MICROSOFT GLOBAL EDUCATION PARTNER SUMMIT

We are atending Microsoft’s Global Education Partner Summit,from the third to fifth of February, in Washington DC at Microsoft’s Redmond Campus.

Filed under: Uncategorized , africa, education, education conference, erp, kenya, microsoft

WATCH OUT FOR PHARMASOFT ONLINE™….

WATCH OUT FOR PHARMASOFT ONLINE™….

Filed under: ACCESS KENYA, CRM, ICT, KENYA ICT BOARD, KIBERA, Nairobi, SEACOMS, SKUNKWORKS, SOFTWARE KENYA, kenya , mobilewebeastafrica, mobile web east africa, mobile, web, east africa, internet in kenya, pharmasoft, online stock control software, software, CRM, online financial management, pharmacore, quickbooks, intuit, pastel, sage, erp

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Happy holidays to you and everyone!

We close for the holiday season from 22nd December 2009 to 4th January 2010!

Have a blessed Christmas Holiday and a Prosperous 2010!

Filed under: Uncategorized , africa, christmas, happy holidays, ict in kenya, kenya, microsoft, microsoft africa, microsoft kenya, rivotek

MIND MAPPING

To bring our future to reality, we must envision it, draw the picture in our mind, see it, and live as if we were in it.

More and more people are realizing the powers of visualization.
tons of books have been written about this, acknowledging the power of visualization in achieving ones goals.
Mind maps are, by definition, is a graphical method of taking notes.

The visual basis of them helps one to distinguish words or ideas, often with colors and symbols.

They generally take a hierarchical or tree branch format, with ideas branching into their subsections.

Mind maps allow for greater creativity when recording ideas and information, as well as allowing the note-taker to associate words with visual representations.

Mind maps and concept maps are different in that mind maps focus on only one word or idea, whereas Concept maps connect multiple words or ideas.

Mindmeister is my pick on mind mapping software.
It combines online and offline capabilities, enabling you to work on your ideas and concepts on and off the web.
It has apps for the i-phone connecting you to their server while on the go too!
My favorite aspect of this though is the way that you can do this as a group, a bit like Google docs and Microsoft Sharepoint on how you can work collaboratively on a single idea or project.

There are other mind mapping tools out there of course, like mindjet, www.mindjet.com, and freemind, mindgenius but mindmeister is my pick.

Whats yours?

Filed under: Uncategorized , microsoft, Mindmeister, mindmapping, mind-mapping, the secret, collaboration, visualisation, visualization, i phone, apps

RIVOTEK NOW ON TWITTER.

Rivotek is now on Twitter.

Filed under: Uncategorized , africa, ict board, kenya, microsoft, Nairobi, rivotek, twitter

DOING BUSINESS IN KENYA, NAROK ROCKS!

The world bank recently published a report entitled “Doing Business in Kenya” and according to it, Narok Rocks.
Most people associate Narok with the Maasai Mara, and one cannot help but associate this with the tourism industry.
Its a good thing too for a budding entrepreneur with ideas surrounding tourism. It means one may start a successful business in this field within a short period.

The full details to this are found at the following link:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/subnational/exploreeconomies/Kenya2010.aspx

It compares business regulations across 11 Kenyan localities. The report focuses on local and national regulations that affect 4 stages in the life of a small- or mid-sized domestic enterprise: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, and enforcing contracts.

The report shows that differences in local regulations and in the enforcement of national-level regulations can enhance or constrain local business activity. These findings suggest that localities in Kenya can learn from each other and adopt good practices that are already working within the country.

Doing Business in Kenya 2010 is the first subnational report on the country. Although there are differences in the number of procedures, time, and cost to do business in Kenya, some localities already perform up to international standards. If a hypothetical city, “Kenyana”, were to adopt the best practices already in place in Kenya, its ranking would improve in all four areas of regulation that are the focus of this study, putting “Kenyana” in 78th place among the 183 economies measured in the global Doing Business report (table 2). That is 17 positions better than Kenya’s current global rank (represented by Nairobi).

