2012 INNOVATION CHALLENGES

ARE YOU A 21ST CENTURY PROBLEM-SOLVER?

To mark the centennial of The Rockefeller Foundation, we are seeking the knowledge and innovative ideas that will solve problems for the next 100 years.

In the face of these 21st century realities, achieving the Foundation’s overall goal to build resilience and more equitable growth, especially for poor or vulnerable people, relies in part on our commitment to a continuing search for, and openness to, new ideas and new ways of building solutions to these complex crises.

As many as 9 out of 15 finalists will be selected by the Foundation to apply for up to $100,000 in grant support to further develop or implement their ideas.

ENTER BY MAY 25, 2012

For more info go to: http://centennial.rockefellerfoundation.org/challenge

The BlackBerry Playbook becomes the first ever tablet to be certified by the U.S. Government as a good quality of service and data security capable device.

In a statement release, RIM announced that:

“RIM is pleased to announce that the BlackBerry PlayBook is the first tablet approved under FIPS for use within the U.S. federal government,” said Scott Totzke, Senior Vice President, BlackBerry Security at Research In Motion. “This certification demonstrates our continued commitment to meeting the needs of security-conscious organizations and enables the U.S. federal government to buy with confidence knowing that the PlayBook meets their computing policy requirements for protecting sensitive information.

This article was first posted on the juuchini website.

Vision Mobile- Developer Economic 2011

Developer Economics 2011 is the quintessential mobile developer research report. In this second annual report, we explore both what drives developer mindshare, and how brands are fast-forwarding into the world of mobile.

Developer Economics 2011 takes the reader across the entire developer journey, from the shift of mindshare and why “users can buy you love,” to how money is made in mobile. It covers the hottest issues, from app design and promotion to monetisation and user support.

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.

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

A collection of views from some of the most relevant people that are working within an African/mobile/tech context and that can bring some realistic views of trends for this decade on the continent

(Photos courtesy of Daudi Were)

On the 21st of February we had our MoMo meet up. To say the attendance was amazing would be an understatement, with over 40 students from JKUAT attending and a total attendance of 200 this was by far the largest MoMo meet up to date. Microsoft-EA came in strong with Vincent Mugambi, who described himself as the “Pastor Muiru” of Microsoft, in other words his an evangelist, a developer and platform evangelist to be precise. A few highlights from Vincent’s talk:

1. Microsoft has one of the largest cloud offerings in the market right now.
2. Mobile developers can leverage the cloud to build and deploy applications.
3. New features in Windows Mobile 7

Conrad Akunga of Virtual City joined Vincent to talk about the Imagine Cup. Conrad has been a judge for 3 years during the event when it was held in Kenya. He challenged developers to push the boundaries and come up with strong ideas and projects. “The era of the lone ranger is over..” was Conrad’s advice to developers, “work in teams..” was a message he emphasized. One thing he said caught my attention, “..don’t ever think your idea is completely unique..” most developers assume that their idea is very unique, in most cases someone else has thought of it before and probably tried to execute, the devil is in the details.

mLab (www.mlab.co.ke)

As part of the evening we had a quick introduction to the mLab team, led by John Kieti, a friend and colleague. John and I share common interests in technology and health, but I honestly have no idea why his twitter handle is @gmeltdown . The mLab, a mobile development incubator,will form a key component of spurring development in the mobile sector, a welcome addition for all those techies out there looking for a place to go from idea to product. The mLab is an initiative of InfoDev in collaboration with iHub, eMobilis. South Africa will also be launching an mLab over the next few weeks, I was very excited to learn that Steve Voosloo, formerly of the ShuttleWorth Foundation will be part of the team setting up the mLab.

Pivot25 (www.pivot25.co.ke)

Jay Bhalla also talked about Pivot25. Pivot25 gives companies the opportunity to showcase their applications to Operators, Venture Capital Community, Angel Investors and the ICT community at large, and at the same time the chance win prize money for their Companies and Applications. Applications are due midnight (East-Africa time) March 31st, 2011. To enter the competition please view the rules and instructions. We advise you to be as detailed as possible and fill as much of the application criteria as possible.

ELMA

Kamal Budhabhatti, CEO-Craft Silicon took a few minutes to talk about ELMA. ELMA is a a mobile commerce platform that allows programmers to develop business applications rapidly. Developers can build robust applications fully integrated with a payment gateway. Definitely watch for Craft Silicon, they seem on the right path.

Kirui, a student from JKUAT wrote a more detailed blog posts recapping the event. check out http://kiruikenn.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/mobile-monday-with-microsoft-how-it-went-down/

This event was a success by any measure. We managed to impact students who will form the next generation of developers and entrepreneurs. Check out more photos here http://goo.gl/mjecn Look out for bigger and better things from the MOMOKE team.

A new book has just been launched, covering the growth and impacts of the Internet in India: NetChakra (http://netChakra.net). It is a compilation of 30+ essays by Internet pioneers, entrepreneurs and analysts in India covering key developments after commercial Internet access was launched in countries around the world in 1995. The book’s Web site has a novel feature: a chronology of Internet developments and launches in India, collectively compiled by the Internet community! India is one of the largest Internet markets in the world but also has a huge digital divide.This book covers a wide range of Internet business and digital inclusion issues, and the lessons and structure of the book can be picked up by practitioners in other countries as well.

About the Editors

Dr. Madanmohan Rao, Consultant/Author; BANGALORE
Founder, Indian Proverbs project http://twitter.com/IndianProverbs http://IndianProverbs.in
Co-founder, Bangalore KM Community (www.kcommunity.org)
Research Projects Director, Mobile Monday (www.mobilemonday.net)
Research Director, Indian Music Experience Museum http://bit.ly/gL8ZEc
Official blogger, BaliSpirit Festival 2010 http://bit.ly/ec8utW

Catch Madanmohan Rao on the following social platforms:

Tweets: http://twitter.com/MadanRao
Blogs: Mobile: http://mobile.techsparks.com/

Osama Manzar

Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation http://www.defindia.net
Founder, Manthan Awards (www.manthanaward.org) and mBillionth awards
(http://mbillionth.in)
Authored, “e-Content: Voices from the Ground”
(http://www.econtentworldwide.org)
Grand Jury Member, World Summit Awards(http://www.wsis-award.org)
Twitter: @OsamaManzar

Steve Goh, Co-founder of Mig33 speaking at the 10th Mobile Monday Anniversary Peer Awards Ceremony in Helsinki, Finland.