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WEEKLY PUBLICATION DEADLINE: 12 pm GMT Sunday. ISSUE NO 373 Ghana’s Soft Tribe carves itself a niche in the Nigerian ERP software marketFaced with the dual challenges of international competition and a small home market, not many ICT entrepreneurs would simply pick up their bags and move to a bigger market. But that is what Soft Tribe’s Joe Jackson did. In this interview with Russell Southwood he talks about the challenges Soft faced and how things are working out. Soft’s move into Nigeria is not simply important for one company but touches on broader issues facing the ICT sector in Africa, including labour mobility and the likely success of locally-generated products . Why did you move to Nigeria? The decision was simple. The market for ERP software in Ghana was limited. It was estimated that the market in 2004 was US$15 million. Now the real estimate is probably smaller but it gives you some idea of the size. The market for the ERP software in Nigeria is US$700 million (including oil and Government sectors). Again this is probably an over-estimate but it’s much bigger than Ghana. I had to ask myself: what am I doing in Ghana as an ERP integrator? The market is very concentrated in Lagos. There’s a lot of talk about Port Harcourt but unless you’re selling into the oil industry, it doesn’t matter. By setting up an office in Lagos, you could be at the heart of a bigger market than any other place in Africa, outside of Johannesburg. Nigeria is a notoriously competitive market. If you’re successful, then dozens of “me-too’s” spring up. How are you finding it? Because there are easier ways of making money, there is not as much competition as there ought to be. Selling ERP applications to international companies is not an easy way to make money. But as a West African company we have slightly lower costs than a foreign company. How do you find working in Nigeria after Ghana? Has it been easy to set up? Let’s describe the positives first. As a Ghanaian in Nigeria, you’re regarded as expert, as honest and as better value. On one level, our entry has been seamless and smooth. The challenges are the environmental ones. Registering a company takes a remarkably long time, up to three months. The mechanisms for setting up an office – power, traffic and recruitment – are all challenging. And it’s a big challenge getting appropriate staff. There is an enormous turnover of staff and the poorest quality of staff are looking for enormous sums of money. The labour market has been hugely distorted by the mobile operators. In one month, I lost eight good senior programmers to a mobile operator. Do you sell to Government? No, we’re now only selling to the private sector. We had an experience of trying to sell to Government two years ago. We put in a bid and never heard anything. Then they contacted us and said somebody else has won the bid and wants to sub-contract to you. They ended up paying us more to sub-contract than we had put in our bid. Then the boss of the organisation changed and everything fell through. You used to be a local company in Ghana selling local software. Now you’re selling Microsoft Dynamics Navaison products. What happened there? When we started in 1991 our dream was to sell our own products. The target was to create an ERP product for West Africa. We were going to build the components and put them together. We became very successful in Ghana on this basis and had a large proportion of the market. We had close relationships with 30% of the 100 biggest companies in Ghana. The first thing that changed was that IT purchasing decisions began to be made offshore. Two things accelerated this happening. One was the mobile phone. Mid-level companies now had much closer relationships with their headquarters. With telex and fax it had been difficult to maintain control. In the late 1990s, all companies tended to move towards regional organisation. For Ghana, the regional offices were mostly in South Africa, Europe and the USA. Would you buy from a local software house? If I was in that position, I wouldn’t buy from me. The purchase of software is like a marriage. Divorce is very painful and if you have something well-known, you have something you can complain about. We started to lose sales and what started as a trickle turned into a flood. However, certain areas we held on to for a long time. For example, payroll was regarded as a very local area of operation. Even Ghanaian companies would develop better relationships with foreign companies. Se we also started losing Ghanaian companies. What about the financial side of this process? We went from being small to a turnover of close to US$1 million. We then got VC money from FMO through Fidelity Bank. It wanted to invest significant money in us creating our own ERP application. However, the project wasn’t going anywhere so we had to kill it before it was over. One of the advisers on the VC side at the beginning of the deal clearly said to me, I’m not sure you’re going to get revenues from your own ERP application. So I was talked into looking at other products and we ended up with Navision. Their partner model is very different from any other for this segment of the market. Others give you a fixed product that is mainly subsequently “window-dressed” through small changes. It’s mainly implemented straight out of the box. Microsoft gave partners access to source code. We could develop other vertical products. In effect, there were two products: straight out-of-the box products and bespoke products. In this way, Navision allowed us to use our existing skills. So we chose the product, became a partner, invested in the training and had a huge event in 2005 to launch Navision