May 2013 - KICTANet

NGO moves to court to stop free laptop for schools project
by Grace Githaiga 30 May '13

30 May '13

A lobby group has moved to court to stop the government from issuing laptops to pupils joining class one in all public schools claiming the gadgets will cause harm to the environment. Green Hand Organization ( GHO) raised concern that if the programme is implemented at once, the right to clean and healthy environmentenshrined in the constitution will be threatened. http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000084818&story_title=green-hand…

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Re: [kictanet] 6, 000 primary schools picked for free laptop project
by Cleophas Barmasai 30 May '13

30 May '13

But we forget that promises must be kept. Time is ticking and 100 days is such a short time. Jubilee must work at a plan somehow. Cleophas dmakali(a)yahoo.com wrote: This project is fraught with too many challenges and the jubilee admin should not proceed as if its survival and life depends on it. A radical decision needs to be made otherwise it will turn out to be its greatest undoing, and a political weapon. There is urgent need for a reality check. If it was left to me, I would bury it overnight. Damn the political consequences. Reason must prevail over populism and sentimentalism. How many more urgent neeeds are there to fix our primary education - frm teachers to classrooms and basic things before you climb up the technology ladder? Elementary things first. Let's equip all secondary schools with computer labs before we escalate that to primary schools in the next phase (5yrs down the road) Makali Sent from my BlackBerry® -----Original Message----- From: Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack(a)gmail.com> Sender: "kictanet" <kictanet-bounces+dmakali=yahoo.com(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 12:01:03 To: <dmakali(a)yahoo.com> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] 6, 000 primary schools picked for free laptop project _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/dmakali%40yahoo.com The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/cbarmasai%40gmail.com The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.

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Open Data Initiative being frustrated, says Matiang’i - Business_News - nation.co.ke
by S.M. Muraya 30 May '13

30 May '13

http://www.nation.co.ke/business/news/Open-Data-Initiative-being-frustrated…

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Connected Summit highly sponsored by International tech giants
by Rebecca Wanjiku 30 May '13

30 May '13

This week, the talk is about Connected Kenya Summit. There are more than 400 private and public sector folks to discuss ways to improve Kenya. The summit has cost more than Ksh 50 million. The ICT Board may not have raised the whole amount, maybe less than sh 8 million. The majority of the money is from sponsors. Look at the link on sponsors page of Connected Kenya, what do you see? These are mostly international companies? How do they make money? Read more...... http://www.wanjiku.co.ke/2013/05/kenyas-connected-summit-heavily-funded-by-…

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Chipuka for smartphone users
by robert yawe 30 May '13

30 May '13

Hi, A leaked memo from the Kenya ICT Board indicates that they are at an advanced stage of launching a certification program for smart phone users, this has been necessitated by complaints emanating from telephone companies sent to CCK about users who send emails to the wrong people, leave their Bluetooth on which result in drained batteries and forgetting to turn off 3G streams thereby exhausting their data bundles. The source of this leak cannot be published so as to protect their identity and also because they are not mandated to make statements on behalf of the organisation, in a related issue the Governors Steering Committee on Revenue Collection has proposed that the Chipuka Smartphone Users course be a mandatory certification that all seen carrying a smartphone must get, they intend to introduce a bylaw to enforce this and a fine of not less than 5,000/- be charged to anyone found using a smartphone without the certification. On a less serious note, the government intends to spend 22 billion to acquire and role out 425,000 laptops where 28,000/- will be spend on the laptop itself and 23,750/- used to support each laptop which will include the training of 50 youths to develop content for the laptops. There is yet no budget for training of teachers but the amount includes purchase of solar panels at 20,000/- each, to reduce costs it has been proposed that each panel be shared between 2 laptops (Samsung laptop has built in solar panel). How many of you lister's, including the laggards, has a certification for using a smartphone? The cabinet secretary responsible for Information, Communication, and Technology should urgently provide technical assistance to the cabinet secretary for Education before he turns this noble project into the largest scandal the country has ever seen. Regards PS. How can we participate in making sure that this initiative meets its objective? Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696

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Connected KE: Kenyan Tech companies seek more involvement in govt projects
by Rebecca Wanjiku 29 May '13

29 May '13

For the last five years, there has been a common chorus among local tech companies; they want more of the large government contracts. We all want a piece of that large cake. Most of the money spent on government tech projects has gone to large corporations like Oracle, SAP, IBM etc. With the big budgetary requirements, many companies are locked out of these projects. The talk of technology transfer has been on for so long but the international companies just set up local branches, poach the guys from the local companies and move on. Its a competitive environment and the options look minimal. Read more....... http://www.wanjiku.co.ke/2013/05/kenyan-tech-companies-seek-more-involvemen…

