Tandaa announcement breakfast at the Serena Hotel, Nairobi.

Tandaa grant round 1 winners include: Ibid Labs, Octopus ICT Solutions, Infotrack Strategic Solution, Foundation Support Services, BTI Millman, RiverCross Technologies and JBA Advertising.

Kaburo and Lucy of the ICT Board are in charge of the Tandaa local digital content project.

Paul Kukubo, the captain of the ICT Board and a big technology evangelist and enthusiast, sporting an iPad.

Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Information and a big champion for local technology intiatives.

Hon. Samuel Poghisio the Minister for Information presented the $50,000 (a piece) grant to the first round of 7 winners of the $4,000,000 fund.

The new photo sharing service, Rumbaa, launched last Friday at the GP-Karting grounds sandwiched between the Carnivore restaurant and the Wilson Airport in Nairobi. The service borrows a leaf from the South African service Thunda.

A bunch of guys called RumbaaDudes drive around in a pimped-ip Hummer taking professional photos at parties and clubs. The photographs are later uploaded to the service where users can browse and share the photos on Facebook and Twitter.

Rumbaa gets a few things right where Nation Media Group’s Zuqka gets it all wrong.

Photographs on Rumbaa look great and the party people even better! There are also listings of events, DJs and local music (including videos).

So next time you are out partying and the RumbaaDudes come along, be sure to show your best side and strike a party pose.

The portal was developed by a local web development company, Ibid Labs.

Why can’t the first version of this iThingy be great? After waiting for so long, the market has to wait for version 3 or 4 to experience all the really cool stuff??

Has Steve Jobs lost his touch? Are those Apple guys now just geezers, past their prime? The iPad is disappointing! This is what I was expecting:

• A hybrid iMac-iPhone or a Macbook Air (detachable keyboard…Check out the Lenovo ideaPad) with 3G!
• 1 centimetre thin!
• Multiple screen sizes, say 6 inches, 10 inches and 17 inches (I want to be able to put it in my pocket sometimes. It should be an alternative to a laptop. Why do I need both??)
• A revolutionary new OS. Apple could have stunned us here! Without this, its just a me-too gadget! Apple shouldn’t do me-toos without changing the game!

The name is boring! Hey guys, all you changed was the ‘o’ and replaced it with an…’a'? Enough with this i-stuff already!

I don’t get it…a big iPhone without the ability to call or send SMS?  If Skype works on the iPad-thing, that would be cool. It doesn’t even have a camera…WHAAAT!

Really, all they needed to do was jazz up the Macbook Air, by adding 3G (have I said that already), borrowing some cool ideas from Bumptop and maybe a 3D display (or am I pushing it here?)

I give Apple an underwhelming 2 out of 10 on this one.

After several months of design, development and beta testing, the Ibid Labs marketing team has announced that the much awaited, web-based, business management software suite for SMEs, IBID, has been released.

Feature rich, simple-to-use, an elegant interface and user friendly language set IBID apart from similar systems often costing millions of shillings and out of reach for the thousands of SMEs that need such technology based tools.

IBID (Intelligent Business Internet Dashboard) is an integrated software suite that enables SME owners and managers collect and share all operational data and information. IBID has 12 feature-rich modules that help business managers and their staff manage accounts, employees, customer service, sales, document management, project management, eCommerce and more!

Even with such a huge features list, IBID manages to use simple, every day business language such that a first time user does not require much training. The interface is intuitive and if you can use email then using IBID will come naturally.

IBID runs off any web browser so users can access company data and all the features from a simple computer with an internet connection, or a mobile phone. There is no extra investment in computer hardware, software or personnel required to run IBID.

SMEs will find the recession friendly price of KShs 199,000/- affordable. The operational efficiencies and administrative cost savings of using IBID are huge. SMEs can expect a reduction of between 50% and 80% in adminstrative costs depending on how much use they put IBID to.

More information about IBID here (Ibid Labs blog) and here (Ibid Labs website).

More information about Ibid Labs here.

So now that internet connectivity is getting cheaper and cheaper, then what?

For starters, Kenyan consumers could use several services to help them with information about, well, eveything!

If I can get my bank balance from an ATM and get a printout, I expect to be able to do the same on my banks website.

If I can get my KPLC electricity bill by SMS, I expect I can get my statements for the last two years on the KPLC website.

