Monthly Archives: May 2013

Idea Exchange: CarnegieMellon, DABRA, PivotEast, ResearchGrants, TED, Apps

New, ongoing, and concluded opportunities


Africa App Quest is a search for Africa’s top travel app in which developers will compete for a top prize $10,000 by building home-grown travel apps, specially designed for the tourism sector in Africa. It is sponsored by Visa and South African Tourism, the application rules are here, and the deadline (D/L) is 16 August. 

Airbus: Vote for the Team Aero Bamboo Engineering (Team A.B.E.) from the University of Nairobi,  in the  Fly Your Ideas contest where their project which engineers bamboo for aircraft cabin materials in competing against four other ideas shortlisted from 618 entries from 82 countries. Votes are open till June 3.

Art Moves Africa: AMA supports mobility of artists and cultural professionals within the African continent by paying for their costs of travel, visas and travel insurance. Performers in visual arts, music, cinema, literature and cultural advocacy are eligible, and the next deadline is 1 September for travel planned after 27 October.

For Carnegie Mellon University students interested in pursuing M.S. in Information Technology degrees in Rwanda, the Rwandan Government has scholarships for qualified students from the East African Community that cover 50% of the tuition fee and, for citizens of Rwanda there is an additional study loan to cover the remaining 50% of the tuition, plus living expenses if needed.

Connected Kenya: The Innovation Awards at the Connected Kenya Summit provide a platform to showcase Kenyan companies that are contributing to improving productivity and efficiency in the country through ICT innovation. For 2013, the awards are sponsored by Google and the deadline for applications is May 19 – apply here. 

Diageo: The Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards 2013 a.k.a DABRA‘s finalists were announced this week and the short-listed pieces include stories like;
  • Africa’s healthcare technology revolution
  • Barry Bateman and Oscar Pistorius: Inside the Twitter explosion
  • Ivory Coast’s Women Reject Equality in Household Law Debate
  • Mozambique – Coal, gas: boom for all or just a few?
  • Revisiting Tinapa
  • Malawi: Beautiful Destination with limping tourism
  • The Chinese loan conundrum: Who is benefitting from Zambia’s phantom growth in construction?
GAIN: The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition invites public and private entrepreneurs to partner with to improve nutrition in Africa and selected innovations will receive business advice, technical assistance, and funding.

Google: Doodle 4 Google competition is open to students aged between 6 and 18 years to draw on themes of ‘My Kenya’ to celebrate Kenya’s 50 years of independence. The winner will get ~$9,400 worth of school fees, as well as a similar amount as a technology equipment grant for his/her school and will have their doodle displayed on the Google Kenya homepage. An Android tablet device will be the prize for the teacher involved and D/L is June 14

GSK: Trust In Science Africa invites high quality African (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) medical researchers to submit proposals for collaboration and funding. The maximum grant duration is 3 years and the maximum amount of funding is $100,000 with a D/L of 31 May.

Kofi Annan Fellowship for outstanding students from developing countries provides the opportunity for 3 student from developing countries to study management at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin and graduate with an MBA. The value of the fellowship is € 58,000, other details are here, and the D/L is 30 September. 

Nairobi Securities Exchange: The Investment Challenge 2013  is an online simulation of live trading targeting Kenyan youth who are in universities, technical institutions and other post secondary colleges in which where groups are given (virtual) capital to invest over 3 months to see who ends up with the highest value portfolio. Prizes may internships at NSE partner organizations.

Orange: The African Social Venture Prize promotes social innovations in support of development that use ICT. In addition to prize money ranging from €10,000 to €25,000, three winners will also receive support from professional entrepreneurs and ICT experts for a period of six months. D/L September 20.

Pivot East: The semifinalists in the 2013 Pivot East contest have been announced, and some of the selected apps include:
  • ChamaPesa (gives investment groups a way to pool savings and invest in diverse instruments)
  • Inforex (enables foreign exchange trading between Forex bureaus)
  • EZsacco (allows savings societies to receive mobile payments, generate reports, and send members statements by SMS)
  • Juakali (a service that links informal sector workers with potential clients)
  • Smart Blackboard (gives students  1-on-1 interactive tutorials with real teachers, without the need for access to the internet)
  • iDaktari (information management system for doctors with private practice)
  • Kyatabu (a micro-leasing textbook subscription application)
  • CancerBank (mobile app that makes for easier self diagnosis, early detection, triage and treatment of cancer)
  • GreenHouse Pro (a  guide for green house farmers to cultivate six different crops)
  • Ma3Route (crowd-sources up-to-date traffic & transport information)
TED: TED Prize is an annual $1 million prize that is awarded to an extraordinary individual with a creative and bold vision to spark global change. D/L 1 June.

Safaricom: AppWiz challenge targets new mobile application developers in Kenya with the aim of equipping participants with entrepreneurial & technological skills, to launch apps into the market that cover agriculture, health, financial inclusion, education games, utilities, safety etc. D/L 28 June.