in Ghana. At the time, we though Navision was diversification but with hindsight, it was the thing to do. Our VC partners sowed the seeds of a strategic decision. What’s the ownership of the company now? I own 35%. My partner, Herman Chinnery-Hesse owns 30%. Fidelity owns 30% and the staff 5%. Eventually we gave up trying to write “the holy grail”, our own ERP application. But it was very difficult weaning ourselves away from the “let’s do it from scratch” approach and going over to building with prefabricated parts. Before choosing Microsoft, we had not been using any Microsoft tools. We used Borland’s C++. Because this was a strategic disagreement with my partner, and it was difficult to sell our own product in Nigeria (Nigerians detest their own products and this was also the same for Ghanaian products), and because of tensions from the disagreement, I said I would set up in Nigeria. It caused me some personal discomfort as my family is still in Ghana. And although the flying time is 4o minutes, the processes of getting in and out of the airport can take 4-5 hours. What are your future ambitions? My ambition is to grow the business to a US$5 million turnover on several platforms. We’re starting with ERP integration but training is also a huge market in this country. We want to set up a platform for outsourcing business applications. With the kind of HR and infrastructure problems they have here, there is a market for providing software as a service. We’re looking at halfway houses, installing a client end bit of software but outsourcing things like hosting, databases and support.
SICAP offers Pay4Me as low-cost, call-back system for mobilesA new solution for low-income customers which uses cost-free USSD string requests has hit the African market. Called “Pay4Me” by Sicap, it allows subscribers, both prepaid and optionally post-paid, to initiate reverse charging calls. Call-back is ordered by the customer through USSD sequence or by dialling a call initiated prefix. The intended receiver of the call is asked to accept reverse charges. For prepaid subscribers this means that they can make calls even when out of credit, as USSD is not charged. Call detail records (CDR) are automatically generated with all information necessary for proper billing and collection. The Pay4me system can be extended to handle reverse charging calls to and from other networks, subject to network operator agreements. This means that family and friends abroad can support the cost of keeping in touch. It also means that collect calls are possible even while roaming. An advanced option for operators is the automatic trigger of Pay4Me calls when the prepaid billing system detects a call attempt from a subscriber with insufficient balance. Another innovative payment solution by Sicap is the 1-to-1 TopUp. It cuts out the voucher or “scratch card” system altogether, making the whole process of credit transfers electronic. The solution allows subscribers to pre-pay for airtime directly from other prepaid accounts, in small amounts. The creditor simply sends a USSD string or SMS with the amount to be credited to the subscriber account. Both parties are notified of the successful transaction and an updated account balance is provided to the customer by SMS. The cost for a reseller of handling an electronic credit transfer of very small amounts is much more financially viable than issuing vouchers of an equally small amount. For operators, physical prepaid voucher cards carry significant production, distribution and system management costs. It is hard to market a denomination low enough for users who get by on a day-to-day basis. Street vendors, postmen, bartenders, anyone with the business idea of offering prepaid account refills can become a credit reseller. On an informal basis, mobile users can deal with any other mobile prepaid user to buy a small share of his credit from him. This greatly increases the accessibility to airtime credits especially for people living in remote areas where prepaid vouchers are not easily available. Likewise, anybody willing to accept a collect call can enable communication from a mobile user with no credit. Providing alternatives to vouchers is not the only motivation for operators to opt for these kinds of solutions. In terms of ARPU, it makes sense to maintain service for mobile users who temporarily run out of credit. Pay4me and 1-to-1 TopUp constitute immediate and convenient solutions for customers to bridge the credit gap. By making mobile services very affordable, operators can significantly increase their subscriber base and overall mobile penetration in their particular market. The simplicity of managing USSD services in the network and the resources saved compared to traditional IVR customer care are ultimately passed-on to mobile customers, who perceive the changes as tangible service benefits. Visit www.sicap.com to find out more. Côte d'Ivoire: Moov exceeds one million subscribers with low-price strategyFormerly Telecel, now branded Moov, its low price strategy has taken Côte d'Ivoire by storm and it now has over 1 million subscribers. It plans to cover the whole of the country by the end of 2007. Perhaps the newly branded Moov will come from outside to challenge the established players in other territories. Watch what happens next in Togo as it begins to take apart the incumbent’s Togo Cellulaire previous monopoly. Speaking to Notre Voie last week, Ahmed Cissé, D-G of Moov said he was satisfied that its business gave enormous social benefits to Ivorians:”Our balance sheet shows that we have more than 1 million subscribers, have invested more than FCFA100 billion and have 450 direct employees and 2,500 indirect employees. We cover more than 80 