Author: Kaluka wanjala

Safaricom has rescheduled its planned system maintenance that was to happen today to a later unspecified date. The planned maintenance was set to take place tonight from 11pm to 4am tomorrow (Monday, 15th July). During the maintenance period, access to services such as Lipa na M-Pesa, Paybill and Buy Goods services, international Money transfer, M-Pesa Global as well as M-Pesa app and mySafaricom app would have been limited. Some of the services that would not have been affected include calls, data, SMS and all other M-Pesa services. Safaricom says it has canceled the planned maintenance partly as a result of…

Huawei has announced the launch of its Huawei Cloud Stack 8.3 offering to accelerate industry intelligence for Africa.  The launch of the offering was announced at the Huawei Africa Connect 2024 conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. In a keynote speech titled, “Leap to Cloud to Accelerate Industrial Intelligence”, HuYuhai, Vice President of Huawei Hybrid Cloud., said how Huawei Cloud Stack provides trusted cloud infrastructure, innovative cloud service abilities and extensive industry know-how to help governments and enterprise customers in Africa accelerate cloud adoption. “Huawei Cloud strives to be the preferred cloud for intelligent transformation,” said Hu. As per our mission statement…

Right after Kenya’s president, William Ruto dismissed all his cabinet secretaries, State House swiftly removed all of them from the president.go.ke website. Even though this was expected, the speed at which they were removed from the website was unexpected. The only 4 individuals left on the site are the President, Deputy President, Prime Cabinet Secretary and Secretary to be Cabinet. President William Ruto yesterday fired all Cabinet Secretaries and Attorney General yesterday afternoon. He said he came to this conclusion after “reflection, listening keenly to what the people of Kenya have said.” He went ahead to say this decision was…

Kenyan university educators are calling for an urgent review of existing infrastructure within higher education institutions to allow for the seamless integration of artificial intelligence in classrooms and research. This was a key takeaway from a workshop organised by the Microsoft Africa Development Centre (ADC) in collaboration with the Kenya Education Network (KENET) to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve teaching, learning, and research in higher education. Speaking at the event, Microsoft ADC Managing Director Catherine Muraga emphasised the importance of AI in the evolving classroom landscape and presented private-private and public-private partnerships as a key way…

Binance has announced the launch of its global campaign ‘Be Binance’ to celebrate the company’s seventh anniversary. The milestone’s celebrations will be shared with over 200 million users worldwide. “‘Be Binance’ is a celebration of our community’s incredible support over seven remarkable years,” says Rachel Conlan, Chief Marketing Officer at Binance. “Through determination, curiosity, and responsibility, we’ve faced challenges and reaped rewards, thanks to our 200 million users. As we journey toward financial freedom, we stay true to our values — humility, kindness, collaboration, and gratitude. Thank you to your community for believing in Binance.” The ‘Be Binance’ campaign features…

Huawei Africa Connect 2024 Sub-Saharan Africa kicked off at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, with attending Huawei senior leaders declaring a new era for the enterprise-focused annual event. Previously called Huawei Eco Connect, this year’s edition reaffirmed the company’s commitment to sub-Saharan Africa and providing innovative solutions to partners in these markets. Opening the event, David Wang, Executive Director of the Board and Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure Managing Board for Huawei, commented that it was exciting to see so many governments and businesses in the region racing to go digital and many pioneers were already deploying intelligent…

Samsung has this evening unveiled its next-gen foldables, the Galaxy Z Fold6 and Galaxy Z Flip6. These are the successors to the Samsung foldables from 2023. Just like the S24 series from earlier this year, Galaxy AI tooK centre stage at the launch of these new smartphones from Samsung. Both the Fold6 and Flip6 are available on pre-order in Kenya from today till 31st July. The phones will be available for Ksh 148,000 for the Flip6 and Ksh 264,000 for the Fold6. Having interacted with both devices for a few minutes, I am impressed with the build quality. They feel…

Innovate Africa has launched with an initial $2.5 million rollout. Co-founded by Kristin Wilson and Christian Idiodi, the sector-agnostic fund aims to support up to 20 startups in its first year to solve complex, recognised problems such as insecurity, unemployment, and poverty with purpose-driven technology. Since 2019, the African funding landscape has witnessed positive growth, with disclosed exits surpassing $2.3 billion – representing a significant 13.4% of the total $17.2 billion raised by African startups. Despite this growth, early-stage founders face challenges navigating the path from ideation to market fit. The persistent lack of early-stage funding further compounds these difficulties,…

Redington has announced a strategic distribution partnership with Vertiv to empower channel partners across Africa to leverage the transformative potential of Vertiv’s technology and expand its reseller network. The partnership leverages Redington’s established presence and expertise in emerging markets, particularly in data centre transformation and artificial intelligence (AI), alongside Vertiv’s industry-leading power and cooling technology, resources, and over 50 years of experience in critical infrastructure services. This powerful combination will unlock new opportunities for Vertiv to extend its reach within the regional channel market. The distributor’s comprehensive reach across Africa, coupled with its strong in-house services team, will provide additional value to…

Tanzanian-born fintech, Nala, has announced that it has raised $40 million in a series A funding round led by Acrew Capital with the participation of DST Global, Norrsken22, and HOF Capital. Nala allows individuals in UK, US and EU to send money to 249 banks and 26 mobile money services in 11 African countries. The startup initially offered local money transfers in Tanzania before pivoting to offering foreign remittances in 2021. According to the company’s founder and CEO Benjamin Fernandes, the funding will be used to accelerate Nala’s ambitions by building two things: He added, “This $40 million funding round…