Wellcome Trust: International Engagement Awards support health research projects with grants of up to £30,000, and is open to media professionals, educators, science communicators, health professionals and researchers in bioscience, health, bioethics and history. D/L 19 August.

EDIT


$1M Grant to Fund  Storytelling on African Issues will offer African journalists reporting grants to support investigative, multimedia and data-driven stories that aim to improve health and prosperity across the continent. The African Story Challenge is a project of the  African Media Initiative   (AMI), will award approximately 100 reporting grants for stories on development issues. Details here.


88mph is accepting applications for its next three month programme in Nairobi, Kenya, with investments of up to US$100,000 available – details here and D/L is July 15 


Africa Small Research Grant Competition: The Review of African Political Economyhas an African Political Economy Research Grants competition for African scholars/activists based in Africa and pursuing a political economy agenda. D/L is 31 July and details are here.
Austrian Embassyin Nairobi has an Artist in Residence Programme 2014 that makes available 50 residencies in Vienna for the year 201 to artists, curators, writers, composers, art educators. More details here. 
BlackBerry Scholars Program aims to encourage women in Kenya (and the world) to enter and develop careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)and will provide scholarships to outstanding applicants who are seeking degrees at accredited local colleges and universities in the areas of STEM across Kenya. Application deadline is June 26 and more details are here

Ericsson Global Hack for Goodis a chance for Kenyan mobile application developers to unite refugee families separated from each other by conflict, war and disaster. Details here
FIRE – Fund for Internet Research and Education (FIRE) Programme Awardsaim to encourage innovation and find creative, accessible and acceptable solutions to Africa’s ICT challenges. Grant awards of up to $3,000 are available in categories of innovation on access provision, E-development, freedom of expression and a Community Choice Award category for the best social media campaign. D/L is 31 May and details are here. 
Georgetown UniversityMaster of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) launches New Africa Scholarship as a full- tuition scholarship for a talented graduate student from sub-Saharan Africa. D/L is January 15, 2014 and details are  here .
German Media Development Awards: The People’s Choice Award for human rights photography recognizes African photojournalists who inspire and change perceptions of life in Africa through the power of photographic storytelling. D/L is May 31
L’OREAL-UNESCO Regional FellowshipsWomen scientists who are nationals or permanent residents of any country in Sub-Saharan Africa can apply for the fellowships to assist them attain PhD degrees in all fields of science. Ten fellowships to the value of Euro 15,000 will be awarded. D/L is 30 June and details here. 
Scientists Without Borders and The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are offering $7,500 to the winning student in a dairy data management challenge. Details here.

TED:  Apply to be a TED Fellow 2014. D/L is June 21.


VC4Africa provides an opportunity for a select number of VC4Africa registered ventures to raise capital through the VC4Africa investor network – details  here and D/L is June 12 


Wordcamp Kenyais looking for speakers who are involved in digital marketing or bloggers in tourism to speak at the event in September 2013. Details here.

Shares Portfolio May 2013

Performance: Compared to last quarter and year ago, the portfolio is up 9% in value from February (excluding new investments), while the NSE 20 share index is up is up 7.5% since February 2013.
The Stable
Barclays ↑
Bralirwa (Rwanda) ↑
Centum  (ICDCI) ↑
Diamond Trust ↑
East African Portland Cement ↓
Equity Bank ↑
KCB ↑
Kenol ↓
Safaricom ↑
Scangroup ↓
Stanbic (Uganda) ↑
Unga ↑
Changes
In: Centum, Portland Cement
Out: Total, EABL
Increase: Equity, Kenol, Safaricom
Decrease: None
Best performer: Safaricom (up 30%), Equity, Stanbic  
Worst performer: Kenol (down 29%)

Looking forward to:

– Dividends from Equity, Barclays, KCB, Scangroup, Bralirwa and Safaricom.
– Coldtusker writes about upcoming rights issues at the NSE including Uchumi and National Bank. 
– Still yet to venture into Kenya government treasury bonds a year later.

Other Events:

– Access Kenya is being bought out by Dimension Data and will be de-listed from the Nairobi stock exchange – pending regulatory approval, shareholder approval, and no better offers.
– Citi released bearish reports during the Kenya election on Equity and KCB based on unsustainable interest rates, and growing non performing loans, among other issues in the Kenyan banking sector. 
– Citi also had a report on Kenya Airways predicting two more years of losses, difficulty financing Boeing 787 planes without raising more capital, that is probably beyond the appetite of current KQ shareholders and other NSE investors. It mentioned the possibility of Etihad Airways extending their new code share partnership into an investment in KQ, but the airline has to remain 51% Kenyan owned in order to enjoy preferential African route rights. Other large shareholders in the airline are teh Government of Kenya, KLM airline, and the International Finance Corporation.
– The Safaricom 2013 results (PDF) results released this morning showed that revenue grew by 16% to $1.45 billion (including MPesa revenue of $256 million) and profit before tax grew 47% to $300 million. 
– Umeme of Uganda which cross-listed at the NSE has still not had a trade in Kenya despite some okay performance in the last few months.

