Android developers in Kenya, here’s your chance to take some high quality code courtesy of Amazon and hack up some interesting apps for the local market. Amazon have just announced that the Kindle Fire source code is available for download. Go here http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200203720

FYI it’s 809MB so patience is a virtue with a lot of wait

mLab East Africa, interview with John Kieti

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.

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

Every week in Kenya these days there are remarkable events or news  in the tech front and it interesting if you are observer or real participant.  Last week was not any difference. The big news came with Nokia Siemens Network, the global telecommunications enabler , inaugurating its head office for its Africa Operations in Nairobi.

As part of the renewed focus on the African continent, NSN has recently restructured and separated its Africa operations. “The African market is growing at a strong pace and we felt the need to provide additional focus to support this growth. We already have a strong base of operations in Morocco and South Africa to support the region. Our head office in Kenya will strengthen our operations in the continent to deliver superior services to our customers,” says Dimitri, the recently appointed head of African operations for Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN).

This might look little in the face value but for a long time i have always been mad at companies which lump Africa together with Middle East. If you look at it critically Sub Saharan Africa was never in the picture for these companies. You see when they say Africa and middle East, they are basically saying North Africa (Arab populations) and Middle East. During KenyaFeb28 debate in Kenya after the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, i said it clearly that Kenya is noway like North African countries.  Nobody should ever expect what happens in Tunisia or Egypt to be automatically translated in Kenya due to many many many factors. The same applies to almost all the Sub Saharan African countries. So when you take Africa and put it together with Middle East, i wonder what exactly you are trying to say.  Kudos to Nokia Siemens Network for seeing the lights in good time.

Local Talents

One of the reason why NSN chose Kenya is coz of the great pool of the human talents.  I can testify to that but also i have many questions to Kenyans. Yesterday  I attended a meeting for the newly launched #aminaseries under the banner Intervangelist. I met a number of guys behind the series and i was very impressed. we have very smart young people in Kenya, and i repeat very smart. But always wonder why as a country we lag behind in so many aspect. Why are these smart young people not showing the direction to the general population. Yeah yeah the politicians and the old guards! I think that excuse is very convenient for many but never the real reason. Since when do smart men and women just sit back and  leave the people without clear direction to spoil their country?  I think it is high time we translate being smart and talking smart to something tangible!

Anyway on the selection of Kenya for its head office, Alain Van Hemelen, Kenya Country Director for NSN, says, “We have chosen to set up our new headquarters in Kenya as the country provides a central location for travel, has a well-educated pool of local talent and a sturdy telecommunications infrastructure. Nokia Siemens Networks has expanded their Kenyan staff compliment from 109 employees in 2009 to 220 employees in 2010. We have chosen to draw on the local pool of talent to increase our headcount, rather than bring in experts from other countries. We are also in the process of recruiting a further 30 employees to the operation by mid-2011. With these additional staff members and our projected business growth in the region, we expect to employ 300 people by 2012.”

Moses Kemibaro- Dealfish Regional Manager, East Africa

Hilda Moraa- M-Order

Sometime back I had a heated debate with my friend Alex of Intervangelist fame about the future of local digital search on phones and awareness. Alex had the views that Google is working on something on the android phones where the search of the things around you is instant and they are much ahead of the pack. I did vigorously disagree with that view but I have to confess that my point of argument then was based on emotion and not real alternative. You know the feelings that someone from Kenya should be able to crack something better.  Yes, I know, I talk a lot about local these days but you have to understand my feelings with state of affairs. You just have to believe that we can do way much  better

A few days later, I came to learn about  AroundMe done by James Mwai (@jmwai). Well, I have known James Mwai for some time and always knew one of these fine days he will come up with something cool.    True to that he has. AroundMe allows you to easily and quickly find important businesses and services in your surrounding or any other location with your Nokia phone. For example, you can find restaurants, banks, gas stations, and other local services with ease. Users are able to view maps, directions, routes, street view, read reviews or call the business if contacts are available. Very cool.

James revealed to me on a phone chat that the interest on the app around the world is just phenomenon.  In the last three weeks the app has been downloaded more than 17,000 times.

He listed to me the top ten countries leading in downloading the app as follows

#1 India

#2 Italy

#3 Germany

#4 Thailand

#5 Turkey

#6 United Kingdom

#7 Brazil

#8 Spain

#9 Russian Federation

#10 Australia

Yeah, the app was done with Kenya in mind but as you can see, Kenya is not even in the picture.

Currently it runs on Symbian^3 and S60 devices. More devices are in the road map including s40 which will give more people access to the app.  Good stuff

(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.