Wrap-Up: Our pick of main stories, Friday April 24th, 2015

Clients take to social media to taunt M-PESA for service delays

Barely a week after Safaricom’s M-Pesa servers were brought home from Germany, its operations have experienced delays for most of today, leaving many with questions after it was promised that with the servers home, the mobile money services and transactions would be significantly improved. Subscribers have complained of experiencing delays when sending or receiving messages on the network.

A statement from the telco read, “Safaricom regrets to inform its subscribers that an issue with its Core Network is currently affecting SMS services. The problem, which began at 05:00am on the morning of April 24th 2015, is affecting subscribers intermittently.”

Stephen Chege replaces Nzioka Waita at Safaricom

Safaricom has announced the appointment of Stephen Chege to the position of Director – Corporate Affairs. Mr Chege takes over from Nzioka Waita, who left the company last week following his appointment to the government as the Secretary for Delivery.

Five ways to promote local content in Kenya

Local content in Kenya is growing; be it music, film, literature, or any of the other art and cultural works. In 2013 the entertainment industry generated a revenue of Shs 144 billion, and this is expected to surpass Shs 260 billion by 2018 according to a 2014 forecast by PwC as reported by Capital FM. Given the history of entertainment in Kenya, such figures might look promising, but when compared to other markets such as Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, etc, Kenya still has a long way to go. The major reason Kenya’s entertainment industry is not performing as Tanzanian’s or even Nigerian’s is because Kenyans are yet to completely and unreservedly show total love for local content, especially local films.

Airtel Kenya bags blobal award, strategizes to introduce innovative products

It all started as a small dream to partner with Kenya’s leading financial solution Equity bank in a project aimed at ensuring customers can freely access their Savings, insurance, credit, payments, investment among others. Through the partnership between Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO), Airtel Kenya won a global award. Airtel Africa CEO Christian De Faria through a statement said, “This recognition is a pleasant surprise. The launch of MVNOs is in line with Airtel’s innovation and differentiation agenda.’’

High school students to benefit from ICT and entrepreneurship project

Alliance High School is among the schools that benefited from an ICT and Entrepreneurship project by Samsung C&T (Construction and Trade) in collaboration with UN-HABITAT, Global Peace Foundation and the Community Chest of Korea. The project dubbed “Innovate Kenya” was recently at a colorful event held at Alliance High Schoolwith the aim of improving livelihoods of youth residing and working in Nairobi’s slum areas.

Easy Taxi Introduces New Uber-Like Pricing Model in Kenya

Taxi hailing app Easy Taxi has today a launched new fare determination method in a move to become more appealing to its users in Nairobi and probably around the country or even regionally. Easy Taxi today implimented minimum charges and price per Kilometre in a move to simplify their cab billing process and as well sign more users due to transparency and system automation. The firm has been leaving drivers to determine how much their clients pay mostly based on the driver’s guesswork or experience. This new feature will kill all manner of doubt and dishonesty in case a driver or a passenger decides to be so.

ICTA, Microsoft target 300,000 teachers in training partnership

The ICT Authority and Microsoft have entered into an agreement that is set to provide a platform that will enable ICT Skills training for up to 300,000 teachers, upskilling 50 000 working professionals and bringing 10 000 SMEs online over the next three years and providing ICT policy training to government officials in three years. The MoU signing looks into ways of collaborating with the Kenya National Library Services to provide access to Microsoft Certification through IT Academies across the country.