Author: Kaluka wanjala

Electric vehicle company, Roam, has today unveiled its first electric buses in Kenya. These buses will be targeting the public transport sector in Kenya. The buses called Roam Rapid will have a capacity of 90 passengers accommodating both seating and standing passengers. The buses have a 384-kWh battery that the company says provides a range of 360 Km on a single charge. This will be good for most operations around the city for an entire day on a single charge.  If they run out of charge, Roam says they can be fully charged in less than 2 hours  through DC…

Microsoft has announced the appointment of Phyllis Migwi as its new Country manager for Kenya.  “I am delighted to welcome Phyllis to the Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster team as the new Kenya Country Manager. I am confident that her extensive experience in Technology in Africa will help us scale partner and customer business impact through the value of Microsoft Cloud. As a strong advocate of Africa’s potential, I believe that Phyllis is a critical addition in unlocking the unique opportunities on the continent,”says Wael Elkabbany, Africa Regional Cluster General Manager. She will be taking over from Kendi Nderitu who has…

Koolboks, the sustainable cooling company providing accessible cold storage solutions to businesses across Africa, has closed a $2.5M Seed funding round, led by Aruwa Capital Management and with participation from Acumen, Blue Earth Capital, All On, GSMA and other investors. This brings the company’s total investment to-date to $3.5M. Koolboks will deploy the capital to scale its expansion across Nigeria, including building its team to support its growing B2C business and construction of a local assembly facility in the country. The company also opened an affiliate office in Kenya in July, 2022. Founded in 2018 in France, Koolboks, combines Africa’s…

A few weeks back, we informed you about a company called Roam Electric, that unveiled its electric motorcycles in western Kenya. The company hopes to capitalize on the current trend that has seen the adoption of electric vehicles in Kenya. We are still not there but we will get to levels seen in other countries soon.  To make it easier for interested individuals to acquire the Roam motorcycles, the company has announced a new partnership with with M-KOPA to deliver a fleet of motorcycles by the end of 2022.  According to Roam, partnership with a company like M-KOPA can help…

Last week, Samsung officially unveiled its latest foldable devices, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4. These phones will be available in Kenya later this year.  When available in retail stores, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 will be available for Ksh 256,000. This is not cheap by any standards for a smartphone and it will be interesting to see the market reception.  The smartphones will be available on Preorder from 11th August to 31st August. The pre order offers include; Galaxy Z Fold 4 comes with Phone Cover, S-Pen, Samsung Care Plus, 24-month Warranty. …

With the confirmation by the IEBC that William Ruto will be the next president of Kenya, it is time we look at the promises his party made during the campaign period. These are some of the promises made around the tech and digital ecosystem in the party’s manifesto.  Universal Broadband availability – UDA promised to increase and fast-track broadband connectivity across Kenya within five years. Key plan is to have over 100,000 Km of national fiber optic connectivity network. Kenya already has good connectivity but there is still more to be done to connect those in rural areas.  Digitize government…

If you have the Nokia G20, you should be happy to know that Android 12 is finally available for your phone. The update started rolling out to other markets back in June and some users in Kenya got it last month but I have just received the notification to update the phone this week.  The Android 12 update size for the Nokia G20 is 2.02 GB and build number is V2.360. Android 12 brings a number of UI improvements and features. Some of these include: Ability to take extended screenshots – This lets you capture beyond what you see on…

WhatsApp is making some changes to its privacy features. The company plans to make it easier for people to leave WhatsApp groups without broadcasting that to other members. This has been one of the features of WhatsApp groups that has never made sense to me. With the upcoming changes, WhatsApp says only group administrators will be notified if a user leaves a group. The changes should be implemented in the coming weeks or months. This is much better but I don’t think there should be any notification when someone leaves a group. There are groups you are added to and…

Samsung is set to hold the August Galaxy Unpacked event tomorrow (August 10). The company is set to unveil the next Foldable devices, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4. These devices will come about a year since their predecessors, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3. In addition to the Foldable devices, the company is also expected to unveil the Galaxy Watch 5 and probably the new Galaxy Buds.  Samsung has confirmed the Foldable devices will be unveild but has not shared any details so far. We have even shared some teaser images…

Virtual Pay International Limited is pleased to announce that it has been granted authorization as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) to carry out Payment Gateway Services in compliance with the National Payment System (NPS) Act, 2011, NPS Regulations 2014. This license allows Virtual Pay to offer its payment processing services to merchants, local and international. Our objective is to play a pivotal role in the growth of the financial sector, contributing to the growth of the economy at large. As is our practice, we purpose to collaborate with all sector players in the market, namely, banks, non-bank financial institutions, major…