Cashless Bus Payments from Google & Equity Bank

Someone said that a matatu owner is the seventh or eighth person to get paid at the end of a busy day, only getting residual cash after the driver, turn boy, tout, tax man, council person, policeman, and sometimes the driver’s girlfriend have taken their cut. But on Tuesday, April 30, Google and Equity Bank unveiled BebaPay, a cashless way for commuters to pay for transport in buses in Kenya – and which propels owners right to the front of that queue.

The transport sector has many challenges and is known for some unpleasant habits like reckless driving, price hikes when it rains, bribing traffic police, ill-treatment of passengers, having unroadworthy vehicles etc. – but some investors who purchase the vehicles that can cost an average of Kshs. 4 million ($47,000) believe that a common thread behind these habits is the amount of liquid money that the sector generates and which is easily diverted to make many payments, even illegal ones.

BebaPay enables commuters to pay their fares by using a card, which is then tapped to a phone in the bus enabling exact payments (even small ones like Kshs 20 [~$0.25] to be deducted from the user’s card and uploaded into the owner’s accounts that are at Equity Bank.

Currently, many owners only get to know how much money they have earned at the end of the day, but with BebaPay they are able to monitor their cash receipts online or via Equity banks’ mobile phone platform – Eazzy247.

Another feature is that users who purchase & register cards will get SMS notifications each time the cards are used – and this can be useful for parents who send their kids to from school on public transport to track when and where their kids pay for transport using the card. Also, users can send money to people on buses to pay for transport, and the system will also link with M-pesa which is ubiquitous in Kenya.

Obtaining a free BebaPay card takes about 20 minutes at an Equity bank agent – this is to enable them to take down ID and Gmail details (even create a new one), and to create a BebaPay account in which a commuter inputs a password. This enables one to get an SMS notification each time the card is topped up and to monitor their card activity online.

Other Comments at the Launch

  • The Chairman of the Matatu Owner’s Association said he expects some resistance to the changes. He also called on the government to institute training for people who work in the sector and for legislation to eliminate cash payments for transport.
  • One vehicle owner said that gangs run bus stages in downtown Nairobi and have to get paid daily before a bus is allowed to stop & pick passengers.
  • The Equity Bank CEO said the public transport sector is the bigger consumer of notes & coins and that handling all that cash comes with costs & risks that can be eliminated with BebaPay.
  • The Deputy President of Kenya said cash-less payments that go directly into business people’s accounts will enable banks to lend based on cash flow, rather than collateral.
  • The two permanent secretaries (who currently double as acting ministers) both revealed their past unsuccessful attempts to invest in the matatu business.
  • The Nairobi Governor said that the government will train new traffic marshals to manage traffic at roundabouts which will create employment for the youth and free up policemen for other duties.
  • Every day, 1.5 million Google Android phones are activated and 1.5 million Kenyans use matatus.

Other Reading:

  • Bloomberg: Major banks in Sweden have stopped handling cash in many of their local branches as many people rely on credit cards, the Internet and mobile phones to make all their payments…bank notes are only used in about 20% of shop transactions. 
  • The official Google Africa blog notes that BebaPay uses smart cards powered by Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, plus software from Google. The NFC technology means that payment can take place offline, even when there is no power or network connectivity.
  •  Juuchini blog asks Is Kenya ready for public transport debit cards?
  • Quartz: It is becoming increasingly inaccurate to call Google an internet company and the free BebaPay app turns any NFC-enabled Android phone into a card reader, which means that shops, traders, and small businesses can use BebaPay to accept payments from customers, without needing expensive tills and cash registers. 
  • Think M-Pesa: Is Google trying to replicate m-pesa?

EDIT June 2020: The National Transport & Safety Authority announced its intention to re-introduce mandatory cashless payments for public service vehicles. The announcement happened during the Coronavirus pandemic, and the new digital platforms will also facilitate contact tracing through the maintenance of a digital passenger manifests. Service providers are to send in solutions  to NTSA by June 16.

Banks on Social Media

This week, Equity Bank went live on twitter – and joined other top bank groups in Kenya in their use of social media to respond to customer issues. About half of Kenya’s 46 banks are now on Twitter ( see this list of local banks on twitter), but as the table below shows,  the number of bank customers likely to use social media is a small fraction of the total numbers.
Social media stats on Kenya’s largest bank groups
While Facebook is a powerful medium for banks to convey news and products promotions (some even tweet links to longer pieces or videos on Facebook, not their own websites)  and get feedback, Twitter is equally as powerful on but for customers  as it gives them the ability to tag a bank manager or CEO’s or any widely watched trend such as  #twitterthumbsup (for good customer service) or #twitterbigstick for bad customer experiences. 
In the Bob Collymore era, Safaricom has raced to be the acknowledged corporate leader in Kenyan social media with 363,337 Facebook fans and two widely followed twitter channels – including one dedicated to customer care issues with over 47,000 followers  – but this is a company with over 19 million customers.