Category Archives: corporate blogging

BAKE – Kenya Blog Awards 2017

The Bloggers Association of Kenya – BAKE Kenya Blog 2017 Awards are on again. The nominees,  in 22 different categories, were announced on April 3. Nominees include long time great reads and past winners like Moses Kemibaro, Owaahh, iHub, Mutua Matheka, Niaje, Wandia Njoya,  Mummy Tales, Mzalendo, and Graduate Farmer, with lots of interesting new blogs as well – such as Magunga, Otherwise Podcast,  Daniel Ominde, Penstrokes, and Kenyan Wall Street. The short-listed blogs came from 10,000 submissions, an increase from 4,800 the year before, and the winners will be announced on May 13 in Nairobi.

Voting runs up to May 9, and the 2017 awards are sponsored by, among others, Safaricom, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford, Xpose, EatOut, Vivienne Tea, and the Kenya Human Rights Commission. Please vote for Bankelele in the best business blog category.

NBK: Board PR vs. Blog

The month of March has seen quite a bit of online activity at National Bank of Kenya (NBK).

On one side has been the public relations for the bank, of which I get the releases. Yesterday (March 28) the bank sent one, full of caution, urging their customers to ignore, a blog. I wasn’t aware of any, so I searched and found this blog story (by  ) with the headline that the National Bank Board Sacks Munir Ahmed (the CEO of the bank).  

At the beginning of the month (March 1) , the bank had issued another press release with a warning, and a threat to sue a  blogger. The bank also said it had written to the  Central Bank of Kenya Governor and the Cabinet Secretary (a.k.a. Minister) in charge of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) about defamation of banks emanating from unregulated blogging.

The Bank requests members of the public and media to disregard any malicious stories spread by ill-intentioned persons on social media or otherwise about the bank who will soon face the full wrath of the law. 

Immediately after that, the Bloggers Association of Kenya reacted strongly against blanket condemnation of bloggers. in a statement that noted that blogger are regulated by a code of ethics, and that (i)  bloggers could be international (i.e. beyond the jurisdiction of Kenya), and that (ii) NBK should consider charging the said blogger for defamation, which is legislated in law.

Today, the bank sent a press release that indeed, the Board of National Bank has announced that the Bank’s CEO  and five top managers have been sent on compulsory leave pending an internal audit process.   

The Central Bank of Kenya, then released its own statement, welcoming the decisions of the board.

Idea Exchange: Bank, Literature, Journalism, Opportunities, and Win a Free Phone

The Africa AgriBusiness Challenge from Enactus Kenya and Syngenta seeks out youth to generate creative business ideas to improve the agricultural productivity of certain crop value chains. Deadline is June 10.

The 2014 Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship will have five awards to celebrate entrepreneurs at different stages of the entrepreneurial life cycle; lifetime achievement, transformational business, outstanding mature business, outstanding growing business and outstanding social entrepreneur.

The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation. Details here .. via @calestous.

@AfriCOG Investigative Journalism Fellowship Programme 2014. Deadline is 30 May. 

Anthemis Fellowship seeks out entrepreneurs, executives and thought leaders who are passionate about building an improved financial services industry fit for the digital age. The Anthemis Fellowship program includes 4 months at the Anthemis London office, 4 months with one of their portfolio companies and 4 months with a major financial services firm. It also comes with a monthly stipend of EUR2000 and an invitation to attend the Anthemis #HackingFinance Retreat from July 10-13, 2014 in Meribel, France. Deadline is June 1. 

@APO_Source has had a scholarship for an African journalist to to attend the 2014 annual meetings of the African Development Bank.

Bloomberg Africa ‏@BBGAfrica – seeks Swaziland, Eritrea, Djibouti, G.Bissau, Cape Verde, Eq. Guinea, Sao Tome stringers – Please e-mail asguazzin@bloomberg.net

Citi Africa Management Associate Programme Citi in Africa is  looking for ambitious graduates with strong academic backgrounds, maximum of two years’ work experience, leadership, teamwork, and excellent communication skills.

The 2014 CNN/MultiChoice African Journalist Awards will recognise excellence in culture, economics & business (NEW), energy & infrastructure (NEW), environment, health & medical, news impact (NEW), photography, press freedom, sports, language general news, Francophone news and also Portuguese news. Details here and the deadline is 30 May.