localities with the unique features of our service, which covers both pricing and services.” He said that the take-off in the mobile market could be dated to Moov’s point of entry into the market when it drastically lowered prices. It plans to cover the whole of the country by the end of 2007 and will open over a dozen new agencies to sell its services. He said that all this had been obtained by a range of innovations including supporting its corporate social responsibility work, particularly with the youngwhich included backing campaigns against street medicines and malaria, the Oissu Caravan 2006 and partnerships with secondary education. (source: Notre Voie) Ghana: Serious Fraud Office investigation uncovers large-scale tax evasion at ScancomSix months of investigations by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the operations of Scancom (Ghana) Limited have uncovered international money laundering, tax evasion and balance sheet fraud. It is alleged that the company used a Technology Transfer Agreement to lower its tax liabilities. Following that finding; the SFO has called for action to repatriate about ¢8 trillion from the company which was sold by the Lebanese owned Investcom to MTN of South Africa in May 2006. The SFO stepped in following serious allegations made against the company regarding its financial operations, the discharge of its tax obligations to the state and the circumstances of its takeover by MTN. It recommended the recovery of various sums of money being corporate tax and National Reconstruction Levy (NRL) evasion between April and December 2005, as well as between the period of January 1997 and March 2005. The SFO also asked for the confiscation of $8,506,859.91, which had been unlawfully appropriated, with part having been used in surreptitious repatriation and the acquisition of equity in Scancom, by Investcom. Apart from that, $29,636,636.02, which is dividend purported to pave been repatriated offshore, through the country's banking system, without any recorded traces of that transaction within the banking system, was also to be confiscated. Other recommendations are the prosecution of SCANCOM and Investcom for money laundering offences and Scancom for financial statement balance fraud. (Source: Daily Graphic) Nigeria’s Globacom pays fine for poor service from over-promotionNigerian mobile operator Globacom (Glo) has paid a fine of NGN5 million (USD40,600) to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The penalty was imposed by the regulator for contravening a directive issued to Glo on 6 July 2007 stating amongst other things that ‘Glo should not embark on and also discontinue any promotional activities that could directly or indirectly degrade quality of service on its network for a period of 90 days in the first instance.’ On 23 July Glo took out an advert in the This Day newspaper directly encouraging subscribers to make more calls. A week later, the NCC imposed the fine in accordance with relevant legislation. The initial ban on promotions had been placed on Glo, and Nigeria’s other cellcos, because they were taking on many more customers than their infrastructure could cope with, leading to poor service quality. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Glo had an estimated 9.5 million subscribers at the end of June this year, placing it second in the market behind MTN, which had 14 million customers at the same date. (source: Telegeography)
In brief:- MTN says it will invest US$235 million over the this year to improve network quality and services at its Ghanaian mobile unit. MTN has rolled out approximately 343 base stations since taking over Areeba, lifting the operator’s total to 1,000 BTS by April 2007. Going forward, it intends to install 100 BTS per month to optimise network efficiency, with the primary focus on increasing network capacity to cater for a subscriber base that has grown from 2.7 million in 2006 to three million currently. - Mauritania’s newest entrant Chinguetel is experiencing some difficulty because its 3G phones are significantly more expensive than the plain old GSM phones of the other two players in the market. - Last week Nokia launched its first handsets to feature Amharic in Ethiopia, The localisation covers the following phones: 1200, 1208, 1650, 2630 and 2760. - According to Aminata.com, the Guinean incumbent Sotelgui is demonstrating its usual inability to run a telecoms company. Supply of the most used pre-paid cards (FG5,000) have been suspended and there has been recurrent interference on the network affecting call quality. Also quite often calls are wrongly routed resulting in wasteful wrong numbers. The alternatives to the cheapest pre-paid cards are the much more expensively FG15,000 and FG50,000 ones. - Ezzedine Nasser, the owner of Insurances Broker Association in Côte d'Ivoire is claiming MTN owes him FCFA5 billion for money he lent to the previous owners of Loteny Telecom. With this, other challenges from former share and office holders, its tax troubles in Ghana and licence problems in Benin, MTN’s Investcom purchase shows some danger of turning into something of a “can of worms”. - The Senegalese Socialist Party claims that the newest market entrant Sudatel is on an American blacklist for activities in Darfur and that the licence process should be re-run. Private sector ICT organisation OPTIC is complaining that the 15% put aside for local shareholders is too small. Telecoms, Rates, Offers and Coverage- Ghana’s regulator NCA announced that mobile operators have until the end of this month to begin implementing a mandatory system of registering pre-paid SIM cards. The NCA’s new rules call for identification of all buyers of pre-paid cards from October, bringing