June | 2011 | *iHub

Fireside Chat with Google’s Marissa Mayer

The *iHub and the Google Kenya are pleased to announce that Marissa Mayer, the Vice President of Location and Local Services at Google, will come to the *iHub_ Nairobi to meet and chat with young techies, entrepreneurs and tech creatives in one of our exciting Fireside Chats.

In an open discussion, Marissa Mayer is expected share the wisdom gathered in her many years as a technology leader and her experience working at google. Among the issues that she may cover during this evening are – her experience working at Google and as Google’s first female engineer, the values that have driven her and possible future plans in the different programs they have and are still rolling out.

Erik Hersman, the founder of the iHub, co-founder of Ushahidi and founder of AfriGadget will be moderating this exciting Fireside chat that will take place at the iHub tonight, Thursday June the 30th starting 6:30pm. We will only accept registrations of up-to 70 techies, entrepreneurs and tech creatives so kindly RSVP to attend.

About Marissa Mayer
Marissa Mayer is the Vice President of Location and Local Services at Google. Previously she was Vice President of Search Product and User Experience. Mayer joined Google in 1999 as Google’s first female engineer, where she led the user interface and web server teams at that time. Her efforts have included designing and developing Google’s search interface, internationalizing the site to more than 100 languages, defining Google News, Gmail, and Orkut, and launching more than 100 features and products on Google.com.

Prior to joining Google, Mayer worked at the UBS research lab (Ubilab) in Zurich, Switzerland, and at SRI International in Menlo Park, California.

By: Patrick Munyi

29-06-2011

Community Events iHub

Orange African Social Venture Prize

The Group venture capital subsidiary, Orange AMEA (Africa, Middle-East, Asia), in collaboration with CSR divisions and Innovacom is launching the Orange African Social Venture Prize. This prize aims at promoting social business projects, targeting the African countries of Orange’s footprint, with a large focus on ICT and innovation.

In this context 3 winners, either students or new entrepreneurs wishing to participate in African development, will be selected and will receive a financial allocation (€ 25K, € 15K, € 10K) and receive six months of coaching by professional entrepreneurship, ICT and venture capital.

The digital projects range from e-health and mobile banking to digital and mobile applications for education or agriculture. They therefore represent huge opportunities for social development.

Participants, regardless of nationality, must be more than 21 years old, can either be students, entrepreneurs running companies since no more than 2 years on the launch day of the competition. The companies or projects are required to target at least one of the African countries of Orange’s footprint. Their core business has to use technology in an innovative way to enhance living conditions of local populations.

Applications are being accepted between June 8th to September 15th 2011.

For more information on how to apply, click here

By: Tosh

27-06-2011

Community Events iHub

Women in Tech Cocktail at the iHub

Women @Google Africa together with AkiraChix will be hosting a Women in Tech Cocktail at the iHub on 28th June 17:00- 19:00. Apart from the food, the event will include a Heart to Heart talk on what it means to be a woman engineer and how to stay on top of the game. The event will be graced by :-
The very first woman engineer for the Google Africa team

Margaret Lisowiec, Before Google she worked in USA, mostly in startups, several of them. she has an expertise in a real time programming, telco signaling and networking, GPS based navigation systems and distributed architectures in general. At Google she learned Python, Java and large scale programming.
Google freshly minted Country Manager Kenya Olga Arara (she is actually an engineer with business acumen)
Susan Wyche is acomputing Innovation Fellow(CI Fellow) at Virginia Tech’s center for Human Intereaction. Her research focuses on human-computer interaction, design and cultural studies of technology. In her dissertation, Wyche used religion as a lens to understand how alternative worldviews can inform design. She has explored how Muslims in Atlanta, Charismatic Pentecostals in São Paulo, and Protestant Christians in Nairobi, use mobile phones, computers, and the Internet to support their religious practices. Each study has resulted in a publication at top-tier conference in her field, multiple design concepts, and in one case, a mobile phone application available for download at Apple Inc.’s “App Store.” Among Others.

The event will be held at the ihub 4th floor of the Bishop Magua Centre on Ngong Rd., directly opposite the Uchumi Hyper.

on 28th June 17:00- 19:00

To attend the event register here

By: John Kieti

27-06-2011

Applications Entrepreneurship m:lab Start-Ups Uncategorized

First set of incubation clients selected for m:lab East Africa

The m:lab consortium has approved the list of mobile start ups selected for the resident incubation program at m:lab East Africa. We are pleased to announce the names of the startups in this first set of clients for the incubation facility as follows :-

MedKenya -This is a collaboration between Gruppo Potente and Shimba Technologies. The startup was the Health category winner in this year’s Pivot25 as well as the competition’s overal winner. Theirs is a platform that provides symptom checkers, first-aid information, doctor & hospital directories as well as relevant alert services. The service aims to make healthcare information affordable and accessible to Kenyans. They target to provide solutions for Health, a universal need in line with Kenya’s Vision 2030 and the Millenium Development Goals. The startup will also be pitching their application at DEMO.COM

MTL Systems – They are popularly known for their M-Shop application which they presented at this year’s PIVOT25 competition. M-Shop is a platform allowing consumers to order, pay for, obtain and validate tickets for events, travel, goods & services. The solution provides USSD technology or a mobile application on smart phones to deliver convenience at any time and from any location with a mobile carrier signal. The company emerged the winner of PIVOT25′s mobile payments and commerce category.