EABL Foundation scholarships for needy students who have gained admission to Kenya public universities. Deadline is June 6. 

Etisalat Prize 2014 for African literature is now open with a top prize of £15,000 and a fellowship at the University of East Anglia, while winner and shortlisted writers also receive a sponsored two city tour promoting their books. Details here and the deadline is 8 August.

The Golden Baobab Prizes for Literature include awards for a picture Book (targeting readers aged 6 – 8 years), early chapter (targeting readers aged 9 -11) and rising writers (for a young African author under the age of 18 who demonstrates the talent and drive to become the next great African author for children). Details here and the deadline is June 29.

Jalada / @KwaniTrust seek 3 best Afrofuture submissions for a second anthology. Deadline is D/L 15

Japan Government scholarships  in research, teacher training, technology, and specialized training .. via @njathika

Want to be a Jameson brand ambassador? Here’s how to apply (via @uqweli ) oops – deadline also passed.

KCB: The region’s largest bank has ongoing internships, management trainee and management exchange programs. Sourced from @RookieKE blog.
 
Kenya Revenue Authority –  KRA graduate trainee program 2014

The Kenya StartUp Cup is open to all Kenyan youth entrepreneurs who can apply to win Kshs 1 million (~$11,500). Details from the @prepaid_africa blog and the deadline is May 20.

KenyaTop100 seeks successful companies with turnover of Kshs 70 million to Kshs 1 billion (~$12,000)  with 3 years audited accounts to compete and be among @kenyastop100 

Kijabe Forest Trust @KijabeForest  is seeking a new logo design.

Kuona Trust has internship opportunities for students at their offices in Hurlingham, Nairobi. 


The Kwani Trust 2014 fiction workshop seeks to develop new contemporary fiction writers between the ages of 18 and 24 and from outside of Nairobi. To apply, check the website, and send email to submissions_at_kwani.org by May 26.

Orange  has launched the 4th edition of the Orange African Social Venture Prize which will award prizes to four projects; three with grants of 10,000 EUR, 15,000 EUR and 25,000 EUR, and a new special prize of 10,000 EUR. It’s open to all entrepreneurs or legal entities that has been in existence for fewer than three years at the time of the competition and the deadline is 19 September.

Power Africa Off Grid Energy Challenge from @USADF and @GeneralElectric Africa offers up to $100,000 to 100% African owned and African managed firms that seek to power up under-served parts of rural Kenya. Deadline is June 20.  

School of Data: Become a School of Data Fellow as they are currently broadening their efforts to spread data skills around the world, and are seeking people who are data savvy, understand the role of NGO’s, are interested or experienced in working with journalism and/or civil society, or enjoy community-building.  Deadline is 1 June.


Standard Chartered Bank Fast Track Program: The bank is looking for young graduates to join their management trainee program in several African countries, including Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and several international locations. Sourced from @RookieKE blog

 
The Stanford University Africa MBA Fellowship Program pays for tuition and associated fees (approximately US $145,000) for citizens of African countries with financial need who wish to obtain an MBA at Stanford GSB. Stanford will award up to eight Stanford Africa MBA Fellowships annually. Details here and the deadline is 13 June.

Strathmore University @StrathU scholarships from @imbankke for 10 needy students pursuing various Finance related degree programmes.

Swedish Institute Management Programme‏ The Swedish Institute is launching a new leadership programme for progressive leaders from Kenya,Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Zambia – offering a combination of theory and practice in the area of responsible leadership and sustainable business.  Details here and the deadline is June 6.

Total Kenya Graduate Management Trainee Program. The company was is looking for young dynamic graduates.  Also sourced from @RookieKE blog but the deadline was 7 May  
The Wall Street Journal @WSJ looking for entrepreneurial reporter to cover the most entrepreneurial of Africa beats–business, from Nairobi. Apply to @pwonacott

Submit your wikimedia proposals to be included at Wiki Indaba 2014 in Johannesburg. Details here and the deadline is 15 May.
The World Bank Young Professionals Program 2014 seeks highly qualified and motivated individuals skilled in areas relevant to the World Bank’s operations such as, economics, finance, education, public health, social sciences, engineering, urban planning, and natural resource management. Details here and the deadline is 30 June.
 