the country in line with some other countries where removing anonymity for pay-as-you-go users is seen as vital in the fight against terrorism and drug-trafficking. - Mozambique mobile operator by subscribers, mCel, has announced a 12.4% price hike on its services, effective 1 October. M-Cel’s rival Vodacom Mozambique is understood to be imposing a similar price increase. - Celtel announced that its Nigerian operation, which had eight million subscribers at the end of June 2007, intends to upgrade its entire GSM network to GPRS and increase coverage to 90% of the country by the end of 2007. - Telecom Namibia will from October 1 reduce some of its domestic and international telephone tariffs to make them more competitive. They will be reduced by an average of 14 percent; the reduction will be applicable for calls to both fixed and mobile international destinations. This will include charges of calls to countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, the US, Spain, Australia, France, Kenya, Angola, Germany, Portugal and the rest of the world. Charges for calls to SA, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe will remain unchanged.
South African Minister claims several consortiums interested in NEPAD international fibre projectThere were "several" consortiums that had shown interest in getting involved with the proposed information and communication technology broadband infrastructure for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, the minister of communications, said last week. Matsepe-Casaburri said the government was not delaying the process by insisting on an African majority shareholding for the under-sea cable. The minister did not identify the consortiums. Insiders say that the South African Government will probably end up financing the consortium if it goes ahead. (source: Myadsl) Algeria: ISPs express scepticism at Government’s target of three million users by 2010Algerian ISPs do not believe the Government’s target of 3 million Internet users by 2010. According to a one of those attending a meeting of ISPs at the El Moudjahid press centre:”This figure will be very difficult to reach unless a strategy based on developing local content is put in place.” Influential members of the Algerian ISP Association, its head Younes Grar of Gecos and Morsli Ali of Icosnet think it’s time to develop such a strategy:”If we want to catch up, then we have a responsibility for transferring information, as a development tool, if we are to become an information society.” Another ISP from Alger said:”It needs to be easier to buy a PC and also to connect to the Internet. But what concerns me most about this vision of national content is that you can’t do it without web sites.” He pointed out that at present Internet users were unlikely to find content that was relevant to the socio-economic life of the country and were therefore likely to turn to Google and seek that content elsewhere:”Local content is far too weak to encourage anything like 3 million Internet users.” On the Ousratic project, a Government operation to encourage Algerians to buy PCs he said that after two years of favourable credit sales that there had only been 200,000 PCs sold:”This figure demonstrates the weak trend of uptake from this initiative because of the lack of national content.” He said it was possible to encourage a local content sector but that it required political will. However the D-G of Djaweb disagreed. He said:”Broadband will increase Internet use in the coming days.” He believed that it would be possible to achieve 2.1 million users and pointed out that there were 6 million users in neighbouring Morocco. He said it was necessary to increase the nmuber of “value-added” services. (source: La Tribune) South Africa: Mandela Bay Municipal Billing Goes OnlineThe Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan in Eastern Cape has developed an innovative billing system in an attempt to improve customer service and the collection of revenue. The municipality, which includes Port Elizabeth, said the new system would optimise revenue collection and more money would be available to improve service delivery and infrastructure. Most municipalities are struggling to collect revenue and customers often complain about incorrect billing and some do not receive accounts. The R46m billing solution, developed by international IT company Fujitsu, allows customers to check and pay their bills online. Danny Christian, director of revenue management and customer care at the metro, told reporters in Johannesburg yesterday that the system was "up and running" in some parts, but would be fully functional in March next year. He said since the system was implemented in parts of the region, revenue collection had improved. Customers could also report complaints and write queries about their bills online. Not everyone is optimistic about the new system. Greg Ruiters, director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University, said this was "some form of a cost recovery exercise". He said it would benefit only the middle class as the poor did not have access to the Internet. The City of Johannesburg provides residents with online access to services, but residents cannot pay tariffs online. (source: Business Day) In brief:- According to an insider, the Egyptian Government wanted to charge one East coast fibre consortium US$600 million for transit rights up the Suez Canal. Some distance here between rhetoric and intentions in breaking down the digital divide. - The long-awaited RASCOM satellite will go into orbit in December this year. Backed by the African Development Bank among others, it aims to offer its incumbent investors the opportunity to connect rural villages.