Main findings:

* Narok, Malaba and Thika lead the overall ranking on the four indicators measured in the report. Isiolo, Nairobi and Kilifi lag behind other localities (table 1).
* One of the reasons it takes longer to start a business in Kenyan localities is the many steps required: 3 more than the Sub-Saharan Africa regional average and 3 times as many as in Senegal. Starting a business is fastest and least expensive in Nairobi at 34 days and 36% of income per capita. It is slowest in Narok with 81 days, while in Malaba, the cost is almost twice as high as in Nairobi.
* The process to obtain construction-related permits and clearances is easiest in Narok, Nyeri and Malaba, but more cumbersome in Isiolo, Thika and Mombasa. Obtaining all permits to build a warehouse and hook it up to utilities takes less than 70 days in Narok, making it the 15th fastest location worldwide, the same as Denmark.
* Registering property is fastest in Mombasa, where it takes 23 days (figure 1). In Isiolo, a special transfer tax levied by the County Council makes registering property almost as expensive as in the Syrian Arab Republic, the world’s most expensive place to register property.
* Resolving a commercial dispute is speedy in Malaba, because the courts in Bungoma, where these are heard, are strict on adjournments. As a result, the 11 months needed to enforce a contract in Malaba are less than the OECD average (15.5 months).

Filed under: Uncategorized , kenya, rafikikenya, Narok, Nairobi, business, world bank, IFC, Maasai Mara, mara, Tourism, kenyaimagine

TECHSUPPORT!

One of the most difficult things to do and manage in the ICT industry is tech support.

It is taken very lightly in Kenya, and a market survey done by G&r Marketing , a company that has carved a niche in the market research industry , had the following negative perspectives towards the ICT industry and performance by IT companies in general:

1) There are currently a large number of IT illiterate people making it impossible to fully implement IT solutions.
“….Wide illiteracy….”
Compassion
“….Much needs to be done to promote IT literacy in the country and industry….”
NDI

“….It’s slowly progressing, not accessible in rural areas….”
Marie Stopes Kenya

2) Most of the IT solutions currently available are perceived to be unaffordable.

“….Wide illiteracy and un-affordability by users….”
Compassion

“….High internet costs limit hardware upgrades….”
AIM
3) Respondents perceive that, the IT industry in Kenya lacks standards, therefore, ‘anything goes’. In addition, there is no authority or body governing the IT industry in Kenya thus leading to consumer exploitation by the few players in the market.

“….No standardizing. No authority governing their activity; substandard products and overpricing is common. High entry costs discourage newcomers….”
SMS

“….Need to standardize the IT industry in the country….”
KIPPRA

“….Consumers are being exploited by the few key players in the industry….”
KPO
4) Ignorance of organizations concerning the potential benefits of IT leads to procurement of IT solutions based on the possibility of kickbacks rather than on the potential benefits of the IT solutions being offered by vendors.
“….Organizations do not base their procurement decisions on the potential benefits of the technology but on the possible kickbacks they would receive from the supplier…..”
SRS
5) The IT players in the Kenyan market are perceived to be poor at marketing their services thus limiting the knowledge of clients as to what solutions are available locally. Thus, some of the clients end up importing solutions at very high costs which they would have sourced cheaply locally if they would have known that the solutions were available locally.

“….Poor marketing limits knowledge of what the local market has to offer. We import most of our hardware and software because of the good deals and warranty we get…”
AIM

At the end of the day though, Kenya the cradle of mankind, shall be the cradle of ICT for Africa.

I am not the first to say this. the sudden attention by offshore companies from Europe, Asia and America must not be ignored.

Its one of two things; either our systems and solutions have to develop and be so advanced and be at such low cost to enable swift deployment and extremely low downtime, or we shall be overtaken by foreign companies and solutions that are easily deployable with little or no downtime.

Be warned.

Filed under: Uncategorized , CUSTOMER CARE, frica X bing X Conrad Shayo X Dr. C. E. Tapie Rohm Jr X email scams X fibre optic cable X internet fraud X internet security X kenya X Laico X Laico Regency hotel X nigerian scams X The Secure ICT Con, kenya, Nairobi, SECURITY, SUPPORT, TECHNOLOGY

INTERNET SECURITY

Everyone seems so excited about fibre.

In Kenya, the expectations of good things are high; there is little mention of the bad.

Kenya is going to be exposed to scams sixty times worse than the Nigerian ones.

Here is a sample of an email scam doing the rounds.

The email, originating from “a registrar is China”, aims to scare people into registering Chinese versions of their domain names. The message says that another company (in China) is trying to register several Chinese variants of a domain name that you’ve registered.

“If you are NOT CEO,please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent.Thanks.)

Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in China. we have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on Jun 29, 2009, One Japan company called Speed soft investment Corp” are applying to register(rivotek TechHR RegSys) as internet brand name and domain names as below (rivotek.cn rivotek.com.cn rivotek.mobi rivotek.asia rivotek.in rivotek.hk rivotek.cc rivotek.tw etc.).

After our initial checking, we found the internet brand name and these domain names being applied are as same as your company’s, so we need to get the confirmation from your company. If the aforesaid company is your business partner or your subsidiary company, please DO NOT reply us, we will approve the application automatically. If you have no any relationship with this company, please contact us within 10 workdays. If out of the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by Speed soft investment Corp” unconditionally.

