The true value of technology is the people it impacts. The same is true about research.  At the iHub UX lab, we take this very seriously. In the recent past, iHub Research did a comprehensive research project among the rural population of Kenya that looked at water related challenges the communities face. One of the [...]
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1. Catherine Mahugu – Co-Founder of Sasa Africa now  Shop Soko - http://shopsoko.com/ Catherine Mahugu is an alumni of the School of Computing and Informatics in the University of Nairobi. She has been involved in various ICT for Development projects including Stanford University’s Nokia Africa Research Center Design Project that involved building mobile applications targeting informal communities.With [...]
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Waza (Swahili for “Active Thinking”) Experience is an iHub community initiative that aims to foster active thinking and creativity in Kenyan youth. The idea for Waza was born out of a noted lack of emphasis on creative thinking and problem solving in the traditional Kenyan education system. Waza effectively grooms the next generation into thoughtful [...]
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By Moses Temu

What is a cluster?

To put it simply a cluster is an aggregation of several computers, the computational nodes that are networked together in a way that allows for them to act as one.

So why do we need clusters?

This is a bit of an extreme example but it I think it gets the idea across really well. Take the movie Avatar for example. James Cameron, its director, said each frame in the movie took between 30 and 50 hours to render. Movies have 24 frames every second, and the extended version of Avatar is 178 minutes long. Doing the math for that, using an average of 40 hours per frame, you’ll find it would have taken them over 1170 years to render the movie, if they had done it one frame at a time on a single processor. Weta Digitals’ 40,000 processor render farm made possible compete within a few years.

This is what clusters are for. They provided the computational power need to enable projects that would have otherwise be impossible, or would have taken much longer.

The iHub Cluster

The iHub cluster is a GPU cluster, which means that each node contains one or more graphics processing units that are used to do the computation. This differs from a CPU cluster where all the computation is done only on CPUs. GPU’s being parallel processors means that they provide a significant advantage over CPU’s when it comes to computational power. General-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) are quickly gaining popularity due to this fact.

How much faster are graphics processors when it comes to calculations?

The fastest hex-core processor of 2010, Intel’s Core i7 980XE, is capable of 109 FLOPS (FLoating-point Operations Per Second). The Nvidia GTX 480, the fastest single GPU card from the same year is capable of 672 gigaFLOPS. There’s more. The GFLOPS/watt values for the i7 and the GTX 480 are 0.838 and 2.688 respectively. So not only are GPUs more powerful but they are more efficient too. Each HD 7970 used in the iHub cluster is capable of near to 950 gigaFLOPS in double precision performance.

The computational nodes are fully-fledged computers of their own and the hardware that makes up each individual node is quite impressive. An Asus P8P67 WS Revolution motherboard, an Intel i5 2500k, 8GB of DDR3 memory, 3 HD 7970 graphics cards, an infiniBand adapter and a 128GB Samsung SSD all powered by an Enermax MaxRevo 1350 watt power supply. The iHub cluster will be made up of four of these nodes, all connected to and controlled by an Intel Modular Server.

How is the Cluster Managed, Serviced and Monitored?

The Intel Modular Server is where the management, service and monitoring of the cluster is done. The modular server has an integrated SAN (Storage Area Network) with support of up to 14 2.5” drives, a Management Module, used to configure the internal SAN, as well as the service modules and the compute servers. The service modules include a Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module, that provides switching and routing functionality to the modular server, as well as providing a way for the for the compute servers to connect to one another, and a Storage Control Module, which controls the partitioning of the drives in the server. Support is available for up to two of these service modules. Up to six compute servers can be installed each with 2 Intel Xeon processors. The iHub Cluster currently has three compute servers installed.

A Cisco SFS 7000 Series switch provides a high speed method of communication between computational nodes.

iHub Cluster Software

In terms of software, the cluster is running on Debian 6 and is diskful, which means that all the nodes have a full operating system installed on their individual hard drives.  There are two reasons why I went with Debian on the cluster. The first being that Debian has a relatively long iteration period, and though this means it may not necessarily be at the cutting edge, it does mean that its very stable. The second reason is familiarity with Debian based systems. If an issue were to occur, it’s important that support can be provided and installing an unfamiliar operating system would make support more difficult.