Nintendo’s Wii launches in South AfricaNintendo’s Wii, the most popular gaming console in the world, has been launched in SA and will be available in local stores this weekend. The Wii is priced at R2 899 while the games will cost between R499 and R599. This price is higher than the Xbox 360 Core system – which costs R2,699 – but the official local Wii distributor – Core - feels that the price is justified. Duncan McLeod, in his FMTech blog, writes that RJ van Spaandonk, director of Core Group, defends the local tariffs. ‘He says currency fluctuations, import taxes and the remoteness of SA from the world’s major business centres all contribute to the relatively high price not only of the Wii but of all imported consumer electronics goods sold in the country.’ The gaming console goes on sale in most major retail stores and is bundled with the sports games - tennis, golf, boxing, bowling and baseball. (source: Myadsl) Tunisia: Microsoft launches IMPRESS entrepreneurship programme to back start-upsMicrosoft has sponsored the IMPRESS programme to back the ten best start-up projects it finds through its Microsoft Innovation Centre in Tunisia’s El Ghezala technopark. "We have designed the IMPRESS initiative to stimulate the spirit of innovation and back up young businessmen in the development of their business. We hope to give to selected projects a considerable technology support and a substantial added value", said Sarra Hanachi, director of Microsoft Innovation Center. Selected start-ups will make the most of a very high-level technological support with notably an access to advanced technological laboratories. Renowned financial partners such as the small and medium-sized financing bank (BFMPE) and fund management companies (Tuninvest finance group and Alternative Capital Partner /ACP/) will provide, in turn, not only possible financing but also a coaching to help these start-ups work out a quality business plan. The Microsoft Innovation Centre (MIC), the first of the kind in North Africa, was created in Tunisia as part of the strategic partnership agreement concluded between the Tunisian government and the Microsoft company in 2006. The space, which was inaugurated last May, aims at backing up the development of the Tunisian software industry by stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship and boosting industrial partnership. (source:TAP) New bank in Tanzania invests heavily in ICT systemsTraditionally Africa’s banks have been slow to upgrade their internal processes using ICT. But for any new entrant coming into the market, the implementation of ICT systems is a real “no-brainer”: less people-heavy systems give a more competitive advantage. One of Tanzania’s newest banks – Bank M – announced last week that it has invested over 1.5bn/- in IT and acquired latest technology in banking solutions. Bank M Communications Director Johnson Mshana said the new bank looked at technology as the backbone of the financial services industry. Bank M Head of ICT and Special Projects Rifat Somji said that the bank was impressed with the product range and flexibility as well as the commitment of the suppliers of the technologies. “All our suppliers are reputable global leaders in their respective fields and availability of service support provided by the firms’ regional centers assures us of sustained service support whenever needed,” he said. He said among latest technology acquired by the bank include Flexcube – a banking product suite for retail, consumer, corporate, internet banking, asset management and investor servicing. (source: Daily News) In brief:- Bytes Systems Integration has announced a newly signed deal with Axis Communications South Africa, network IP video suppliers. In terms of this deal, Bytes SI will partner with Axis to become a reseller of its range of security products. - Zambia and India have signed an agreement that will see India fund Zambian training centres to train researchers and the public in information and communication technology (ICT) skills. The Zambian government will provide buildings with basic facilities such as toilets, and India will provide US$300 million of computers and servers, as well as US$100,000 toward operating the centres. - Tarsus Technologies has announced the upcoming availability of the dx7400 business desktop, which replaces HP's dx7300. - Makerere University in Uganda has launched a new bi-annual journal - The International Journal of Computing and ICT Research (IJCIR) - http://www.ijcir.org/ - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) will implement a SAS Activity Based Management solution to help it with understanding the costs of its services, developing a pricing model and facilitating the budgeting process. Business Performance Solutions (BPS), a Value-Added Reseller of SAS solutions in South Africa, has been selected as a strategic partner and will support the implementation of the solution in conjunction with a team from NMMU. - Getting longer battery life out laptop PCs is the holy grail of mobile computing. Powertop is a Linux tool to eek out those precious minutes of battery life by eliminating unnecessary power wasting processes. http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=1741&s=news - Mandriva Linux announced a deal with the National Commission for Information Technology (CNTI) in Angola to provide technology solutions, training and consulting services.
