HiPipo Money

In telecom circles, the talk has for long been 3G and now 4G is gaining significant coverage. Less is talked about 2G networks which are still serving the people of Africa diligently. Even as we want to advance to the next generation of networks, reality is that many Africans do not have 3G or 4G capable phones and it may take several years for the majority to acquire these phones. From Africacom Awards being held in South Africa it has been shared that 4% of connections in Africa are Smartphone connections, but growing numbers of people are accessing new services and apps with feature phones. MTN says “You can’t switch off 2G as long as most people can’t afford high end devices” and Google says that “cost and knowledge are the biggest obstacles to African app development”. Applications that can use 3G data will take longer to penetrate the bottom of the pyramid population which cannot afford current generation of smartphones and data packages for content rich applications.

In the US National wireless carrier AT&T plans to move completely past 2G wireless connectivity by 2017, a recent 10-Q filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission revealed. UK based networks are also working on a timeline to switch off 2G though this may not be as fast as the US.

Given the economic status of Africa, it may take several years for real 3G capable phones to sink and hence it may take longer for networks still running 2G technologies together with 3G or 4G to switch off 2G. May be this could be a decade ahead, let’s say 2022! We shall love to hear what the plans and projections of operators in Africa are. Uganda operators such Airtel Uganda and MTN Uganda with large country network coverage should be still largely depending on 2G for voice and some data services whereas the 3G network is deployed for fast data services.  Do they have a plan/projection yet to switch off 2G? 

Nigeria,

Miss Ebube Essien-Garricks has won an AEROPLANE in the MTN Ultimate Wonder Promo.

Data at rest

The inactive data which is physically stored in databases, spreadsheets, data warehouses, mobile devices and the like, can be referred to as ‘data at rest’ for example data residing in hospital database. The loss of such data might result in embarrassment, discrimination in the workplace or even the threat of physical danger for the persons concerned. From an information security viewpoint, data at rest is vulnerable and needs to be protected.
Public sector organisations should take the utmost care that sensitive data such as personal records is protected against brute force attacks with strong encryption for when basic authentication methods like username plus password fails.

Data in transit

Data which is transferred between two nodes in a network is ‘data in transit’. Examples of sensitive public sector data in transit might include confidential emails or video messages being transmitted from one computer to another, which could divulge government secrets; tax returns sent electronically which could result in theft; or even missile codes being sent from HQ to a nuclear submarine.

As a rule of thumb, organisations should assume that the network cannot be trusted. Consequently, all sensitive data must be protected with network encryption, supplemented by supplemented by SSL certificates, Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) and other precautions where relevant.

Data in use

We can use the term ‘data in use’ to refer to that data which is being used in an in-memory state. Google Chrome, for example, loads up websites in-memory that it thinks you might like to look at next so that it operates more quickly. Government employees might keep classified web pages in-memory while browsing. Sensitive ‘data in use’ needs to be protected by application-level encryption and exposed on a need to know basis, encrypted as soon as possible and decrypted only when necessary. Such a selective approach to encryption can only be performed at the application level.

Extract From
When will the public sector grasp basic lessons on information security? by Ross Parsell 

Innocent [at] HiPipo.com

Are you working on a minimal budget and need a high quality service for your internet, stress no more when Airtel internet is here for you.

I recently explored Airtel Uganda’s new internet offers and they are all amazingly cheap, flexible, coming with super fast 3.75G internet.

Airtel Mobile Broadband Internet gives you full Internet access and email on the move. You can instantly surf any website, download information, send and receive Email, access online Multimedia content (Photos, audios, videos) and Social Network with friends online platforms such as HiPipo.com, Facebook, YouTube, twitter.

With Airtel internet, you can only pay for the amount of data volumes you like to use for a specific period of time either on your phone or modem.

This fast undiscovered internet service allows you the chat on instant messaging applications like Skype , Yahoo Messenger, Google talk and hangouts , Windows Live and so much more.

You can now Web browse on your laptop or computer using any of Airtel modems or your phone handset for only 500 UGX!!!

From 500 UGX you can access rich multimedia content like videos, audios ringtones, wallpapers among other content. 500 UGX gives you 60 MB worth of super fast Airtel data.

Airtel Internet bundles are categorized in daily, weekly and month subscriptions. Daily bundles go for 60MB, 500shs, 600MB, 5k and 1GB – 10k.

Airtel  Affordable Super Fast Daily Data Packages

Have you used Airtel internet?  Try it out today and let us know what you think about it in the comments section below.

As Published by Forbes, Here are five low-key, ultra-wealthy Ugandan tycoons, entrepreneurs and business leaders.  Each of them is worth more than $50 million. There are no politicians or criminals here — just good, successful businessmen.