I also expect I can compare insurance products from all the insurance companies out there.

I want to quickly find the phone numbers and locations of dentists, lawyers, plumbers and electrical repairmen!

The current mad dash by companies to make money by providing SMS services to mobile users has left a huge chasm in internet information services. Sure I don’t mind an SMS with my bank balance from time to time, but I also want the details.

Developing internet information services involves the hard work of data collection, editing and integration with other systems so that customers and internet users get the information they want quickly and on any internet enabled device. So sorry overnight-internet-millionaire-wannabes, it will be a while before you can buy a yacht.

Why is it that Nakumatt & Uchumi don’t publish their catalog online so that to purchase milk, soap and candles I don’t have to drive to all the way there?

The Kenya Revenue Authority has enabled citizens and businesses to serve themselves on their website for PIN registration, customs clearing and filing of taxes! Excellent! All they need to work on now is usability.

So the rest of Kenyan businesses, big and small need to quickly do the same for their customers and employees.

Several months ago, vuma.co.ke announced a new mobile music service endorsed by the Music Copyright Society of Kenya. I am still waiting for the service to be activated though I’ve heard that some of the music can be downloaded from the fledgling Safaricom Live mobile service. If you are fan of Kenyan Gospel and Zilizopendwa, then you can download the tracks by logging on the Safaricom’s WAP website. The service is powered by strangely named Liberty Afrika who dubiously claim to bring you ‘tomorrows innovations today’.

I enjoy reading the Business Daily newspaper online, though I can’t help but wonder why the banner ads either look awful or expired. Here’s an example of what you should not do! The Banner ad appears today yet the event it advertises happened a month ago. Is the client still paying for this?

The homepage user interface looks simple to use but this may be deceptive seeing as they ask for your phone number first, rather than presenting you with a choice of ringtones like an authentic shop does.

They do send you a PIN number which you have to confirm but I didn’t bother going beyond there. I’d tread with caution folks! 

I got their link from Facebook which has become a wasteland for hastily cooked online businesses as Kenyans make a mad dash for internet cash.

See for yourself here…

Once the huge information and automation gap is narrowed there will be a paradigm shift. Everything will change overnight.

Whatever Kenyans adopt as the standard will grow like MPESA. Like an unstoppable virus it will infect every nook and cranny. When that happens corruption will not die a slow death. It will die an immediate death.

Everyone will have access to information. Choice. Facts. And the tools to share. To trade. Everybody will be reachable on the great interweb. Imagine the police with up to date records on crimes and felons. The courts using web tools to schedule and process cases. Citizens searching the land registry, people and companies registry online. Filing taxes online is already happening.

So the opportunity is there for the startups that will figure this one out. The uncomputerised SME sector like the unbanked masses are waiting for solutions. When the right one comes along, the country will enter the long awaited information age.

The solutions will likely be developed in Kenya. Sorry Microsoft and Google.

The solution will be dumbed down and elegant. Easy to sample, sign up and use, like Mpesa.

One solution will rule them all. 70-80% market share.

The solution will be platform agnostic. Its not a Windows vs Linux vs any OS.

The solution will be bei ya mwananchi. Cheap.

Everybody was on chat. Emoticons, strange words like lol, btw, and chat marathons. Then Facebook happened. Facebook is chat and reality TV mixed into one. Big Brother in photos and text messages. While you chat, you can check out someones wall, send them cards, look at their videos, etc, etc. Facebook has become chewing gum for the fingers (like TV was chewing gum for the eyes).

Once Facebook starts to really mine all that user data and it becomes a full fledged advertiser network (camouflaged as a photo album cum scrap book) users will flock to the next thing…maybe The Matrix. Facebook will make its money and users will get bored.

That next thing will be like a cyber daemon (watch the Golden Compass if you haven’t). Your online profile will become a virtual you and run your life. It the master, you the slave. It may happen sooner that you think if the Sixth Sense project finds its way into iPhone 5 or 6. That means in 2 or 3 years!

By that time no one will remember Yahoo or Messenger. Facebook will be yesterday. Summize might be the new Google and iPhone the worlds Nokia.

When Yahoo and MSN happened, probably over 30 million Kenyans missed out. This time with 15 million and growing mobile users only those at the furthest margins will be left out of the system. Children, the very old and very, very poor. For everyone else, resistance is futile.