Kenya: Econet finally pays remaining licence fee after finding new local investorsEconet Wireless Kenya looks finally to be going ahead with its Kenya licence after paying the remaining portion of its licence fee and finding new local investors to take a 30% stake in the venture. The firm, which won Kenya’s third national cellular licence in 2003, has paid KES840 million (USD12 million) owing of its total KES1.9 billion licence fee. It has also found two companies to take over the 30% interest previously held by the Kenya National Federation of Co-operatives; Corporate Africa will take a 21% stake while Rapsel will own 9%, Business Daily reports. The remaining 70% is owned by Econet Wireless International. Maroc Telecom has 22.3% increase in operational turnover in Q3, 2007The Maroc Telecom group had a consolidated turnover of MD6.1 million, a growth of 15.9% and an operational profit of MD2.8 million, a growth of 22.3% as a result of good results across its operations in Q3, 2007. This was mainly achieved through strong growth of ADSL and mobile and by holding down operating costs. This gives the company an operating margin of 46.6%, achieved by improving operating margins in both of the key growth areas. Highlights of the results include: - Maroc Telecom in Morocco has 11,372,000 subscribers, a growth of 665,000 subscribers since the same quarter last year. Despite stronger competition, Maroc Telecom retained a 66.4% market share. - Blended ARPU was MD105.6, a fall of 6% since March 2006. However, the lowering of prices from promotional offers, particularly unlimited use ones, had grown overall volumes. - Unlimited use offers also helped growth of fixed lines but more modestly. It has 1,271,000 fixed subscribers, a net growth of just 5,000 subscribers. Overall turnover of this activity dipped 0.9%. - It now has 418,000 ADSL subscribers, a growth of 34,000 news subscribers. - Mauritel contributed a turnover of MD290 million, up 28.6% on the same quarter last year. The main part of this turnover was contributed by its mobile activities where it achieved 687,000 subscribers, a growth of 39.9% on the same quarter last year. - Onatel contributed a turnover of MD363 million, up 21.6% from the same quarter last year. Again the main part of this turnover was contributed by its mobile activities where it got 411,000 subscribers, up 52.5% on the same quarter last year, There was no mention of the results from Gabon Telecom which have yet to be established. Tunisia’s BTS finances Ayaris Call CentreBanque Tunisienne de Solidarité (BTS) has taken the unusual step of financing one of Tunisia’s newest call centres, Ayaris Call Centre. Speaking in a recent interview, Ayaris’ D-G Elyes Ayari said hat this was the first time that BTS had done this. The move was prompted by the fact that the Bank specialises in providing loan finance for small-scale enterprises and that Ayaris fitted within this strategic objective. But BTS in this instance was also looking to put money into a company that would generate jobs and added-value. The Ayaris Call Centre is located in the Governarat of Manouba, which is well away from the more usual major industrial locations chosen for call centres of this type. Its founder Ayari consciously chose Manouba because it wanted to tackle unemployment there by giving jobs to diploma students. Ayari said that this was “a national priority and a collective responsibility.” Because of this, the project has become the focus of a national committee looking at models to create new projects that stimulate employment. The Committee brings together a number of institutional and financial players including the Central Bank, API and BTS. The Governor of Manouba is going to inaugurate the operation on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of 7 November. The Call Centre will have between 26-30 seats and is designed to international standards. Ayari is targeting both international offshore markets as well as local ones. QMobile Europe says it will launch 4 CDMA operations in Africa but needs further investmentQMobile Europe’s CEO André Vorster says that he has plans to launch CDMA operations in four unnamed African countries and that he has been able to overcome the traditional barrier to CDMA use, the cost of the handset. The latter has been achieved by “despeccing” the handset and thus bringing the price down to US$20. Vorster maintains that the group's plan, which involves a three-phased roll-out across 15 countries, will cost a fraction of what a similar GSM service would take to establish. The roll-out is planned to happen in three phases, with four countries in the first phase. It would include three new networks and the acquisition of one smaller operator. Vorster says the company will be building new networks as well as acquiring existing operators to speed up the roll-out. "The main reason for acquiring multiple licences in Africa is to meet my vision of a large footprint in Africa, as I see value in CDMA in a group environment rather than value in individual licences owned." We're focused on delivering more than just a pure voice service. Because CDMA is capable of providing high speed Internet access from day one, we expect to be able to supplement voice revenues