO of Mukuru, one of Africa’s largest remittance service providers. Mukuru was launched in the mid-2000s.

As Zimbabwe went through hyperinflation, the platform enabled customers in the diaspora to send fuel and grocery vouchers back home via SMS .... read more

Covid-19 Killed Traditional Disaster Recovery

Much has been said and written about the changes COVID-19 has brought to businesses. While most of the focus has been on enabling people and systems to work remotely, the pandemic has highlighted a number of other technology areas where conventional wisdom no longer applies.

Chief among these, says Richard Firth, CEO of MIP Holdings, is Disaster Recovery (DR). “If you do a quick Google search of DR in the context of COVID-19, you will find a number of sites talking about the need for enterprise resilience. 

All of the big analyst houses are there, offering pointers on finding ways to reimagine a business ... read more

Zimbabwe: Zimbocash Details Ambitions as $ZW Alternative

New regulation governing mobile money transactions has resulted in the introduction of Zimbocash cryptocurrency, Zimbabwe’s first decentralised currency system.

Zimbocash co-founder and spokesperson Philip Haslam said the sole purpose was to develop a network of Zimbabweans who own and trade Zimbocash in day-to-day transactions. He said: “We have created a sound money system with 4,5 billion ZASH tokens.

Zimbabweans can rest assured that the supply of ZASH is fixed using blockchain technology... read more

Camtel Unveils Huawei-built Datacentre

State-owned telecommunications company Cameroon Telecommunications (Camtel) has unveiled the Zamengoe Datacentre, a tier III datacentre located on the outskirts of the capital Yaounde and touted as the biggest in the Central African sub-region.

The datacentre is part of Cameroon’s National Broadband Network II Project and is located at the historic Zamengoe site, the country’s first-ever satellite telecommunications centre built in 1975

Camtel Datacentre Project Manager Lyeb Hyacinthe said some institutions are already hosting their data with the newly launched datacentre... read more

Kenya: How Safe is Google's COVID-19 App?

Google has introduced a Covid-19 mobile app that has appeared on all mobile handsets. This has caused panic to many subscribers who are wondering whether they are being monitored as they go about their daily lives. 

The application has a very noble purpose of trying to alert mobile phone subscribers if they have been in close proximity to some one who is Covid-19 positive.

It uses bluetooth technology - the short range, wireless technology in your TV remote control that helps flip through channels... read more

Kenya: Where are the Google Internet Balloons?

It is three months since President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the coming of the Google Internet balloons. He was instantly met with quite some backlash on social media.

Many thought the timing was quite misplaced since Kenyans were in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown had began to affect the health and livelihoods of Kenyans.

So to most Kenyans, providing Google balloons was quite far removed from the realities of the pandemic. But I gave the president the benefit of doubt. Perhaps the Google balloons would come in handy. ... read more

MainOne Celebrates 10 Years of Enabling West Africa’s Digital Revolution

MainOne, West Africa’s leading provider of Wholesale and Enterprise connectivity and data center services celebrates 10 years of delivering innovative, world-class service in West Africa. Ten years ago, the company launched its operations with the commissioning of the first private submarine cable on the West Coast of Africa.

The company has played a critical role in enabling internet access across West Africa where penetration rates have grown from less than 10% in 2010 to close to 40% ten years later. Since inception, MainOne has invested in over $400m in infrastructure in West Africa as part of its efforts to bridge the ... read more

Lesotho: Telecoms offer out of bundle charges option for voice

Lesotho’s mobile operators have set up an option for their subscribers to turn off or on out of bundle charges while on voice call and sending text messages.

This comes after Lesotho Communications Authority (LCA), last month, gave a July 9 ultimatum to Vodacom Lesotho and Econet Telecom Lesotho to stop deducting costs from subscribers’ airtime when their voice call and SMS bundles have been depleted or expired. 

Announcing on Twitter, Econet Lesotho said its users no longer have to stress about out of bundle charges while browsing on  read more

1 Billion Previously Unconnected in Sub-Saharan Africa Reached Through

Africa Mobile Networks

Africa Mobile Networks (AMN) announced that it now processes more than 1 billion phone calls annually for subscribers in previously unconnected rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In June 2020, AMN processed 91,623,222 voice calls, representing an annualised rate of 1.1 billion calls per annum, plus nearly 6 terabytes (6,000 GB) of data.