Win a Nokia Lumia 1320: There are very few comments on the blog here despite the number of daily readers, and many of the comments are from spammers promoting products from far off countries. To stimulate comments, I’m giving away a brand new Nokia Lumia 1320 phone (worth about $400/Kshs 35,000) to the person who engages the most on the site. The phone was an excellent, but unexpected, prize awarded to the winner of the best business blog at the recent 2014 Kenya Blog Awards ceremony. During the month of May, readers to the blog and it’s archives, can make as many comments as they want, and I’ll respond on some. 
Rules 
1. There are no rules about winning.
2. It’s about serious comments, not volume – and blog comments only, not tweets/tags
3. This is personal, and the promo has nothing to do with Nokia  or Nokia East Africa.
4. @Coldtusker is excluded 🙁
5. An announcement will be made on June 14, and there may not be a winner  if no one is deemed to be worthy.

WhatsApp to Replace Twitter as Kenya’s Corporate Darling?

This week, Nendo Ventures and OdipoDev published a Social MediaTrend Report that analyzed recent trends. These included usage and messages on  WhatsApp, Facebook, and over 5 million twitter Kenya messages sent in the last year that spiked during events such as the March 2013 presidential election, the Westgate Mall terror attack and the Kenya@50 independence celebrations. 
They made several predictions in the report which including three main ones:
1. WhatsApp will change the media in 2014-15: With 82% of Kenyans having phones, and 19% with smartphones, WhatsApp which is pre-installed on some phones, is becoming used more and more for sharing of pictures, video, audio, and chats – and they predicted it will become the default communication channels for businesses. Already Citizen has Road Hog and Chase Bank has launched a dedicated WhatsApp channel.
While it’s questionable if Kenyan corporations, having recently embraced Facebook and Twitter, will migrate to WhatsApp, the authors cited the fact that WhatsApp is pre-installed on some phones, and has a very low barriers to entry (compared to Twitter that requires  an e-mail address and some internet knowledge). 

2. Social TV changes everything. This is the age of the second screen where people watch TV, attend events with mobile phones in their hand and chat & comment  on social media. In Kenya, it’s also known as the “Tujuane” syndrome after a local dating TV show that has recorded as many as 9,200 tweets an episode – and it opens a new way for for more advertising and communication from companies to connect with customers.
3. Social media Devolves – it will devolved to counties  – and citizens will set out to claim their web presence and self organize like some groups in Wajir already have. Somewhat related, the 2014 Kenya blog awards highlighted some cool county-focused blogs from Uasin Gishu, Kisumu, Mombasa and Baringo. 

Other predictions
– The establishment of the smart audience – and the authors estimate Kenya has a smart audience of 0.5 million on twitter and 3.8  million on Facebook and TV and other media organization, now use Twitter, rather than SMS as their preferred interaction and feedback channel.
– The rise of social media as a profession

@Mkaigwa briefs the media on the Nendo Social Media report

– The decline of ‘likes’ as a measure on Facebook. The noted that people on some local corporate Facebook walls are asking what a company WhatsApp number is

– Corporate use of WhatsApp to replace intranets
– The role of online media in personal security like the government’s proposed Nyumba Kumi (10 homes) neighborhood watch system.
– Fun Fact While they also predicted that this year will see more transparency on the paid interaction between brands and influencers/bloggers to, everyone wanted to know which corporations are paying Kshs 10,000 to 30,000 ($350) per tweet to influencers. 

Win #NationHela Cards

Prepaid cards are really useful these days as there’s so much you can buy on your phone or computer – such as purchases from app stores, online book stores and deal of the day sites. The best things about the cards like NationHela is that they only take money that you have, and send you an immediate alert on the remaining available balance by SMS. 

This is unlike with credit cards, which, if you’re not careful, your purchases will creep up and hit you with a surprise when you see the bill a few weeks later. Yes, a few purchases of $3.99 and $9.99 items won’t seem like much until you get a bill that is in Kshs ‘000 shillings.

NationHela has two cards to give away – each loaded with Kshs 2,000 (~$24). To win the first, leave a comment on what you think is the best feature of NationHela or a prepaid card, and for the second, leave a comment suggesting how NationHela can improve.