Technology brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other – C.P. Snow.
Its a struggle keeping up with this section of my blog, but I promised myself and you the reader that I will do my level best to keep it going. So, after missing a week or two, here is this week’s #PKTechWeekly.
Lets start with investments coming into Africa, the QUARTZ says
Investors in Africa’s tech sector will win only if they solving real world problems and not just the digital ones.
We might know that technology investments are usually viewed through the lens of disruption where new ways of using data or delivering services are introduced and create new markets and/or displace existing businesses.
But what if there was no real existing service and that which existed was both inefficient and poorly deployed? In this regard I think technology can act as a catalyst or enabler to improve asset utilization, getting the most out of existing infrastructure and catalyzing investment to grow capacity and address market gaps. This is particularly the case across Africa.
Multiple sectors in Africa are always reported to be in dire need of such transformation, including agriculture, healthcare, finance, energy and education to name a few.
A pan-African fund with a focus on technology and technology-enabled businesses is well positioned to lead this space. The technology opportunity requires innovative thinking with participant capital prepared to overcome the inevitable teething hurdles and business model variations caused by less predictable market dynamics.
Read more about this in the below article.
The principle of creating successful tech investments in Africa is not the false dream of technology replacing building block infrastructure
The ICT Association of Uganda Members Only Meeting.
Facebook stopped delivering adverts to Thailand to respect Thailand’s period of mourning for the death of the King.
Out of respect for the passing of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Facebook is temporarily not showing ads in Thailand.
As announced by the country, the mourning is to take a full year before a new King is appointed, and the Facebook is likely to take the same time off delivering adverts. It apologizes for any inconvenience and appreciates the support of the Thai community during this period of mourning.
Though adverts coming from Thailand to other countries will continue to be delivered.
Rwanda’s Blood Carrying Drones
Did you know that at first explaining a drone to native villagers who had never owned a TV or mobile phone was like talking about voodoo? But of recent these same people who buzzed with rumors of a new blood-sucking thing that would fly above their homes calling it’s witchcraft has finally been embraced.
The embrace comes when the world’s first commercial regular drone delivery service announced that it will start drop-offs in Rwanda. The drone service is to be used to deliver blood, plasma, and coagulants to hospitals across rural western Rwanda, helping to cut out waiting times from hours to minutes.
Even when this development there are still challenges. According to USNews, the drone technology faces some problems operating like the harsh landscapes of the desert, the rain forest, and not forgetting the extreme rainy seasons and drought. Read more about this in the article below.
Drones carrying medicines, blood face top challenge: Africa
A huge wind farm in Kenya to transform Africa’s energy landscape
Right here in East Africa’s Great Rift Valley will soon be a hub for emissions-free wind energy as the continent’s largest wind farm rises from the arid, rocky landscape of northwest Kenya.
This month, Vestas Wind Systems installed the 154th turbine at the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, just kilometers from the massive saline lake, popularly known as the Jade Sea for its translucent blue-green water.
The raising of the 850-kilowatt V52 generator, which Vestas calls “the turbine that goes anywhere,” marked another milestone for the project’s developers and hundreds of workers toiling in the harsh conditions of western Marsabit County, where Lake Turkana’s winds kick up eye-stinging dust storms and the surrounding arid uplands are inhabited by scorpions and carpet vipers.
The planned 310-megawatt facility, occupying 40,000 acres near the village of Sarima on the lake’s southeast shore, is Kenya’s largest private investment to date, at nearly $700 million. Yet the payback for Kenya and East Africa, both economically and environmentally, could be much greater.
When completed next year, the wind farm will be able to power roughly 1.5 million homes and will account for roughly 15 percent of the country’s daily electricity load, according to officials involved in the project.
Mobile internet shut down in Ethiopia
We should all just say it, its an African thing switching off mobile internet by African governments. In Ethiopia due to escalating protests which began in November last year, all mobile internet services were shut down and a state of emergency declared.
In June this year, the same government blocked social media saying it was aimed at stopping exam leaks.This time they said the move was aimed to stop the protest movement, which was using social media for organisation and communication.
The 2016 Energy Innovation Summit will take place at Gallagher Convention Centre, Johannesburg South Africa on the 10th of November this year, under the theme: reshaping oil and gas through digital transformation.
This event will see leaders and professionals in the oil and gas sector and IT leaders tackle digital transformation and build relationships. Leading companies will share technology solutions and best practices for upstream facilities implementing digital technology. Bridging the gap between the oil and gas industry and ICT, this summit will host an unparalleled networking platform for oil and gas decision makers, policy makers and professionals.
Pinterest’s Lazy Scammers and Mafia
Pinterest’s Lazy scammers and Mafia are a set of people who make substantial amount of money in certain niches. They have accumulated large following and control hundreds if not, thousands of Pinterest accounts. They have also created or are members of loads of group boards.
These people control who gets to stay and who must go. Once they mark their “Mark”, the rest is simple enough to implement. Since to them, they have all control, ‘Mafia control; flagging pinner’s sites as spam is not that difficult for them, and after they take over control of the pins in the boards shared off those tagged accounts. For more read article below.
Website Marked As SPAM on Pinterest? The Mafia Is Doing It
Uganda Number Two among the African Countries that are Technological Advanced
Uganda was ranked number 2 as the most technologically advanced country in Africa, with this description;
“According to a study conducted by Martin Prosperity Institute of the US, Uganda is the second best nation in Africa with advanced technological and innovation capabilities. The study ranked Uganda 82nd in the chart of nations with advanced technological innovation. In Uganda, the government has invested heavily in its ICT sector. It has also attracted foreign investors in the sector. Earlier this year, Uganda launched Africa’s first ever solar-powered bus, ‘Kayoola.’”
I sometimes think we pay for these ranks, or the writers never do their research. But hey, I have not read the Martin Prosperity (Prosperity for all maybe or now steady progress?) Institute report so maybe….
Most Technologically Advanced Countries in Africa
Until next week…. here is a quote;
They are not skillful considers of human things who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin – John Milton.
