Semacraft Consulting invites you to register for a workshop on Building a Business on Mobile Apps to be held in Nairobi, Kenya.

Everyone agree that the mobile money idea that has thrived in the Kenyan market has been a huge success. If in doubt, check out how much money was transferred via M-Pesa in Safaricom’s 2010 – 2011 financial year analysis.

Well, Google have gone a step further.

Be ready for Google Wallet.

Google Wallet is an initiative that will enable on to make on-site payments using their Android phone by integrating a technology called NFC (Near Field Communication).

All you need to do is open up the App on your Android Phone, enter the PIN, choose the credit card to be billed to and wave the phone in front of an NFC chip reader located at the cashier’s till and VOILA! Payment made.

Unfortunately the only card supported for now is MasterCard although knowing Google and their open-source techniques; many will come out and provide solutions for this for all the credit and debit cards in the market.

One more thing; Google will charge nothing for this transaction and this guarantees it will be a hit. This though means that Google will bear the struggle of having the partners like stores and shops on board and the only fee charged will be for your card.

Google being the genius team they are though will activate Group-On services on this concept and this will definitely be their cash cow. This group-on service dubbed Google Offers will work in the ‘offer of the day deal’ (much like Rupu I would like to assume) and this will be paid for using their NFC payment system.

Pivot25 is an mlab initiative to bring focus on the Mobile developer and entrepreneur community in East Africa.m:lab East Africa is a consortium of four organizations aiming to be a leader in identifying, nurturing and helping to build sustainable enterprises in the knowledge economy.

The First East Africa Mobile Developer Challenge – Come witness East Africa’s best Mobile Applications

Network with Industry Leaders – Network with Government Stakeholders, Operators, Platform Developers, VAS Providers and Developers

Expand your Knowledge – Of the latest Developer Trends and Platforms

Participate in the Fire-Side Chats – Get the Opportunity to ask Regulators, Operators and Industry Leaders Questions in our Fire-side Chats

Speakers – Get to hear from Prominent Speakers in the Mobile Developer Industry.

The Best SWAG –  As a valued Participant in the Conference and Competition Pivot25 and it’s sponsors are giving the best giveaways at the event….. Don’t Miss out!!

Riding on our theme on “Local Developers and their Successes” our next Mobile Monday-KENYA Meet up will be happening at the iHub on Monday 23rd of May starting at 6pm-7:30pm.

Our speakers will include:

1. Consumer App Ideas –  This will be a selection of the best ideas received from the consumer app competition held in April giving insight into what consumers want in an App By Agatha Gikunda of Nokia
2. Tell a Story– This is an app that enables users tell secrets anonymously. The secrets can be about Love/Work/Money/Others. The developer will also speak about the consumer insights that lead him to develop the app.  By Eric Mwenda, Local Developer
3. Gari Noma- This is a car theme which has gained quite a bit of traction (94,544 downloads globally) and the developer will also include consumer insights that led him to develop the themes as he as a number on the store which are doing well. By Joseph Karanja, Local Developer

If you have an app/service that leverages mobile technology or mobile web give us a shout and we will try and slot you in.

This post is from Mobile Monday .Original article/post can be found here  http://goo.gl/3t7Ke

The annual Innovation Africa Digital Summit, held in Kenya March 22 – 24th, gathered c-level industry leaders for 3-full days of panel discussions, networking and business opportunities, see agenda here. We were honored to participate again this year along with other supporting organizations, industry leaders, policy regulators and government representative agencies who presented case studies, conducted workshops and provided related materials supporting senior executive delegates with insight and valuable connections for building ICT in Africa.

Organized by Extensia, this platform continues to serve as a perfect opportunity for MobileMonday to learn – first hand – about the important developments across this region and make key contacts in order to assess how our global community can best serve the interests of this unique marketplace. Several MoMo founders were on the panel sessions and we released the 2011 version of our popularMobile Africa Research Report. Many thanks to all for a fantastic visit at the Leisure Lodge Resort!

also see 2010.pdf and 2009.pdf

Pictures from the Mobile Monday meet up on the 18th of April with Nokia and a bunch of local developers doing some impressive work with the Ovi store.

Marko Myllyluoma of Nokia Research Center

James Mwai of Around Me

Robert Kunga @Mwirigi

During the previous Mobile Monday, a number of people complained that Mobile Monday is becoming a club for the corporate to push their agendas leaving behind the people and the startups. Due to the public demand the management of Mobile Monady agreed to have the last Monday to be focused fully on startups and innovative ideas.  It is great to report here that a thousand and one lessons were learned before, during and after the last Mobile Monday. Here are some of them:

1. Step up and be counted

It is one thing people complaining that they are not given chance to present during tech events and it is another thing when you tell the same people to come up and present their ideas and startups. Before the decision was made by Mobile Monday team to give the local startups and individuals with ideas chance, everyone believed that many Kenyans would come up for given presentation slots during Mobile Monday event. But shock on everyone, not many developers and entrepreneurs came out of their  closet to be counted. That was in the stark reality with the way the established corporate members are always ready to push their products and services during the tech events.  Yes complain but be ready to show up….

2. Most played Music/tune in the world.

Di you know that the  default/signature Nokia tune is the most played tune in the world.  The tune is played about 1.8 Billion times a day even more than the happy birthday tune. Great.

3.  The User experience

User experience might look simple when mentioned but it is about much more. It is very complex and it is not only about great graphic design but includes all senses: smell, visual, hearing, touch, motion, taste. It is down to the real engagement with the user.

4. The interface

When coming up with the interface, it is important that one consider the business aspect, the technology and the users. Out of the three the user is the most important component. For the designers out there, don’t make the users think….keep it simple and hide the complexities.

5.  Around me

We discussed Around Me here but James Mwai’s presentation during Mobile Monday was one of the best technical presentations we have seen around.

• Allows you to find important businesses and services wherever you are e.g. Restaurants, banks……

• Designed for Symbian touch devices. S60 5^th edition, Symbian^3, Symbian ‘Anna’.

• Over 27,000 downloads.

• Over 150,000 searches so far.

6. Every millisecond Matters.

When doing search or normal browsing, the users want to see it almost in real time. Actually now we have real time search with Google. Optimize optimize optimize. And if you are going to hit the network, ensure that you reduced the download size

7. Cloud is an option.

Whether you have reservation about cloud or not, it is a great option to consider. Perfect for storage and processing and you are sure to reduce the apps load time

8. Motogari App

Motogari ovi store app is news and analysis about cars.  As mentioned here sometime back, everything about cars is covered. Full presentation Robert Kunga  here

• Over 18507 downloads