Space Kenya Networks LTD - The company is popularly known for Whive, a category winner for Gaming Entertainment and Utilities in this year’s PIVOT25 competition. Whive is a mobile social aggregator integrated with major social media platforms. The application allows its over 17,000 Subscribers to communicate with contacts, friends via SMS, messaging and other social media. Whive is also a recent winner of the Vision 2030 ICT award for Gender, Youth and Vulnerable Groups Sector in Kenya.

PlusPeople Kenya LTD – Their product is Uhasibu, a cloud based accounting system for small & medium companies in East Africa. It helps in generating KRA format VAT reports, petty cash management and other financial management features. It also supports East African Currencies and is accessible for sh1,000 per month. The software as a service (SaaS) application was the Business and Entreprise Category winner in this year’s Pivot25 competition.

M-Farm LTD – These are the creators of the M-Farm application – A market transparency tool for farmers. With the application, Kenyan farmers SMS the number 3535 to get information pertaining to the retail price of their products, to buy their farm inputs directly from manufacturers at favorable prices, and to find buyers for their produce. The start-up aims to address problems affecting farmers’ productivity and livelihoods. M-Farm was a finalist at this year’s PIVOT25 competition in the category of Government, Education and Agriculture.

Kopokopo Inc – Theirs is a A software-as-a-service mobile payment gateway for small and medium sized enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa. The service is available on a pay-as-you-go basis. Their application was a finalist at this year’s PIVOT25 competition in the category of mobile payments and commerce.

Zege Technologies – This is the startup behind MPAYER – an application which aims to make Mobile Money payments with enterprises easier, more efficient and much faster than current configurations. The company aims to make mobile money more malleable amongst local entreprises. Their M-PAYER application was a finalist at this year’s PIVOT25 competition in the category of mobile payments and commerce.

Selection of the 7 clients has been finalized shortly after m:lab East Africa was formerly launched and its new facilities inaugurated – on 16th June 2011. This is also after successful conclusion of the lab’s PIVOT25 event held on 14th and 15th June 2011. The applications evaluation team and the consortium noted a high demand for incubation facilities with applicants originating from as far as Rwanda and Uganda. Competition for the few resident incubation slots was stiff. To begin addressing this unmet demand for business incubation services, m:lab East Africa is exploring possibilities for off-site incubation services. More on this will be communicated in due course through the lab’s website. For more information about m:lab East Africa, visit the website whose address is www.mlab.co.ke

By: Tosh

27-06-2011

Community Creatives Events iHub Members

introduction to Design Research Workshop

Catherine Sun is an Associate Creative Director in frog design’s New York studio. She leads teams in the drive to understand industries, companies, and users toward creating more usable, useful, desirable, and responsible products and experiences. Her work at frog has taken her through countries around the world where she has led user-centered research and analysis for multi-national companies looking to launch product lines in both domestic and international markets. At frog, she has developed concepts for a diverse range of industries, with programs in medical devices, home entertainment, retail environments, kitchen appliances, telecommunications, concept homes, and consumer product goods.

A team from frog design is currently here in Nairobi for a month doing field research and prototyping for concepts to connect 100 million girls around the world in support of the Girl Effect for the Nike Foundation. The 100 Million Girl initiative is rooted in the belief that connecting girls together will help bring a positive impact to their lives. The long-term goal is the creation of a platform, network and/or linkage of existing systems that would enable millions of girls worldwide to connect, share and make life better for themselves.

Catherine will present an introduction to Design Research through projects from over the past 5 years that contrast different qualitative research methods and demonstrate how insights inform and inspire ideas. Following the presentation there will be an opportunity for Q&A on product development and life in a design consultancy. All are welcome!

Where: iHub Nairobi

When: Wednesday the 29th

Time: 9am to 1pm

To participate, Please RSVP here

By: Tosh

27-06-2011

Community Events iHub

Mapping with the South Sudan Community

Following the historic referendum in Southern Sudan, Google, The World Bank, UNOSAT, RCMRDand Satellite Sentinel are co-hosting an event in Nairobi, Kenya on June 30, 2011 to demonstrate the power of mapping and support the building of the world’s soon-to-be-newest independent nation on July 9, 2011. Without basic geospatial information, it is difficult for the government, civil society, development partners, and all stakeholders to evaluate the current needs, target their planning efforts, and mobilize proper resources. At times like these, it is critical to have good maps of roads, settlements, buildings and other services, with both local and official names.

