Kirusa’s ‘make your life easier’ apps target changing how African MNOs get revenues from voicemail, roaming and enterprise calling

19 October 2018

There are apps that change your life and apps that make your life easier: both are needed. Kirusa’s apps have focused on changing how people use their phone in Africa and point towards a different future. Russell Southwood spoke to Kirusa’s CEO Inderpal Mumick about how it all works. Kirusa talks about “re-imagining voice in a data era” and is creating products that work across all of your phone experience and users rather things like WhatsApp that work as standalone apps. A cynical outsider might say that this is the sort of thing mobile operators should have done in response…

Multichoice’s Talent Factory Academy opens in Lagos, Lusaka and Nairobi and aims to take 60 chosen film-makers “to the next level”

19 October 2018

Africa’s film and TV industry does not have a lack of raw talent but in many countries it has simply not had the breadth of experience you might find elsewhere. As part of its Corporate Shared Value programme, the Multichoice Talent Factory is aiming to help change things. Russell Southwood spoke to Cheryl Uys-Allie about how they found people to participate and what it’s offering, The idea for Multichoice’s Talent Factory came out an initiative that M-Net had run in South Africa. Started in 2014, the Magic In Motion (MIM) Academy was targeted at film graduates:”The Talent Factory is a…

Africa's Media Deficit and Access to Knowledge

Access to information is a fundamental human right. Article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights1 (ICCPR) links the right to information to freedom of expression includes the right to information: When citizens have no access to media or only limited access to media their “freedom to seek, receive and impart information of all kinds” is restricted. Where this position exists, citizens are experiencing a media deficit that affects their access to knowledge. Therefore, this briefing paper sets out to do two things: To outline the scale and extent of the media deficit and the general factors…