with data and even advertising revenues," Vorster says. "We've also been able to negotiate favourable terms with a handset manufacturer, allowing us to get the landed cost of a handset down to around the $20 mark. That will make it truly affordable to those at the low end of the market." Vorster says that by stripping out many of the features not considered necessary in a phone and by negotiating with the manufacturer, the company has been able to get costs down. With QMobile still operating in stealth mode, Vorster isn't prepared to say which four countries it's going to launch in. However, Wills comments that while he's heard of similar plans before, they've typically fallen flat due to a lack of funding. Vorster replies that the group has secured in principle the capital required for phase one through a deal with African Heritage Investments. "We currently hold in excess of $100m in equity and only require the balance of capital needed for phase one - after which phase two will become partly self-funding or will require a lower level of capital. However, agreements in principle aren't the same as cash in the bank and only once QMobile begins generating revenues will the true potential emerge. (source: Finweek) In brief:- South Africa’s Altech announced half year results for the period ended 31 August 2007. Revenue increased by 20% to R4 billion, the company’s operating profit increased by 6% to R306 million and headline earnings per share were up 11% to 215 cents. In the telecommunications division, Altech Autopage Cellular produced satisfactory results having increased its total base to over 850 000 subscribers and higher average revenue per user (ARPU) than the corresponding period in 2006. Altech is using some of its R1.1 bn war chest to expand geographically and enter growing telecoms niches in a way that juggles "equal measures of prudence and agility", says CEO Craig Venter. - The sale of Rwandatel will be concluded by the end of October. Named bidders include: Vodacom, UAE-based V-Tel Holdings, Ugandan LapGreen Network and the little-known R-Com of Rwanda.
Web2forDev Conference: Audioblogging to spread knowledge to farmersThis week saw the Web2forDev conference take place in Rome. One speaker from India highlighted the innovative approach of audioblogs for farmers to spread knowledge and overcome literacy issues, reports Sarah Bel on the conference web site. Prof. Jayanta Chatterjee presented Kinsanblog (www.dealindia.org), an amazing virtual space where farmers can ask questions to tackle the agricultural constraints they face and get recorded answers in their local language. Two of the main barriers to sharing knowledge across farming communities are language and literacy. “Farmers are not literate and if they are, they’re certainly not English literate,” explained Chatterjee. At the same time, conversation is a key pattern in Indian culture used to share information. So audio material proved to be an efficient bypass to the constraints of literacy. The project also addressed the need for a horizontal network – not only to enable farmers to talk to scientific experts, but also to support farmer to farmer communication. The project started with 5 agricultural knowledge centers (46 villages, 300 000 people involved in Agriculture). Farmers can go there to record their questions, voice their problems and comment on what was previously recorded. This material is posted on the Kisanblog. This allows both experts and the farming community to respond to posts, so that the repository keeps on growing. A community of about 40 scientists and extension workers answer a wide range of questions tackling for instance issues around commodities, livestock or pest issues. They can also input extra material to supplement the answers. But a key success of the project is the commitment of the farming community to respond and provide answers. In fact, people in rural areas are eager to learn how other farmers are coping with the same constraints. The most popular posts appear to be not from the scientists but from their peers. Farmers place much more trust in their colleagues. Authenticity of the content is also an important issue. To ensure the quality of the content, answers are first seen by the extension officers. “They are responsible for looking at the answers first – and only those appearing to be OK are posted. This is particularly important for farmers: agriculture is the basis of their livelihoods and there is a need to supply reliable knowledge, added Chatterjee. Otherwise the consequences could be disastrous. Those who contribute to the blog can record their audio from any place as long they have a microphone is attached to a computer connected to Internet. Alternatively, they can send their off-line recording to the knowledge centre, saved as MP3. And before the end of 2008, the project will integrate mobile phone technology. This is the most popular device in rural areas for recording farmers’ questions and retrieving their information in the database. The Dealindia team made the project popular amongst farmers by “actively spreading the word” in the field. They participated in farmers’ fairs, at rural exhibition, they demonstrated to technology to farmers’ groups and traveled