We would like to get the affirmation of your company,please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Kevin Wu
Senior Director
TEL: +86 21 69929440
Fax: +86 21 69929447
Website:www.7pengnic.org.cn
Address:Room 902,8th,nong 1518,Jinyuan 1st Road,Jiading District, Shanghai city.”

Now when you go to their website, a very nicely done site I must add,one would easily fall for it.

thanks to search engines though
, a quick bing and I discovered that it was a scam ( http://phibble.com/pbn/technology/asian-domain-name-scam-targets-us/ ) . This scam is now in Africa, among many others.
Are we really prepared to deal with Internet Security?

The Secure ICT Conference 2009 ( http://secureict.co.ke/ ) is the first annual Information Communication Technology & Network Security Conference scheduled for September 8-9, 2009; at the Laico Regency Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya.

This conference hopes to bring security experts to provide information technology and communication professionals and managers with the latest information on cyber security threats, trends, tools and strategies for protection of critical information technology and communications assets.

The conference is scheduled to offer two concurrent tracks, Information Security Management and Incident Response and Information Security Technology and Operations.

Co-sponsored by the Kenya ICT Board, it hopes to have ICT experts like Dr. C. E. Tapie Rohm Jr,Conrad Shayo and Isaac Rutenberg.

The question still remains, will we be safe?

On the flipside, being a Kenyan and a capitalist at that, I see opportunity;I predict a spike in the profits of client support companies doing software system maintenance particularly in the fields antivirus, antispam, antimalware, anti….

Filed under: Uncategorized , africa, bing, Conrad Shayo, Dr. C. E. Tapie Rohm Jr, email scams, fibre optic cable, internet fraud, internet security, kenya, Laico, Laico Regency hotel, nigerian scams, The Secure ICT Conference 2009

HEALTH PROMOTION

Health Promotion
Health Promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.
It’s concerned with several activities these being:
 Preventive Health Services – Primary, secondary and tertiary
 Policy Development
 Regulatory and economic activities
 Legislation
 Health Education
 Determinants of Health

In the past five years under the current director, there has been increased emphasis on all these areas and success has been achieved in the following areas
Policy
• Enaction of the Tobacco Control Bill
• 60% reduction in RTA’s as a result of enforcement of the “Michuki” rules.
• Participation in development of the NHSSP II

The department serves as the disseminator of the right health information to the public and works in collaboration with all health programs in the ministry in the production of health promotion information. This is especially in regard to the content, production, distribution and dissemination .e.g. the Malaria program, Immunization programs, etc
The Division in the past five years has been instrumental in highlighting the Ministry of Health positively, pro actively and has significantly increased its visibility and profile. This has resulted in the Ministry of Health being one of the key ministries in this country, with a dedicated and growing budget.
The division prepares the speeches on health presented to the nation by the Head of State, Minister of Health, the PS and all senior government officials.
It also works together with the advertising firms to ensure that any health related messages created for the public have the right content to protect from misleading information being disseminated.
The division also liaises with the Ministry of Education in curriculum development in schools.
The division has moved away from actual production of health materials like, print and electronic in line with World Standards and this is done by the professional advertising companies in consultation with them.
Thus patient education materials are prepared in line with the particular health intervention e.g. nutrition, sanitation, malaria etc with the division playing the key role.

The division through the active intervention of the director been responsible in the past 5 years for the following,
 Increased access to quality health services across the country
 Incentives to health personnel working in marginalized and rural areas.
 Confidence building in the health services among Kenyans
 Social mobilization.
 Drug supply improvement
 Demand creation
 Cultural sensitization

The director is working towards certain goals such as:
 Health as a resource for daily living
 Health care financing – through the establishment of social health insurance, as per the proposed NSHIF bill. The main idea is to address inequities in health.
 Affirmative action – in health service provision, they have ensured that in the past 3 years all new middle level health personnel employed i.e. nurses; clinical officers, etc have been posted to North Eastern province as well as other under resourced areas in the country.
Role of the Division.
1. Support Programs through
• Strategy
• Advocacy
2. Community Health programs
3. Patient Health Education e.g.
Post abortion care
Post delivery services
Family planning services
4. School Health
Policy development
Sanitation
Life skills training
HIV/STI’s education
5. Training
Mainly targeting middle level staff- nurses, CO’s for a 1 year post basic training on Health Promotion.

Constraints.
The main constraints faced by the division are
Resources
Personnel –especially retention of qualified staff

Filed under: Uncategorized , E-HEALTH, HEALTH, HEALTH PROMOTION, kenya, MHEALTH, PSK, SANITATION, WATER