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Facebook Press Release from MTN Uganda

MTN Uganda has this morning announced the ninth edition of the Annual MTN Kampala Marathon, slated for Sunday November 25th, 2012, setting off from the Kololo Airstrip.

At a Press Conference at the Serena Kampala Hotel this morning, MTN Chief Executive Officer Mazen Mroué announced this year’s Marathon theme as ‘Run with your heart’ and challenged both Ugandans and people across the region to turn up in large numbers to participate in “Uganda’s biggest annual sporting event”.

In terms of numbers, about 220,000 entrants have run the MTN Kampala Marathon over the last nine years, and have raised close to Ushs. 900 million to help people in less privileged parts of the country.

Mroué said MTN has always used the Kampala Marathon as an opportunity to involve thousands of Ugandans in charitable causes, which to date have collected close to Ushs. 700 million. This money has been used in a number of projects in Northern and Eastern Uganda through the Uganda Red Cross over the years.

Last year the marathon raised Ushs. 230 million towards the provision of clean and safe water for the people of Amuria in partnership with WaterAid as an implementing partner. Amuria was selected as one of the most remote areas with a definite need for access to clean and safe water.

This year all proceeds from the MTN Marathon will go towards the provision of water for the people of Bududa. This will be achieved through a partnership with Red Cross that will be tasked with ensuring that these proceeds reach the most deserving.

New Vision will be one of the sponsors and the media partner of the MTN Marathon. Speaking at the press conference, the Group CEO Robert Kabushenga said “Vision Group is proud to sponsor one of the biggest events of the year, the MTN Marathon, through our flagship brand, the New Vision. The Marathon’s objective of raising money to provide clean water for the people of Bududa allows us to give back to the community, whilst promoting healthy living, which are both very noble objectives.”

This year Huawei has also come on board as a sponsor of the Marathon. Speaking at the event, the MD of Huawei Uganda affirmed the company’s desire to reach out and help the less privileged members of the society.

“I would like to applaud MTN Uganda, a fellow multinational with local presence as Huawei, for facilitating our partnership in the 9th edition of the Annual MTN Kampala Marathon together with the people of Uganda, geared towards improving the lives of communities around us. This initiative is a clear indication that public-private partnerships are necessary in catalyzing the growth of the Uganda economy.” said Eric Yang, MD Huawei Uganda.

The Uganda Red Cross Secretary General, Mr. Michael Richard Nataka expressed gratitude to MTN for having chosen to work with the Red Cross over the years and for once again to help save lives over the last 8 years. He also pledged the Uganda Red Cross would still be on hand in the Kampala Marathon 2012 to provide emergency services to all participants.

“Working with MTN over the last 8 years has seen us achieve many of our goals in saving lives and we are glad that MTN chose to partner with us once again for this noble cause. This year we will ensure that the victims from the Bududa landslides that have been resettled in various new locations around the country. We are partners with MTN in the Kampala Marathon and we will be on the routes providing emergency services for participants who require help,” said Mr. Nataka.

At the Press Conference, MTN Uganda’s Chief Marketing Officer, Ernst Fonternel also unveiled this year’s Marathon campaign, which will run for the next three weeks to mobilise participants to take part in the MTN Kampala Marathon.

Everyone’s job search is different but traditionally networking has been one of the key leads to jobs.  In order to have focused networking and search for jobs pay attention to the following mashable.com tips

1. Get Organized

Organization is key to staying on track (and on time!) in your job search. Keep track of places you’re interested in applying and what step you’re at in the application process.

2. Research

The best way to find openings and get hired is to be informed — very informed — about the company, industry and position for which you are applying. Research each and every company and position before applying, and be sure to brush up before an interview.

3. Be Social

Get on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Yes, social networks can help you snag a job. How? By correctly leveraging social media (in a professional way, of course –- no party pictures!), job seekers can establish themselves as thought leaders in their desired industry, network with professionals who may geographically be out of their reach, interact with companies that are hiring and establish their personal brand.

