Author: Brand Spot

By Allan Juma, Lead Cyber Security Engineer at ESET Editor’s Note: This article is part of TechArena Executive Insights, a curated series featuring perspectives from industry leaders across Africa’s digital economy. The views expressed are those of the author. Kenya has built a reputation across the continent and the world as a leader in the digital economy. M-PESA not only changed how money moves in this country, it has served as a blueprint for other regions. Today, the dynamic fintech ecosystem and a growing focus on artificial intelligence (AI) have built on this legacy, demonstrating how Kenya leverages technology to drive…

Hybrid cloud security isn’t just getting harder – it’s reaching a breaking point. While security has always been a race without a finish line, Red Hat’s 2026 State of Cloud-Native Security Report reveals that many organizations are now trapped in a cycle of controlled chaos. To break free, teams must move beyond reactive firefighting and anchor their strategy in the foundational security practices and policies that turn security from a bottleneck into a baseline. The reality of cloud-native incidents The report establishes a sobering baseline: security incidents are now a near-universal experience. 97% of organizations reported at least 1 cloud-native security incident in the past year.…

Safaricom has announced that Decode 4.0, its annual engineering summit, will take place from March 31 to April 2, 2026, in Nairobi. The event is expected to bring together developers, engineers, startups, students and industry leaders shaping the next phase of the country’s digital economy. Now in its fourth edition, Decode 4.0 continues to evolve beyond a traditional tech conference into a platform for conversations around infrastructure, platforms and the systems powering modern digital services. This year’s theme is “Made of Kenya” and signals a shift toward highlighting locally built solutions and the growing role of Kenyan talent in shaping…

Cloud computing has fundamentally reshaped how organisations deploy, manage and scale IT infrastructure, replacing rigid, capital-intensive systems with flexible, on-demand services that can expand or contract as business needs evolve. Yet this flexibility has also introduced a new and often underestimated challenge: cost control.  As cloud adoption accelerates, many organisations find themselves paying for resources they don’t use, including oversized instances, idle virtual machines and underutilised storage. Gert Haasbroek, Senior Cloud Architect at leading hybrid ICT systems integrator and digital transformation partner, Datacentrix, notes that effective cloud cost management has become a critical discipline that requires continuous observability, resource optimisation and strategic…

By Lindelani Ramukumba, Chief Information Officer and Interim Chief Digital Officer of Absa Business Banking  Editor’s Note: This article is part of TechArena Executive Insights, a curated series featuring perspectives from industry leaders across Africa’s digital economy. The views expressed are those of the author. Rewind just a few years and large language models and generative artificial intelligence were barely on the public radar, yet the technology has already evolved into its next iteration: agentic AI, a new breed of systems that are semi- or fully autonomous and able to reason and act on their own. And adoption has skyrocketed, particularly…

By Maria Bracho, Chief Technology Officer, Industries, Red Hat  Editor’s Note: This article is part of TechArena Executive Insights, a curated series featuring perspectives from industry leaders across Africa’s digital economy. The views expressed are those of the author. As businesses gather at KubeCon EU 2026, the conversation has shifted from simply adopting the latest technology to driving tangible business outcomes. In my experience working with organizations looking to leapfrog technical debt, the goal is always a practical, scalable solution. Red Hat OpenShift 4.21 provides a unified foundation that helps accelerate AI innovation and simplify infrastructure modernization. OpenShift 4.21 acts as…

By Jyoti Ball, General Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa at Amazon Web Services Editor’s Note: This article is part of TechArena Executive Insights, a curated series featuring perspectives from industry leaders across Africa’s digital economy. The views expressed are those of the author. Generative AI is not just another wave of innovation, it marks a turning point in how knowledge, creativity, and decision-making are shaped. It is fundamentally reinventing how businesses operate at breathtaking speed. What took farming mechanization decades, reducing agricultural workers from one-third of the U.S. workforce to 1 percent, AI is accomplishing in months. Yet despite billions in investment, most…

Prashant Byndoor, BPC Country Manager East Africa Rising transaction volumes, tighter regulation and growing competition are placing new demands on banks and cooperative lenders across Kenya and East Africa, while institutions adapt their payment operations to cope with sustained pressure. These pressures sit on top of very high transaction volumes. Real-time payment systems across Africa now process close to 64 billion transactions with cumulative flows approaching US $2 trillion, according to recent analysis. Banks, cooperative lenders and payment operators are already carrying this volume through their daily operations. Digital transactions sit behind activities such as member savings contributions, loan disbursements, merchant payments,…

Equity Bank has been named Africa’s strongest banking brand and Kenya’s most valuable brand in the latest 2026 rankings by Brand Finance. The bank achieved a Brand Strength Index (BSI) score of 93.9 out of 100, earning an AAA+ rating. This is the highest possible rating and places it among the Top 10 strongest banking brands globally. Equity tops the Kenyan market on brand value with an estimated USD 554 million (KES 71.6 billion). This  is higher than major corporates including Safaricom, which is valued at USD 453 million (KES 58.5 billion). Other top brands include KCB Group, M-Pesa and…

AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, driving digital transformation and sustainability, today announces the appointment of Khaled Salah, 37 years old, as Vice President of Africa. In this new role, he will be responsible for about 30 employees to ensure the successful implementation of AVEVA’s growth strategy. Khaled Salah will report directly to Jesus Hernandez, SVP of the EMEA region. A 15-years + Career Across Different Industries and Domains With a MBA in management from the Warwick business school, UK, and a master’s degree in engineering from Ain Shams university in Egypt, Khaled Salah is an active advocate for…