Ensuring Optimal Performance

With all the hardware that is in a cluster and the umpteen number of tasks it will potentially have to complete, there needs to be a way to ensure that cluster is performing as efficiently as possible. Tasks on the cluster need to be balanced so that resources aren’t wasted and performance can be maximized. Clusters are likely to have more than one user. This means that each user needs resources allocated to them in order for their jobs to be carried out. These needs are met through the use of cluster management software.

The management software installed on the cluster is SLURM. SLURM scales well, so it can perform management tasks on clusters at a small scale, but also allows for expansion of the cluster in the future.

It provides support for a large variety of operating systems and in the case of Debian was available through the package manager, once the appropriate repositories were added, making installation simple. It also did not require any modification to be made to the kernel.

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Never in the history of humanity has man had more power at his hands to influence the world in which he lives.

Man now harnesses tools that were not even imagined a century ago to predict weather, plan and build smart cities 100 years into the future, and solve social-economic problems such as crime and poverty. 

How does he do this?

Using supercomputers to crunch mega data, making sense of tiny individual data bits that alone do not make sense, but when collectively explored and analyzed, suddenly form a big map of patterns, trends and new information.

And this – is where the real genius is. Suddenly, we have tool with which we can solve vexing problems, intelligently. 

But data, on its own, does not make sense. Someone or something has to get it all together, and crunch it (process it) into meaningful information. Super computers give man the ability to do this.

How?

Say you take one server, add another ten.  Then trick them into thinking they’re one machine, by installing software that controls each of these nodes as one. (Individual computers are known as nodes).  (Like a puppeteer’s strings controlling different parts of the puppet.) And each node has no idea that it is a node of any sort – it thinks it’s a processor – and the OS installed on them sees them as one unit.

This is parallel processing at its simplest – a series of computers doing several tasks as one large unit. Together.

This is comparable to a large ship. One engine alone cannot power the ship. So what they do is split the task of powering that one large ship amongst four engines. The engine doesn’t have to run at full capacity – but if it did, the overall output would be more than one ship with one engine alone. This can be applied to the concept of supercomputing.

“The exciting bit – the meat and potatoes so to speak, is how you use data to discover new things.”

For example, if you analyze traffic trends in Kenya, you’d see traffic increases before a big event or before a change of weather. All these unhidden data needs a super computer to go through them very fast, and analyze trends invisible to you. What was once random is now part of a pattern that can be used to print a map to predict phenomena.

“Suddenly, mere mortals now have the power to predict events before they happen, and manage them in real time.”

Right now, the changes in weather are extreme and it looks as if it is coming from nowhere. But – pull together all the weather data over several decades and the patterns make sense fast.

“As anyone who manages a super computer center will tell you, it is not about the tech – its about what you can do with it…

Academia from different fields are in a unique position to take advantage of this. Not in the least because their minds can wield such power. Fields such as medicine, chemistry, economics, statisticians, meteorological departments, police, researchers and…journalists have been given a platform to crunch data.

The limits have been knocked out – and only limitation is your imagination.

Project Blue Brain – simulating the human mind

The initial goal of the project, completed in December 2006, was the simulation of a rat neocortical column, which can be considered the smallest functional unit of the neocortex (the part of the brain thought to be responsible for higher functions such as conscious thought).

“A longer term goal is to build a detailed, functional simulation of the physiological processes in the human brain: “It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years,” Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project said in 2009 at the TED conference in Oxford.[4] In a BBC World Service interview he said: “If we build it correctly it should speak and have an intelligence and behave very much as a human does.”

A section of the brain has a billion neurons just to blink. And this is for a rat. For a human being, this is way more. So you can imagine the sheer power required of the Blue Gene supercomputer to map the human brain . 

The good news is – we have one right here in Kenya.

| The iHub Cluster

While we might not be at this level yet, the potential is vast. From traffic analysis – help designers build better and intelligent roads, (The traffic problem is periodic. We all know when peak traffic is, we’re like animals, when something happens and we all run for our cars…) All these behaviors can be predicted and help engineers design better roads. 

So at iHub Cluster, here’s how we’re leveraging on the super computer we’ve built, and how we’re engaging different partners to crack some of the socio-economic problems facing the region.