4. Network

You’ve heard it before, but it’s worth repeating: Networking is absolutely, positively crucial to any job search. Sometimes, it’s all about who you know — and who knows you. Use social networks, local professional events and even social gatherings to increase your network and connect with relevant professionals.

5. Follow Up

When job searching, you can just fill out an application, submit it and wait to hear a response … right? Wrong! Following up is one of the most important steps in a job search..

The Uganda market of both SMEs and corporate companies has as fast growing need for data services. There are several Uganda SMEs and corporate companies for instance that spend between 100 to 1,000 US dollars per month on their data hosting solutions that include websites, email and other data. Several of these companies often opt for American or UK based hosts largely due to lack of local competitive services that could meet their needs.  These same companies also require data access through high speed broadband and will increasingly spend a large part of their IT budget for these data services.

These SMEs and corporate companies would offer a growing revenue base to local operators if their service needs can be met. The local competitive services should meet the availability/uptime and affordability for the Uganda SMEs. MTN has done a great job in bringing innovative and affordable services to the Uganda market, though it has from time to time been possibly surprised by the spike in service uptake and hence seen degraded service quality on several occasions. This has been largely experienced by voice and mobile money consumers. Businesses need more guarantees of data security, reliability and availability of services with availability needs that can range from 99% to 99.99% or even more!

In their statement MTN states that:

“MTN has today launched a multi-million dollar Data and Switching Centre in Mutundwe, just outside Kampala city centre. This launch goes hand in hand with the launch of the new MTN Business Unit which will be a world class provider of converged communications solutions aimed at providing MTN business customers with superior, directly managed services, fully backed by consistent service levels.
In doing so, MTN has taken a special focus on the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and the Corporate/Business section of our customer base by ensuring that, through innovation, we are able to provide the necessary products and services to satisfy their needs. “

This is a good development from MTN.  Will it deliver on its promise? Lets wait to see. 

Online communities such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ have different networking and engagement rules. Facebook is a network of friends and family whereas Twitter is a network of people/things you find interesting and LinkedIn is a network of colleagues that is fast evolving to include closer strangers!

In its earlier days, LinkedIn put a lot of emphasis on only connecting with people you had done business with hence the vast majority of LinkedIn requests came from direct or indirect workmates. According to LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner LinkedIn is now a service for connecting talent to companies.

LinkedIn originally was a more closed network to cater for largely people you know from a profession perspective though this seem to be fast evolving to encourage more people to join and do more interacting. Getting more people connecting is essential for LinkedIn to continue growing its user-base and therefore its business. This has seen LinkedIn evolve into a bigger business and talent network that can further careers of individuals and help companies get the best talent.

Individuals and companies looking to further their careers and talent base respectively should hence embrace LinkedIn, the business and talent Network.

Web 2.0  websites and tools such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies may allow users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where people are limited to the passive viewing of content.

While many traditional media companies continue to struggle especially in the developed countries where Internet penetration is near universal, business is promising for the Web 2.0 social media industry. Millions of users are updating statuses, posting photos, posting videos and sharing articles hence helping these networks become massive content hubs.

Social media companies such as Tumblr and LinkedIn are seizing the big media role they will play and are strategically hiring editorial teams and, in effect, setting out to becoming the publishers of the future. Hence we ponder, are Web 2.0 Platforms, Social Networks the media companies of the future?

SplashData, which makes password management applications, has released its annual “Worst Passwords” list compiled from common passwords that are posted by hackers. The top three — “password,” “123456,” and “12345678″ — have not changed since last year. New ones include “jesus,” “ninja,” “mustang,” “password1,” and “welcome.” Other passwords have moved up and down on the list. (Time.com)

You should have different passwords for all of your accounts. To make it easier to remember them all, Think about passwords as “passphrases.” For instance, use a phrase like “dog eats bone” and add underscores, dashes, hyphens, and other punctuation marks to satisfy the special character requirement: “dog_eats_bone!”

