This weekend, Safaricom is moving their servers, which were in Germany, to Kenya. They’ve been harping this on their social channels as #mpesacomeshome. From their press release:

Early last year, we announced plans to migrate the M-PESA platform to Kenya. We can now confirm that faster transactions, improved stability and added functionality on M-PESA is a dream coming to life: M-PESA is coming home!
Here is what you will enjoy from the new M-PESA system:

The Universal Service Fund, created by The Kenya Information Communications Amendment Act 2009 (KICA 2009) and the Kenya Information and Communications Regulations 2010 (KICR US&A 2010), was to create a fund that would compliment the commercial roll-out of communications infrastructure.

The objectives of the Universal Service Fund as provided in the Kenya Information and Communications Regulations 2010, Universal Access and Service include:

1. Promote communications infrastructure and services rollout in rural, remote and under-served areas 
2. Ensure availability of communication services to Persons with Disabilities, women and other vulnerable groups.
3. Support the development of capacity building in ICTs and technological
   innovation
4. Support expansion of communication services to schools, health facilities
   and other organizations serving public needs and
5. Facilitate development of and access to a wide range of local and relevant
   content.

The Universal Service Fund is primarily financed by mandatory contributions from licensed operators which provide services in the various communications market segments, with provisions for complementary financing from other sources.
The fund now has apparently has 3.4 billion shillings contributed to it by telecommunications firms and now those firms want the fund audited and represention on the  Universal Service Advisory Council, which manages the fund. From the Nation:

Bob Collymore’s contract is up for renewal in 4 months, and he’s yet to hear from the board, of which he’s a part of, whether he’s coming back. From the Business Daily:

Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore has not heard from the company’s board of directors about the renewal of his employment contract, which expires in four months’ time. 

Mr Collymore’s contract ends in August, having been extended for two years in 2013. There is a strong expectation it will be renewed again in the absence of any overt succession planning.

I want to try something new guys, I want to try writing about one topic: Safaricom. Why? Because I’m interested in the company, it being the chief tech company in the country and the one with the largest market cap of 640 billion shillings.

This will be in the same vein as John Gruber who primarily writes about Apple as a company: giving insights, thought pieces, and theories on the company. So that’s what I want to try do too. Unlike him, though, I currently don’t have sources in Safaricom of any kind but if I keep at this, maybe, I’ll get some.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter and Instagram would have noticed that I’ve been in Nigeria for the last couple of weeks. I’m here on a work, helping capacity building and providing technical support for a project that is looking to replicate our, iHub’s, Umati methodology for monitoring dangerous speech online.

My friend and editor told me that he was expecting a blog post when I got back but I’ve been thinking about it and it sounds like too much of a chore to try writing a post on a whole month, so I’d rather write a series of shorter posts that capture some of the things I have to say.

This will be a rant. It’ll be short. I bought shoes from Bata the other week, beautiful black and green shoes, so I could use them for training for the Standard Chartered Marathon; in fact, that’s all they were to be used for, running.

When I was buying them I talked to the sales lady asking her which shoes would be good for running and she showed me the racks that had the Power branded shoes on them. There was a lot of variety and it was difficult to choose so it came down colour really. I liked the blue kicks but the ones in stock just weren’t as sexy as the green and blacks. After I bought them I took a picture of them to show them off.

When I did the series about Getting to iHub, I mentioned that I may do a post on why it’s such an awesome place to intern. This is that post. This is how I would convince any student in this country to come work for us, the reasons I’d give them. 

1. The Dress Code

The first thing is that you get to come to work dressed in whatever fashion suits you; for me that is jeans, t-shirt and sneakers. I remember when I came for my first day I asked my supervisor, who was dressed in jeans, sneakers and a sweater, whether there was a dress code and he chuckled saying that I was free to come in anything I was comfortable in. Of course I would have noticed if I had been paying more attention to the environment while I was there for the interview, but I was completely focused on not letting my nervousness overcome me. 

It’s been more than 4 years since my very first post to this blog and we’ve reached another milestone with the post before this: 200 published posts on this blog and counting; it is also approximately the 92nd post published since @TheOkelo started as editor here and it’s been a great 2 and half years.

Therefore, with this post, this milestone, I’ve chosen to dedicate it to my editor, Tony. It’ll be a celebration of him and our friendship and I hope I can really do it justice.

I got slapped on a bus today. I was just there minding my own business, listening to some Lana Del Rey and suddenly something softish smacks me on the side of the face and all I see is this round protrusion sticking out from this guy’s jacket.

I couldn’t believe it. I stared at him as he proceeded sideways down the narrow center aisle of the bus and people tilted their heads to the side to avoid his marshmallowy tummy as it moved past them.

I don’t know what to write today. The thing that’s on my mind is the passing of a friend of mine but I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that yet. So instead I’m going to do a short rant about mikokoteni (push carts) and motor cycles.

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These two classes of vehicles seem to think they don’t need to obey traffic rules. Mikokoteni  routinely go up the wrong side of the road causing all kinds of mayhem traffic-wise and even when they’re going the right way they are often moving so slow they still cause a minor snare up behind. If you’re on foot you’re not spared as because their drivers have no scruples getting on the pavement to avoid traffic. Finally I’ve seen a number of them scratch the side of cars as they try to squeeze through the miniscule spaces or simply because the driver can’t control the massive weight they’re transporting.