An important aspect of this is partnerships and collaboration – if different institutions could combine muscle and work on large-scale projects, a lot can be achieved.

iHub Cluster for example, is working with the Praxis Group, and Brain Trust Strategies to kick off a Data Blog where analysts and economists work to find correlations and patterns within large sets of data. The findings will all be published on the blog, to create general interest in analytics as a practice and create use cases for the cluster. (Read about this here) If you would like to participate, send an email to cluster@ihub.co.ke

Admittedly, harnessing data will not be the panacea of all socio-economic errs, but – it will go a long way towards better decisions, better planning, better strategy. (Read about the limitations of What Data Can and Cant Do)

Here’s a technical deep dive we put together on the iHub Super Computer. It shows what software the computer is running, how its been put together and how it all works together. 

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iHub Research is pleased to formally announce the commencement of a new project named “Understanding the impacts of Code4Kenya open data applications and services”. This research is part of a two –year research program titled  ‘Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries‘ (or Open Data in Developing Countries- ODDC), coordinated by the World Wide Web Foundation and funded through grant 107075 from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada).

The aim of the research program is to understand the dynamics of both open data policy and practice across the developing world, paying attention to the dynamics of open data use across different geographies and contexts, and looking at both positive impacts of open data, and unintended consequences. Through southern-led research cases, it seeks to develop a deeper understanding of developing country contexts and to determine the potential benefits and challenges of open data in such locations, supporting comparisons and contrasts to be drawn with early open data models from the US (data.gov) and the UK (data.gov.uk).

Overall, ODDC will conduct 17 independent case studies in 14 countries and iHub Research’s project will explore emerging impacts of open Data in Kenya, alongside another local study. This will also form part 2 of a previous study on the same initiative.

The Kenya Open Data Initiative was launched in July 2011 and hosts more than 430 government datasets on the opendata.go.ke portal which has received hundreds of thousands of views and more than 5,000 dataset downloads. Despite this, use of Kenya’s open datasets has fallen short of initial expectations, with only a minority of the population having ever accessed the platform. The Code4Kenya project is an outreach initiative, supporting intermediaries to work with datasets and to develop applications and services which make data more accessible and that promote transparency, accountability, citizen engagement and improved public service delivery.

This project will explore the long-term impacts of this outreach initiative, focusing particularly on work relating to counties, health, and education sectors. This will contribute to understanding of the role that technology intermediaries play in facilitating impacts from open data, and to an assessment of the value of interventions that stimulate and incubate tech community uses of open data.

This research will run for a period of 9 months with regular updates posted on our blog as well as the program’s website.

Read more about the research program and the Open Data Research Network here.

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One challenge that mobile startups have continued to face recently in East Africa lies in the question of whether to spend time, money and other resources in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection. Startups are often convinced that their ideas and innovations are unique and that they only should rightly pursue monetization for the ideas and innovations.

The entrepreneurs are often seen to go to great lengths to keep their ideas secret or at least protected from disclosure to “idea thieves”. Prioritising execution of the idea versus securing Intellectual Property (IP) rights for the same becomes a dilemma for many.

More often than not, it turns out that many other people within the target legal jurisdiction or somewhere else in the world have had the same idea. Sometime startups discover that someone else even went ahead to execute the idea. Worse still the same idea or innovation may already be protected through patents or other types of IP assets and the startup’s further execution of the idea potentially infringes on the other peoples formerly secured IP rights.

Having to participate in competitions such as Pivot East with products of such ideas becomes a further challenge of protection and disclosure to startups. Then there is the argument of whether or not ideas by themselves are protectable. Some lawyers even go further to argue that most East African IP regimes are such that it is not possible to patent or otherwise protect software beyond default copyright rules. With such dismissive arguments, startups often perceive local lawyers as too simplistic and discouraging to their IP protection ambitions. General professional suspicion and perceived costs of legal services do not help either to support startups ambitions of participating in the global IP rights value chain.

Going back to global technology trends, it has become apparent that accumulating an arsenal of patents and other IP assets is an important strategy for global IT players to secure future revenue streams. The question for local entrepreneurs and innovators therefore becomes: if Google, Samsung, Apple and others are aggressively securing IP rights then what can we do to be part of that ostensibly lucrative global IP rights value chain?