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Re: [kictanet] IEBC Voting Day Technical Audit
by Walubengo J 29 May '13

29 May '13

@Mwangi, Two things. 1. IEBC cannot purpot to audit themselves. Same thing as cops trying to investigate themselves - they will try to cover their xyz. 2. I think it would be some unnecessary distraction at this moment in time to do an independent audit. My take is that we have some independent audit much later - say a year before the next election as a way of "lessons learnt" rather than now where the audit action maybe misinterprated to mean "whom do we blame". In such circumstances, IEBC officials will naturally be protective rather than facilitative. walu. ------------------------------ On Tue, May 28, 2013 8:46 PM AST (Arabian) Mark Mwangi wrote: >Listers, > >Now that the elections are long over and nation building is ongoing, is >there an Audit being prepared by the IEBC to explain exactly what happened. >If there is none then why not? > >Are we to accept that the billions spent are gone and accept the results of >the wastage? > >-- >Regards, > >Mark Mwangi > >markmwangi.me.ke

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Kenyan Tech companies seek moreinvolvement in govt projects (Rebecca Wanjiku)
by etinickm＠yahoo.com 29 May '13

29 May '13

Listening to the conversation at Connected Kenya 2013 Summit, Smaller Kenyan ICT Firms are find it hard to access capital for growth. Funding is largley from friends and family. How then can they compete with Multinationals. The Government could create a procurement quota system for local firms. Etinick Mutinda ICDL Sent from my BlackBerry® -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke Sender: "kictanet" <kictanet-bounces+etinickm=yahoo.com(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 15:25:10 To: Etinick Mutinda<etinickm(a)yahoo.com> Reply-To: kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke Subject: kictanet Digest, Vol 72, Issue 108 Send kictanet mailing list submissions to kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke You can reach the person managing the list at kictanet-owner(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of kictanet digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Connected KE: Kenyan Tech companies seek more involvement in govt projects (Rebecca Wanjiku) 2. Re: Connected KE: Kenyan Tech companies seek more involvement in govt projects (Conrad Akunga) 3. Re: IEBC Voting Day Technical Audit (Daniel Mbugua) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 03:25:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Rebecca Wanjiku <rebeccawanjiku(a)yahoo.com> To: Kenya ICT Policy - kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: [kictanet] Connected KE: Kenyan Tech companies seek more involvement in govt projects Message-ID: <1369823110.97449.YahooMailNeo(a)web162703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" For the last five years, there has been a common chorus among local tech companies; they want more of the large government contracts. We all want a piece of that large cake. Most of the money spent on government tech projects has gone to large corporations like Oracle, SAP, IBM etc. With the big budgetary requirements, many companies are locked out of these projects. The talk of technology transfer has been on for so long but the international companies just set up local branches, poach the guys from the local companies and move on. Its a competitive environment and the options look minimal. Read more....... ? http://www.wanjiku.co.ke/2013/05/kenyan-tech-companies-seek-more-involvemen… -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20130529/5c5a0d…> ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 05:12:10 -0700 (PDT) From: "Conrad Akunga" <conradakunga(a)gmail.com> To: "Rebecca Wanjiku" <rebeccawanjiku(a)yahoo.com> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Connected KE: Kenyan Tech companies seek more involvement in govt projects Message-ID: <1369829529596.d51482b@Nodemailer> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" If local companies are as good as they fondly believe to be, why should they want preferential treatment? ?I would think a more robust solution is for unnecessary barriers to entry like "10 million turnover" and "8 years audited accounts" be removed so that everyone competes on a level playing field. ?Mediocrity lies at the end of any road when any criteria other than A Game is considered.? ? On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Rebecca Wanjiku <rebeccawanjiku(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > For the last five years, there has been a common chorus among local tech companies; they want more of the large government contracts. We all want a piece of that large cake. > Most of the money spent on government tech projects has gone to large corporations like Oracle, SAP, IBM etc. With the big budgetary requirements, many companies are locked out of these projects. > The talk of technology transfer has been on for so long but the international companies just set up local branches, poach the guys from the local companies and move on. Its a competitive environment and the options look minimal. > Read more....... > ? > http://www.wanjiku.co.ke/2013/05/kenyan-tech-companies-seek-more-involvemen… -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20130529/c15efd…> ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 15:26:18 +0300 From: Daniel Mbugua <danjuguna2(a)gmail.com> To: Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt(a)ratio-magazine.com> Cc: "kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke" <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] IEBC Voting Day Technical Audit Message-ID: <CANR1Hf_JCp=K7miN9DPCG2zmY6jeh_E5VBruONGVET5eK9x3vg(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Ali +1 On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 10:56 AM, Andrea Bohnstedt < andrea.bohnstedt(a)ratio-magazine.com> wrote: > The longer you wait with an audit, the more difficult it will be to do > (never mind the whole 'accepting and moving on' propaganda). And if you > wait until a year before the next election, you deliberately cut down the > time you have to fix anything. > > On 29 May 2013 08:39, Ali Hussein <ali(a)hussein.me.ke> wrote: > >> Walu >> >> I respectfully disagree. >> >> The