These services are provided to rural users in Sub-Saharan Africa who previously were mostly unconnected before AMN's investment in the mobile network infrastructure.

AMN now owns and operates ... read more

African Start-up Programme Develops Digital Tool for Government to 

Help High-risk Patients

The University of Pretoria’s (UP) accelerator start-up, Aviro Health, has developed an automated chatbot app for the Western Cape Department of Health which works via WhatsApp and confirms delivery of chronic medication to patients’ homes.

The app, Pocket Clinic, also allows high-risk chronic patients to confirm an existing appointment before accessing services at their attending healthcare facility, which means they do not have to wait in long queues when they get there.

Aviro Health specialises in designing and implementing mobile health interventions that address... read more

PUBG Mobile Leads the Charge in Esports’ Increasing Relevance

in the Education and Eeconomic Sectors

PUBG Mobile leads the charge in esports’ increasing relevance in the education and economic sectors It’s difficult to say if the players of Pong (1972) ever saw where this humble beginning would take player vs. player video games in the five decades that have followed.

In 2020, competitive gaming has reached new heights, leaving the bat and ball behind in favour of high-octane games with crisp graphics and split-second decisions that cost or win players prizes that some traditional professional sports players won’t see from earnings for years.

Case in point, each of the five...  read more

Africa: Dutch Academy Offers Free Online Courses for  Software Developers

The Dutch Company Tunga, with a network of over 400 software developers in countries like Egypt, Nigeria and Uganda, have now launched an e-learning platform for any aspiring African software developer. The Tunga Academy’s free online courses for African tech talent is part of the company’s investment program for educational resources worth €450K.

The Academy is the first open e-learning platform for developers completely focusing on Africa and offers four technical courses and three soft skills courses. The soft skills courses focus on effective online communication and situation awareness... read more

Kenya’s Safaricom Heads Toward Lower Spectrum Costs for 5G

Safaricom, the telecom company based in Kenya, has selected Aviat's WTM 4800 multi-band radio platform for 5G backhaul. Microwave spectrum cost is one of the largest TCO (total cost of ownership) elements in many countries around the world and as capacity demands grow with 5G, more spectrum is required. Aviat multi-band provides the lowest TCO for 5G backhaul, especially in countries, like Kenya, where the cost of microwave spectrum is high.

"We are excited to continue to expand our WTM 4800 multi-band deployments internationally," .. read more

Ghana: Private Sector Urged to Take Lead in Tech Space

CSquared West Africa Regional Manager, Estelle Akofio-Sowah has made a strong case for the private sector to take the lead in running Ghana’s technological space, instead of the government.

Akofio-Sowah explained for technology to become relevant and useful in the lives of the citizenry, the private sector needs to be at the forefront to effectively run it. 

Speaking as a panellist at the 28th MTN Business World Executive Breakfast Meeting held in Accra : ‘The Future of Work is here– Preparing the Work Place for New Talents Needs’, Akofio-Sowah insisted that...  read more

Nigeria: Konnect Africa Offers Free Broadband Internet Connection to Isolation Centers

Konnect Africa offers free Broadband Internet Connection to Isolation Centers in Nigeria Konnect Africa offers free Broadband Internet Connection to Isolation Centers in Nigeria Konnect now joins the fight of several African governments to combat Covid-19 by allowing access to care for the greatest number of people. Each isolation center will benefit from free broadband connectivity. This deployment is made possible through the partnership with Coollink, a foremost ISP in Nigeria.

Jean-Claude Tshipama, CEO of Konnect Africa, said, "This operation demonstrates our ability to meet as quickly as possible the connectivity needs ...   read more

Nigeria: 20000 Solar Powered Smart Phones Distributed to  School Children

KaiOS Technologies today announced that its smart feature phones are being distributed across the state of Lagos to help school children continue their education during the COVID-19 lock-down period and supplement their learning once schools re-open.

The initiative being led by Robert and John Ltd, a Nigerian innovative Research & Development company, in partnership with the Lagos State Government and KaiOS.

The First Bank of Nigeria Ltd is sponsoring the first batch of 20,000 KaiOS-enabled devices. ..  read more