Here’s the full list:

1. password
2, 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty
6. monkey
7. letmein
8. dragon
9. 111111
10. baseball
11. iloveyou
12. trustno1
13. 1234567
14. sunshine
15. master
16. 123123
17. welcome
18. shadow
19. ashley
20. football
21. jesus
22. michael
23. ninja
24. mustang

Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, including Uganda added 10 million customers across its operations in 17 African countries in less than 12 months to cross 60 million subscribers mark. This was released in a statement by the company which further says that the company hopes to add subscribers on the continent through maintaining a strong focus on rural penetration, innovation and customer responsiveness.

 In Uganda Airtel has seen growth with Innovative services such as Airtel 3.75G that is currently arguably the most affordable high speed 3.75G product on Uganda market. Airtel has expanded 3.75G data services across 11 markets and mobile commerce service “Airtel Money” in 15 African markets, Uganda inclusive hence shaking up the competition in the mobile financial services space.

Bharti Airtel with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa now ranks among the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. Airtel is ranked among BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list with an overall ranking of 71 and brand value of USD 11.5 billion. Airtel has been ranked ahead of top global brands such as Sony (86), MTN (88),The first African Brand on the list.

“Umeme began an initial public offering of a 38.6 percent stake on Oct. 15 at 275 Ugandan shillings (1 U.S. cent) a share. The offer for 622.4 million shares closes Nov. 7 and will be followed by listing on the Uganda Securities Exchange in the capital, Kampala, on Nov. 30. The shares will also list on the Nairobi Securities Exchange after regulatory approval.” bloomberg.com

I have for long followed IPOs and stock markets alas for American based companies, such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, since these are at the center of Tech!  Given that many Ugandans are yet to connect to the electricity grid, one sign of a big market, it is good to see Umeme an energy company with a lot of prospects of growth, going through an IPO and trading on  Uganda Securities Exchange.   

Uganda has telecoms among the most profitable and actually the biggest companies. Unfortunately Ugandans have hardly had a chance to invest in such companies as MTN given that MTN Group is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and not on USE hence making it hard for Ugandans in Uganda to invest in such a profitable group. Nevertheless, I have a dream that one day soon MTN (Uganda) will trade on Uganda Security Exchange!

Apple has a reputation of delivering high quality and pricy products that are hardly affordable by majority of people in the developing world. Now that the first billion Smartphone and Tablet users, is almost covered most of whom are in developed countries, the next billion of Smartphone and Tablet users will be more price conscious. It could be due to that reason that apple has releases  iPad Mini which still at  $329 is costly compared to Amazon Kindle an education product that goes for less than $150.

If Apple iPad Mini is to find more education purposes with the second billion of mobile device user, Apple will need to devise ways of delivering quality at much more reduced price otherwise, the writing is on the wall that Android based devices will become the darling of the second billion of mobile users if prices are not checked for apple devices.

From the west where the mobile revolution started, Telecoms had a way of retaining customers with contracts. This is still the case though fast changing. In Africa, Uganda in particular, we started with people referring to their phone as “My Celtel” at the time when Celtel was the only provider, but this was short lived when other players joined the market. 5-10 years ago a telecom could talk about retaining customers but the market is fast becoming very competitive without a single telecom being the best at all services including voice, data, video and mobile payments.  People are increasing using 3 or more telecom lines which they shift between based on which has a better daily, weekly or monthly packaged to suite the customer needs. The customers are becoming “Polygamous” where it best suits their needs!

There is now very little prospect of any individual telecom fully owning, rather than sharing, the customer and telecoms will increasingly keep losing customer ownership if they do not respond fast to customer’s changing mindset. Operators need to understand and respond to fast-changing customer expectations and behaviors if they are to fight off the competitive threat from other providers. This will require operators to communicate clearly the underlying value of the network and the sources of added value that differentiate their offerings in new service areas. Innovation in the service model could also be used to build brand loyalty in the same way technology players have done. Ernest & Young -Top 10 risks in telecommunications 2012!