It is common expectation that with East Africa leading in various aspects of mobile innovations, regional innovators are dealing at the cutting edge of related technologies. Mobile money is definitely one of the aspects where the region is leading. It should therefore not surprise many to see local innovators lodge successful claims to IP rights for innovations that are globally unique and patentable.

Given these questions and challenges, Pivot East 2013 organisers will hold a workshop for entrepreneurs and IP practitioners to network and exchange views on how to navigate IP rights issues for competitive advantage. An emerging trend where professionals other than lawyers are offering IP support to entrepreneurs as IP practitioners will be explored. The workshop will be on Tuesday 5th February 2013, 3pm – 5pm and will be hosted at iHub – Nairobi. Entrepreneurs, lawyers, business advisors and IP practitioners are invited to contribute to the discussion and to network.

A keynote presentation on global trends in IP practice will be made by Dr. Derek Palmer, the Managing Director of ProspectIP, an Intellectual Property Management company based in the UK. Derek Palmer is also  investor and non-executive director of a number of technology companies. The workshop will also see officials from KIPI share an update on patents and other IP rights secured in Kenya. Representatives from local mobile startups will also share their experiences with IP protection.

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By Chris Foster

How many times have you heard it said in ICT business discussions “we need to get rid of the middleman” or “too many intermediaries are making our operations inefficient”? Some might even say that the whole point of ICTs is to bring innovation directly to citizens and remove those actors in the middle that make things inefficient.

So, what is surprising is that in Kenya (and throughout the developing world) ICT middlemen/intermediaries are present, and growing in number. In this entry, I will look at these ICT middlemen/intermediaries in more detail (I prefer the term ICT intermediaries), and what their presence means for ICT firms who look towards low income customers.

Who are they? What they do?

As illustrated in my previous post, there are signs of the growing numbers of ICT intermediaries in Kenya. This is also shown in the ICT statistics. For instance a recent GSM association analysis of employment in the mobile phone sector in Kenya calculated that out of 205,000 jobs in the mobile sector, likely around 157,000 are in intermediary ICT roles (in ‘Airtime commission and payphone commission’).

The existence of ICT intermediaries is no accident. Large ICT firms use them as a way to better distribute their goods and services. As can be seen from the examples below, intermediaries are particularly important in how firms look to connect with, and reach lower income customers in Kenya:

• When M-Pesa rolled out its’ service nationally in Kenya, it didn’t do it by directly building new stores, it worked with agents, ever smaller entrepreneurs to run the service in low income areas.
• When business website Mocality wanted to build a comprehensive directory of Kenyan business, including less formal ones, it recruited agents to go out, gather and upload data about these businesses.
• When Chinese mobile phone firms, with very small budgets wanted to distribute their phones nationally, they turned to informal retailers and wholesale intermediaries to distribute their goods efficiently.

Why do ICT intermediaries exist?

Ted London, an academic and expert in business models for low income markets has talked about the problems that firms face when they want to sell to low income customers. Firms face a problem of a lack of ‘capabilities’. First of all, firms often have little knowledge about the market needs of low income users, whose lives are so different. Second, firms often do not have the internal skills to innovate, market and distribute such products.

ICT firms are no different and as they look to reach low income users, this lack of ‘capabilities’ needs to be overcome. Partnering with ICT intermediaries is one way to do this. ICT intermediaries often have in-depth operational knowledge, understanding of local markets, and can help push better distribution. So, intermediary skills and knowledge makes up for a lack of firm capabilities.

Our research on ICT innovation and low income groups suggests that firms use ICT intermediaries in two different ways in Kenya.

• Designed networks of ICT intermediaries, where firms like M-Pesa and Mocality recruit intermediaries directly. Often the tasks required are quite specific to a firms needs, and so networks need to be designed by the ICT firm.
• Existing intermediaries may be present, and ICT firms might use them for their own needs. Such middlemen are often more independent, so their tasks may be more simple. This can be seen in the case of the Chinese mobile phone firms who used informal retailers as an important part of their distribution.

What does it mean for ICT firms looking to reach the BoP?

If ICT intermediaries are important for reaching low income customers, then how can ICT firms, both large and small, look to use them to their advantage?

Looking at the examples in Kenya, actively managing and motivating ICT intermediaries is a difficult, but rewarding task for an ICT firm. ICT intermediaries should not be taken for granted or left to chance*.