This is the second in a series of mapping events. The first one was held at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C., alongside a concurrent satellite event in Nairobi. More than 90 members of the Sudanese diaspora, along with regional experts from the World Bank, Sudan Institute, Voices for Sudan, The Enough Project and other organizations gathered together to map South Sudan.

The goals of these events are to:

Help build a mapping community that will remain engaged in Southern Sudan over time and become self-sufficient
Support the innovative use of technology and data for ongoing monitoring and reporting
Help support ongoing efforts to build Southern Sudan’s geospatial data, which is critical for a region to achieve shared and inclusive growth
Create a mapping community that will pass on their technological knowledge to others in their broader Southern Sudan-related community

To this end, we would like to invite as many members as possible of the Sudanese community – and others who have current local geographic knowledge of the country – to this event. Knowledge of mapping software is not necessary; however, we would prefer attendees be familiar and comfortable with computers.

If you or people you know are interested in attending, please register here by Monday, June 26, 2011

Event details are as follows:

When: June 30, 2011
Where: iHub, 4th Floor, Bishop Magua Building, Ngong Road, Nairobi, Kenya.

For more information please visit the event site.

Posted by Evans Arabu, Geographic Specialist, Google Africa

By: Tosh

27-06-2011

Events iHub

Mobile Monday – Local Developers and their Successes

Our exciting 3 part look at “Local Developers and their Successes” comes to an end on the 27th of June during our final Mobile Monday-Kenya meet up for this first half of 2011. It’s been and continues to be very exciting time to be involved in mobile tech and we trust that MOMO-Kenya has met all your expectations.
Join us next Monday and listening to some very insightful developer who are building some of the best mobile apps in Kenya:

Whive – Winners in the Mobile Gaming, Entertainment and Utilities category of the just concluded Pivot25 competition By John Karanja
Tuvitu– Tuvitu is no stranger to the MOMO community, it was first launched by Mbugua Njihia during our 2nd meet up . with Anthony Karanja
Language Translation Apps-One of the best, light and fastest offline English Spanish translator. It translates English words and phrases to Spanish and Spanish words and phrases to English. This is a must have translator for all type of persons; students, professionals and others. Equipped with customized user settings and friendly user Interface making it one of the easiest Translators to use By Dadiaus Momanyi.

Excellent opportunity to network with other mobile developers,entrepreneurs and enthusiasts. If you’ve registered before for other events please go ahead and register again hereor http://goo.gl/4uez0 .If you’d like to be present during the meet up in July please send us an email at talk@mobilemonday.co.ke and we will set up a slot for you.

For more information check out:
twitter: twitter.com/mobilemondayke
facebook: facebook.com/mobilemondayke

By: Tosh

23-06-2011

Community Entrepreneurship Events iHub

IPO48 2011 @iHubNairobi in August!

IPO48 hits Nairobi for the 2nd time

On the 12th-14th of August, 2011 Nairobi, Kenya will be hosting the IPO48 for the second time. Last year it was the first city in Africa to hold a 48-hour ITC bootcamp investment event. What makes IPO48 different from all the other tech-events?

An investment of 2.5 million KShs. has to be made at the event within these 48 hours. Which makes it interesting not only for the entrepreneurs but also for the investors who all have agreed to play by the rules.

Secondly, it is all about the people. Many similar events focus on pitching and presentation. IPO48 is about candid interaction between mentors and entrepreneurs before and during the event. It is about building something, taking action, showing that you as an entrepreneur got what it takes for the little guy in a competitive market with big players.

“Ideas are in abundance, good entrepreneurs are not. IPO48 is about finding the good entrepreneurs, most of the ideas will mostly be adjusted or changed when they meet reality,” says Kresten Buch, co-founder of HumanIPO

The first IPO48 event changed the lives of the 3 entrepreneurs from M-Farm who won the event last time. “It not only had us creating our company on next Monday after the event, but also catapulted us into media frenzy, “ says Jamila Abass, one of the co-founders of M-Farm.

With appearances already in the BBC News World, CNBC Business magazine, NTV, “The Standard” and “The Daily Nation” they got instant marketing most startups would kill for. And to top it all – M-Farm was just picked by the by the infodev a subsidiary of the World Bank, as Top 20 SME in the world during the 4th Global Forum on Innovation&Entrepreneurship in Helsinki, Finland.