to farming communities to tell about the potential benefit just like story tellers were doing in the past. As Chatterjee put it¸ “We went from place to place and told our story.” But the best element to motivate farmers to share their knowledge proved to be recognition. “We all want to be stars, we want to be known. That’s what Web 2.0 is about.” Actually, that’s also how the project managed to get scientists volunteering for the job. Even though they are public servants, dealindia needed to find the right incentives for them to participate. The reward came in the form of a personalised page created to showcase their experience and input – and thus recognition from their peers about the project and their involvement. Kinsablog now reaches a community of over 100 farmers and 40 scientists. They are committed to sharing agricultural information. If we consider that after only 9 months there are more than 1200 discussion threads available, the success of the project seems to be on the right track. For more information: Dr Janyanta Chatterjee jayanta@iitk.ac.in
People- Lyndall Shope-Mafole has been re-elected to a second term as South Africa’s Communications Department’s Director-General. - Actor Omar Sharif is to voice the new commercials for MTC’s brand make-over to Zain. Events- ICT AFRICA 2007 October 1-5, 2007, Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi, Kenya ICT Africa is an annual continental information and communications technology conference addressing all aspects of ICT development in Africa. The conference is convened by NEPAD council in collaboration with the NEPAD Kenya secretariat. The 2007 event will be organized by Global Conferences, Cape Town, South Africa. For further information contact rjacobs@globalconf.co.za - INFRASTRUCTURE PARTNERSHIPS FOR AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT (IPAD) CENTRAL AFRICA 3rd - 5th October, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo iPAD Central Africa 2006 provides an opportunity to network directly with key partners. The event aims to facilitate regional planning and collaborations under one roof between government, the public sector and business. iPAD Central Africa 2006 is a one-stop-shop for investigating investment opportunities in DRC and the Central African region as a whole. For further information visit http://www.spintelligent-events.com/ipad-central2006/en/ - USING ICT FOR EFFECTIVE DISASTER MANAGEMENT - AFRICA FORUM 2007 13th - 15th November 2007, Dar es Salaam International Conference Centre, Tanzania The use of ICTs in disaster management is one of the CTO's core areas of expertise. Following successful events in Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific, we are delighted to deliver our fourth regional ICTs for Effective Disaster Management Forum in Tanzania. There is no admission fee and we hope that all disaster management stakeholders will be able to attend and contribute to this event's success. With the Ministry of Communications and the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority as hosts, as well as the potential of a half-day workshop conducted by the ITU, this event has already attracted a huge amount of interest. For further information contact Mr. Salim Binbrek at the CTO on Tel: +44 208 834 1592 or Email: s.binbrek@cto.int. For more information please see the CTO website http://www.cto.int - THE EUROAFRICA-ICT INITIATIVE UPCOMING EVENTS. 8-9 October, Gaborone, Botswana 11-12 October, Yaoundé, Cameroon The EuroAfrica-ICT initiative is organising its 5th and 6th awareness workshops in sub-Saharan Africa (,). These workshops specifically aim at supporting the development of a deeper and broader Scientific and Technological cooperation between the European Union and sub-Saharan Africa in the ICT sector. For further information visit http://www.euroafrica-ict.org Jobs and opportunitieseLearning Africa 2008 Opens Call for Proposals The 3rd eLearning Africa conference, which will take place from May 28 to 30, 2008, in Ghana's capital Accra, has opened its Call for Proposals. The event, organised by ICWE GmbH and Hoffmann & Reif, focuses on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development, Education and Training in Africa. Serving as a Pan-African platform, eLearning Africa links a network of decision makers from governments and administrations with universities, schools, governmental and private training providers, industry, and important partners in development cooperation. Suggestions for sessions, presentations, workshops and discussions can be submitted until December 7 via an online form at http://www.elearning-africa.com/proposals.php. ContractsUganda: Warid Telecom and Motorola Motorola has announced that it has been selected by Warid Telecom Uganda to design and deploy an 802.16e WiMAX network. Under the terms of the contract Motorola will deliver a high speed wireless broadband network, allowing Warid Telecom Uganda to quickly and cost effectively connect new customers. Initial deployment is due for completion by the end of 2007, enabling residential and enterprise voice and data connectivity services such as Voice over IP (VoIP) and virtual private networks (VPN).
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