Category Archives: Tandaa

Tandaa Roundup

I was not able to attend last week’s Tandaa – the first content conference hosted by the Kenya ICT Board, but have been noting what was said, and for other absentees, here’s a recap:

Rombo asks where were the bloggers? Multiple speakers acknowledged the important role Kenyan bloggers now play in generating and distributing Kenyan content. and later the (Kenya) ICT board has set aside US$4 million to be disbursed over the next four years to fund feasible Kenya content generation projects.

Kenyan Poet was there, gave a talk and also added a photo album of Tandaa photos from the event

Another nice recap from Kipkemoi who notes It is heartening that many website owners are earning good money from e-commerce… points that came out:
– There is a market for local content.
– The pay for registration model for portals and content sites isn’t feasible at the moment.
– Monetizing mobile content provision is easier. (because mobile users are used to paying for services)
– Government registration need to be streamlined, too many vague licences

From Brighter Monday – numbers don’t lie – While we continue to complain that there is no ecommerce in Kenya, this company realized a turnover of $2 million in 2007. Now that was eye opening. Well from my analysis I know this takes hard work. To prove this, they have about 8000 inbound links! And they are leaping of the fruits. (Anyone who was there can please confirm my figures in article’s comments on this below);
– I was also impressed by (kenyanpoet.blogspot.com); I think she depicts a good example of successful blogging. A snapshot of her traffic analysis showed that 42% of traffic came from referral links, 40% from search engines, 16% was direct traffic while 4% was in ‘others’

The Mars Group Kenya blog voiced the questions that I’m sure many attendees had in mind i.e. where’s the money? – I am a large local content generator and run a Kenyan governance and transparency web portal with 19 thematic sub-domains containing over 1 and a half million terabytes of local content including digitized government and official reports on the national budget, government, state corporations and good governance. The site also features original multi-media resources including online news content generated by a team of 17 Kenyans all below the age of 30….In its first year of operation it got over 20 million hits, registered over 7,000 subscribers and webcast live international events including the November 5th election victory of Barack Obama from the US Ambassador’s Residence from http://marstv.marsgroupkenya.org .The site is regularly cited as an authority by local and international media and was recognized as a new media exemplar by www.opendemocracy.net.

Offline comments from the Skunkworks forum include a lengthy one from Robert Alai who commented that We must focus on local mpaka it becomes music……If you wanted a subscription website, you should have started with kenyalaw.org. If you wanted affiliates, mamamikes.com has affiliates. Lets focus on local…local examples and then mention the foreign ones just .. when you make people believe that Facebook is great, we won’t head anywhere. See why Tanzanians are engaging more in bongo5.com and jamiiforums than facebook and others. They are actively loading pics and content and these two websites are really coming…..up well and considering the age of the websites, we will see nice things from them. We should not glorify anything western. We must start appreciating our own facebook like Ngari has developed a good site, www.kasarani.com

Kutwa Tuesday: Sam’s Kids


They may be called Barack, Michelle, Obama, or other creative names, but many of these new kids born and given fabulous American
baby Obama names were conceived as a result of Uncle Sam’s bungled election debacle in December 2007.

Opportunities

Airbus University Challenge: the Airbus
Fly Your Ideas challenge is open to university students around the world with ideas on the future of aviation and improving its environmental position. Prizes are €30,000 and deadline is 1st December 2008

Georgetown Fellowships Apply for the Georgetown University Law Center’s Global Health Law Fellowship Program. D/L is February 16 2009

Kenya Content Conference Tandaa 08 a local content conference sponsored by the Kenya ICT Board takes place on November 14 2008.

Kenya’s Top Women The Business Daily invites you to nominate Kenya’s Top 40 women under 40. send their names, contracts and reasons why they are worthy (in less than 500 words) to top40under40@nation.co.ke by 30th November

Government of Kenya jobs:
– Judiciary 25 resident magistrates. D/L 21/11
– Electoral commission of Kenya – 39 district election coordinators

Biz brief’s

Co-Op IPO: is 1/3 of the way to target with just 3 days to go optimistic about the Co-Op IPO. transaction advisers have now released cash flow and share price projections that should have been in the Co-Op Prospectus. what happens if they fall short – will D&B pay C-op for the shortfall? Is there a last minute investor who will get preferential terms to bridge the gap? The prospectus states that in the event that this minimum amount is not attained, approval may be sought from the Authority to proceed with the listing of the existing shares and any Offer Shares that are subscribed under the Offer.

I got an SMS (as did other Co-op customers) inviting me to take part, but the application desks/tents still look rather forlorn

Equity – HF: November 4 was not just Obama day, but also the date when the Housing Finance and Equity Bank deals should have been completed

Foreign Investors Tough times for the former Rift Valley Railways and Tiomin who continue to flounder: Tiomin’s latest statement notes. …. the Government of Kenya has not completed the remaining bureaucratic steps required for the transaction to close…..Tiomin’s management shares our investors’ extreme frustration at this unreasonable delay….. Tiomin has acted in good faith and we are very disappointed….. If the closing continues to be delayed, we will consider terminating the MOU on the grounds of unreasonable delay….. Tiomin will issue another press release when further material information is available. Pity they have no local defenders

Geothermal prospects : two companies are scoping in Eburu (gilgil) and Menengai for geothermal energy

Brew turf Coca Cola launch minute maid juices in Kenya (what happens to 5 alive) as EABL launch Alvaro in Uganda

Sat-TV: DSTV will launch pre-paid scratch cards, following in the footsteps of rival GTV who are reaping from the ongoing English premier league

Insurance by M-Pesa: Madison Insurance now accepting insurance installment payments by M-Pesa following Old Mutual, which enabled investment, plan payments

Radio Standard Group prematurely possible radio investment worth Kshs 250 million as KISS FM parent Radio Africa rolls out their 4th radio station – XFM (rock music)