Sudhir Ruparelia

Source Real Estate

Born in Uganda, Ruparelia moved to the United Kingdom with his parent as the age of 16 after President Idi Amin expelled all Asians from the East African country. In the U.K, Ruparelia worked small jobs, returning to Uganda in 1985 with $25,000 in savings.  With that he started a commodities trading business and Uganda’s first foreign exchange bureau. The business snowballed into the Ruparelia Group, Uganda’s largest privately held conglomerate. The group is said to be the single largest private property owner in Uganda and it employs over 6,000 people. Ruparelia also owns Crane Bank, the country’s fourth largest commercial bank, Goldstar Insurance, hotels, country clubs, and a chain of foreign exchange bureaus across the country. (Watch for a detailed feature on Sudhir Ruparelia in this year’s edition of Africa’s 40 Richest).

Patrick Bitature

Source: Mobile Phones, Hotels

Bitature is the founder and chairman of Simba Telecom, East Africa’s largest mobile phone retailer with over 100 modern retail outlets in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya Telecom. The company is also the largest mobile phone airtime distributor in the region. Bitature owns Protea Hotels Kampala, a 5-star hotel located in the upmarket suburb of Kololo in Kampala. He is also chairs the Uganda Investment Authority and Umeme, an energy distribution firm which is gearing up for an IPO on the Uganda Stock Exchange.

Charles Mbire

Source: Investments

One of Uganda’s most revered boardroom gurus and investors, Mbire is one of the largest individual shareholders in mobile phone network giant MTN Uganda’s operations. His Bomi Holding Company owns a 15% stake in the lucrative Rift Valley Railways. (For perspective, Citadel Capital owns a 51% stake which it acquired last year for $287 million). He also owns stakes in and sits on the boards of Ecobank Uganda, Eskom Uganda and Invesco Uganda Limited.

Amiral Karmali 

Source: Manufacturing

Amiral Karmali is the founder of East Africa’s Mukwano Group – an industrial conglomerate that manufactures cooking oils, fats, toilet soaps and cosmetics to industrial plastics and detergents. The group has annual revenues of over $230 million and most of the company’s products are market leaders. Karmali is also one of Uganda’s biggest landlords; he owns 17,000 acres of land in Uganda’s Masindi district.

Amos Nzeyi

Source: Banking, Beverages, Real Estate

Nzeyi is the chairman and owner of Crown Beverages, Uganda’s sole bottler ofPepsiCo products. He also owned a 40% stake in Uganda’s National Bank of Commerce before it was taken over by Ruparelia’s Crane Bank in September.

When the mobile payments revolution started in Kenya, little was known about the amount of money that telecoms could generate by offering financial services to the poor. A few years down the road, the figures started coming in showing that mobile financial services are extremely promising revenue streams.

In May 2012, financial statements from Safaricom indicated that M-PESA contributed 15.8% of Safaricom’s total revenue (compared to 12.5% the previous year), making it the company’s second largest revenue stream after voice. In addition, in Kenya M-PESA created direct employment for 50,000 people a number that banks may never match.  These opportunities in revenue growth and employment creation are seen in the rest of Africa e.g in Uganda, where companies such as MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda have introduced mobile financial services.  

The economics of Mobile Financial Services have evolved to include revenues from Person to Person transactions, to Person to Business. Payment for utilities such as Water, Electricity and TV and other payments such as for School Fees are now increasingly being effected with mobile financial services. As a result over a short period of time, mobile financial services are becoming key drivers of Africa economies.

Mobile Financial Services represents the potential for an enormous leap forward in economic development. It helps include people previously in the shadow of the informal economy and increases government earnings that can fund social and economic development. It delivers access to formal financial services and brings the security and convenience of electronic payments to millions of people in developing countries, breaking the cash economics that often locks them into poverty. It can enable entire industries, creating jobs and revenue streams that didn’t exist a decade ago. (FORBES)

Across Africa, from Uganda to Kenya to South Africa and Nigeria, Telecoms are in a race to offer the best Internet speeds possible. Even as some are masquerading as offering 3.75G and other starting to talk 4G, there are some operators truly offering these great 3G speeds not just using the jargon for market hype. Long Term Evolution (LTE) considered a 4G technology has started setting ground on the continent with companies such as Vodacom testing LTE in some areas of South Africa. This is good for Internet in Africa and these High Internet Speeds are Sexy, if I may borrow a generation Y terminology for great appeal but affordability is critical and will be great if data services will be more affordable.