Emperor was found to be naked. So let the emperor be cleansed and new >> clothes provided to ensure that going forward no one can claim that the >> emperor was naked when he wasn't. And we need not wait for a year before >> the elections. This needs to be done now and tested in the myriad of by >> elections that are inevitable through petitions etc. >> >> This country must live up to its hype of being the ICT Hub for Africa. >> >> The IEBC needs to be cleansed. This wasn't an issue of technology failing >> but the leadership failing. An audit need not stop at IT Systems as in my >> humble opinion that is a red herring. >> >> My two cowrie shells. >> >> Ali Hussein >> CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd >> Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd >> >> +254 713 601113 >> >> "The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb >> >> Sent from my iPad >> >> On May 29, 2013, at 8:19 AM, Walubengo J <jwalu(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> >> >> @Mwangi, >> >> Two things. >> >> 1. IEBC cannot purpot to audit themselves. Same thing as cops trying to >> investigate themselves - they will try to cover their xyz. >> 2. I think it would be some unnecessary distraction at this moment in >> time to do an independent audit. >> >> My take is that we have some independent audit much later - say a year >> before the next election as a way of "lessons learnt" rather than now where >> the audit action maybe misinterprated to mean "whom do we blame". In such >> circumstances, IEBC officials will naturally be protective rather than >> facilitative. >> >> walu. >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> On Tue, May 28, 2013 8:46 PM AST (Arabian) Mark Mwangi wrote: >> >> Listers, >> >> >> Now that the elections are long over and nation building is ongoing, is >> >> there an Audit being prepared by the IEBC to explain exactly what >> happened. >> >> If there is none then why not? >> >> >> Are we to accept that the billions spent are gone and accept the results >> of >> >> the wastage? >> >> >> -- >> >> Regards, >> >> >> Mark Mwangi >> >> >> markmwangi.me.ke >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> kictanet mailing list >> kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke >> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet >> >> Unsubscribe or change your options at >> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/info%40alyhussein.com >> >> >> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform >> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and >> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT >> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. >> >> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors >> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, >> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do >> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> kictanet mailing list >> kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke >> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet >> >> Unsubscribe or change your options at >> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/andrea.bohnstedt%40ra… >> >> >> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform >> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and >> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT >> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. >> >> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors >> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, >> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do >> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. >> > > > > -- > Andrea Bohnstedt <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/andreabohnstedt> > Publisher > > www.ratio-magazine.com > www.africa-assets.com > > > > > _______________________________________________ > kictanet mailing list > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > > Unsubscribe or change your options at > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/danjuguna2%40gmail.com > > The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform > for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and > regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT > sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. > > KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors > online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, > share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do > not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. > -- Kind Regards, Daniel Mbugua. Software Engineer Cellulant Kenya. Mobile No: 254-726-806777 * * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Connected KE what would you like to change?
by Rebecca Wanjiku 29 May '13

29 May '13

I have been listening to sessions and I must confess that I am a bit underwhelmed by the quality of the discussions, yes, its a talkshop but I think its time the format needs a bit of changes and jiggling. Currently, sessions take place at one big hall and the level of interaction is not that high, yesterday morning sessions did not take questions from the participants but later on they did. Read more... http://www.wanjiku.co.ke/2013/05/connected-kenya-reforming-the-talkshop/

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Devolution to hinder digital migration
by robert yawe 29 May '13

29 May '13

Hi Listers, A statement by the Governor of Muranga county is concerning, he says the county is to put up its own TV and Radio station, if they install an analogue system and the other counties do the same then what is the fate of the digital migration deadline? The entire process will have no effect if only the 48th county (National Government, which is virtual) decides to implement the requirements of the migration. However much we keep talking about the international migration deadline how do we shutoff a station that is still transmitting in analogue? Unlike an migration say to IPv6 which can be effected worldwide the same is not possible with TV broadcast signals. With the issues of autonomy being propagated by the governors, it will only be a matter of time before they declare frequencies allocation and operations a devolved function. Regards Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696

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