IPO48 is not only about helping the startup, it’s also about exposing the great opportunities there are in Africa that seldom get coverage in the Western media. Here Africa is mostly portrayed as a charity case. But by getting mentors from Europe and the US to come an attend the IPO48, also getting hundreds of online mentors to help the team online via the IPO48 software platform - guaranteeing that a different message is spread.

Last year´s winner M-Farm has become an excellent representative for Kenya as a country. They are the human face and voice of the New Africa – a place to invest and do business, not just a continent in need of charity.

“Kenyan entrepreneurs have great passion and spirit, with access to mentorship and network and a bit of money they will be on the road to success and in the process creating prosperity for all kenyans, “ concludes David Owino, co-founder of HumanIPO Africa.

About IPO48:

IPO48 is an event made by HumanIPO and has already taken place in Nairobi (Kenya), Prague (Czech Republic) and will go to Copenhagen (Denmark) after the 2nd edition in Nairobi. HumanIPO is a social media platform that aims at accelerating entrepreneurship by connecting entrepreneurs to professionals, co-founders, employees and angel investors. It was founded by Danish serial entrepreneur Kresten Buch and David Owino former COO of Kenya Data network,

now Executive Director at The BCS Group Limited

By: Tosh

22-06-2011

Community Creatives Events iHub iHub-Research

R@iHub Workshop: Designing 101

The research arm of the iHub presents to you Designing for the Users, Making Technology work for the day to day man. These will be a series of workshops to be held at the iHub by a number of reputable designers. On Friday 24th, Susan Wyche presents Design 101, what it means to design for the user, on July 1st Andrew Maunder presents The Design Research.

In attendance will be members of Frog Design to answer your questions .

Susan Wyche is a Computing Innovation Fellow (CI Fellow) at Virginia Tech’s Center for Human-Computer Interaction. Her research focuses on human-computer interaction, design and cultural studies of technology. In her dissertation, Wyche used religion as a lens to understand how alternative worldviews can inform design. She has explored how Muslims in Atlanta, Charismatic Pentecostals in São Paulo, and Protestant Christians in Nairobi, use mobile phones, computers, and the Internet to support their religious practices. Each study has resulted in a publication at top-tier conference in her field, multiple design concepts, and in one case, a mobile phone application available for download at Apple Inc.’s “App Store.”

Prior to coming to Virginia Tech, Wyche received her PhD in Human-Centered Computing from the Georgia Institute of Technology, her master’s degree from Cornell University and her undergraduate degree in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to her academic pursuits, Wyche has professional design experience, most notably working at Libbey Inc. designing glassware and as a design researcher for S.C. Johnson Inc. She has also worked as a research intern at Microsoft Research, Cambridge (U.K.) and Intel Labs (Berkeley).

Andrew Maunder

“Andrew (29) is a user experience researcher, designer and strategist. Over the past six years he has used various user-centric design techniques to create valuable and usable mobile and Web experiences. Much of that time was spent working on his PhD thesis titled ‘Designing Appropriate Technologies‘. It explored ways of designing mobile services that are appropriate for technologically and financially poor communities in South Africa.

His work culminated in several international publications, most notably a full publication in the International Journal of Human Computer Studies and a US patent which was filed in collaboration with Richard Harper from Microsoft Research and Prof. Gary Marsden from UCT. Both described a mobile media sharing platform which provided feature phone users with ‘free’ access to rich Web content (YouTube & Flickr).

Following his studies, Andrew took up a position as user experience (UX) architect at MXit Lifestyle where he was charged with improving the user experience of MXit’s mobile offering and facilitating user centric design company wide. In early 2010, Andrew moved to Flow Interactive to work as a UX consultant under the guidance of Philip Barrett (director of Flow Interactive London). He currently designs interactive mobile services for international clients and assists them in developing appropriate user experiences and the supporting business models.”

Also Bob Ryskamp who has been a Designer at Google for 8 years will give an overview of user experience design and talk about how we do it at Google the following week, Friday 5pm July 1st at the iHub. He will be hoping to lead a discussion about what techniques and strategies work well for designers in Nairobi.

Kindly RSVP separately here to attend these two events

By: Tosh

21-06-2011

Applications Community Events

iOS Developer Session

iOS Developer Session at iHub on Wednesday, June 22 starting at 6pm.

Dale Zak, the mobile software developer that created the Ushahidi iPhone and iPad app will be hosting a developer session for anyone interested in iOS. The session will walk through using XCode and Interface Builder to build a universal binary that runs on iTouch, iPhone and iPad devices. This first session is meant to be an introduction allowing participants to ask questions and get hands-on experience creating their first iOS application.

Note, OSX with the iOS SDK is required to build your own application however those without are still welcome to participate in the conversation.

Click Here to Register for Tomorrow