Speed alone is not enough to bring the massive social and economic benefit of internet to the Africa continent on wide scale. In Uganda until recently, telecom operators such as Orange Uganda, MTN Uganda possibly the first with true 3G networks have had data packages that arguably are still on the high side for the average Ugandan to consume Internet services. This is starting to change with the playing field seeing more operators such as Airtel Uganda and Warid Uganda offering 3G services. 3G and 4G very high speed technologies are good but they are not the ultimate thing to bring more Internet to more Africans. With many Africans having phones and modems that cannot make the best use of 3G speeds or 4G technologies like LTE, it remains that the other factor that is of great importance to internet access is affordability. Africans using feature phones or the current generation of modems should have more affordable data packages for internet to sink on the continent.

Very high speeds such as for LTE are good for the current few that can afford sexy iPhones and Samsung Galaxy SIIIs  but if Africa really  needs a big mobile internet market, among the issues to address, rocket fast speeds as some telecoms market them arguably comes second to affordability in importance. Network Operators, should nature the masses to consume more data service by prioritizing their efforts on lowering data costs and then they can boost of rocket fast speeds with pleasure.

With more than 774,382 people retweets and at least 273,283 favorites, President Barack Obama’s “Four more years.” Tweet becomes the most viral post ever on Twitter.com.

This Mirco Blogging social network is a very important communication social media platform in America and around the world.

TWITTER records were broken as a message from Barack Obama became the most retweeted ever on the social networking site.

The tweet ‘ Four more years.’ was accompanied by a photo of Obama and wife Michelle embracing each other after a convincing second term victory.

The tweet came after Obama was announced winner yesterday morning over Republican contender Mitt Romney.

On Facebook, the same post “Four more years.” has at least 3,896,458 Likes, 538,449 Shares, and 188,799 comments.

His “Thank you.” Has 1,531,027 Likes, 58,942 Shares, and 55,289 Comments.

According to research, the previous record-holder was Justin Bieber, who received over 223,478 retweets and 100,657 favorites for his tribute to a young fan “Avalanna Routh” who died after a cancer battle. The tweet was “RIP Avalanna. i love you” post @justinbieber.

The post Avalanna’s profile “Our darling Avalanna went to Heaven this morning. Oh Avalanna, the brightest star – you took our hearts with you, our greatest Love” The tweet gathered 59,569: Retweets, 18,261: Favorites. Avalanna died on Wed, Sep 26, 2012. She was 6 years.

Wendy’s  @Wendys had the most retweeted of 2011 posts. One Tweet by Wendy’s raised $50,000 for foster children. It now has at least 225,528 Retweets and 621 FAVORITES. The posts was “RT for a good cause. Each retweet sends 50¢ to help kids in foster care. #TreatItFwd”

The other posts in the top list come with 35,000 and 25,000 retweets respectively, are Lady Gaga who wrote “never be afraid to dream” and Taylor Swift who said “I’m so 22 right now.”

Congratulations President Barack Obama and Family, Africa is Proud of YOU!!

LONDON (3^rd November, 2012) – MoneyGram (NYSE: MGI), a leading global money transfer company announced today that it is temporarily waiving send fees for its online transfers from the UK to several Caribbean countries.

This initiative was taken to support customers sending money from the UK to families and friends that were severely affected by Hurricane Sandy, starting from today, the 3^rd of November until the 16^th of November 2012.

During this period, customers sending money to any of the following countries – Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, or Puerto Rico – via MoneyGram’s online platform located at www.moneygram.co.uk, will not pay a send fee to send money to families and friends that are recuperating from the effect of the hurricane.

Customers can pick up remittances from MoneyGram’s agent partners as usual, including LASCO Remittance Services, Alliance Remittance Services, NCB Remittance Service, Jamaica National, Jamaica Post Office, Unibank, BUH, S A-Rapid Transfer, Fonkoze, Grace Trading, Banque de I’Union Haitienne, S.A, Bank of the Bahamas Ltd, Omni Money Transfer Head office, Raben Investment Ltd, BanReservas, Banco Popular Dominicano, Banco del Progreso, BHD and anywhere you see the MoneyGram signs.

During my time in Europe which was somehow the earlier days of the Facebook revolution, I used to receive many invites by my European friends to play Farmville. I never found it that much fun as computer gaming has never really been my hobby. But then I tumbled upon a research about educational games, exploring how games can be strategically used for educational purposes, and showing a lot of possibilities in this domain. Indeed if well designed and developed for education purpose, playing and learning could be great for any child.

I have observed young children and how they swiftly adopt using mobile phones for games. These same mobile phones can now be used for learning where these children can play educational games. The African gaming market has started seeing players such as Maliyo a gaming firm aimed at creating culturally relevant content that reflects the lives of average Nigerians, and Afroes  which produces applications and content for young people containing powerful educational and social messages.

With a young breed of African innovators joining the gaming industry, I believe Africa is setting good ground to make the use of education games to develop the African brains that will play further role in Africa Development.