Intermediary business models – ICT firms need to make sure that they select the appropriate type of intermediary network (above), and provide intermediaries with workable and profitable business models. At the same time, an intermediary in a rural area is likely to have very different limitations to one in a slum area, so providing some freedom to tweak services and models might also make growth more viable.

Motivated by growth – In low income markets, ICT intermediaries are likely to be the customer facing part of a service. So, it is crucial that these ICT intermediaries are motivated. In the early days of M-Pesa, agents were strongly motivated by the fact that in building trust with customers they might grow their operations and become successful dealers, and this was an important motivation to provide high quality service.

Nurture and support in hard times – ICT intermediaries are likely to come from similar low income groups as their customers. So, ICT intermediaries tend to be marginal, and often hit unexpected problems and hard times. For ICT firms, a quick turnover of such intermediaries can be a risk, so ICT firms should nurture and support intermediaries. For instance, ICT intermediaries often come up against cash-flow problems, where provision of small credit might retain loyalty during hard times.

A source of feedback – The way that ICTs and services are used and adapted by intermediaries provides insight to they can be improved. After all it will be the intermediaries who most interacting and understanding low income users. Therefore, firms should look to ICT intermediaries not only to ‘diffuse’ ICT innovations but as a source of feedback for new innovation in ICT products

In sum, it may be that in the future, ICT intermediaries will become less necessary as ICT knowledge and skills of low income customers grow. But, at present intermediaries are vital in how ICT reach low income users, and they are an important element of how ICT firms decision making who want to reach such groups.

Note
* For further reading, see Jamie Anderson’s article ‘The last frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums’ (open pre-publish copy is available on his site)

Chris is a PhD researcher at the University of Manchester, UK. His research work has been looking at Kenya’s ICT sector, particularly focussing on the role of entrepreneurs and innovation in driving ICTs to less affluent users.

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By Gladys Kitony

You may have a brilliant idea for your startup, but the end product fails to live up to its brilliance in the market. Understanding the market ensures that actual needs are captured versus the needs perceived by the entrepreneur. Market research helps to build the customer base by clearly defining the target client and it attracts larger investment as the investors are able to see the startup has conducted the necessary groundwork that will safeguard its growth. Therefore, if a startup is to be truly successful, it must keep pace with the ever changing environment by continuously conducting market researches.

iHub Research has been keen on assisting startups to identify the target market, assess competition, and in dealing with obstacles by identifying gaps in their processes. This way, their products remain relevant, and the startup is able to scale and grow sustainably.

iHub Research is currently conducting a research for Mfarm, a software solution and agribusiness company, to help them understand the needs of buyers in the sector. The outcome of the research will enable them form an interactive platform for the agricultural buyers. Initially, they would speculate on the needs of the market and this was a cumbersome exercise. The team also participated in the initial stage of the research study which involved data collection. “The planning of the research was done so well and i have so far learnt how to retrieve the most out of an interview”, Linda Kwamboka, Co-founder Mfarm. iHub Research also assisted Mfarm in the application of a grant to facilitate the research.

Zege Technologies, a software development firm that focuses on building financial solutions benefited from a study conducted by iHub Research in September 2012. This was a week-long survey conducted at the iHub to understand the consumption habits and preferences of Pete’s Coffee customers. These findings were to supplement a content analysis done on data collected from M-Payer, a business application developed by Zege Technologies to enable organizations aggregate, manage and integrate cross-network mobile payment data into their finance systems. The system is used by Pete’s Coffee to manage mobile payments and record daily transactions.

The research was aimed at understanding the trends of consumption for Pete’s Coffee products while providing recommendations based on the findings and consumer insights. Zege Technologies was impressed by the outcome of the research. “The research was done so well; the final report was very comprehensive and visually appealing. Data collected from the research is valuable especially when offering guidance to our clients,” Stella Njoki, the Finance and Operations director.

WezaTeleLtd too recognizes the significance of market research to a startup. This is what led to the partnership between Weza Tele and iHub Research in a research study that aimed at investigating current consumers ordering and delivery habits and identifying potential for injection of mobile commerce into the existing ordering and delivery mechanisms.

The research was of great benefit to the Weza Tele team as they not only got a clear understanding of their market needs but also acquired excellent skills in research. The startup has since improved by offering products that are closely tailored to the needs of the market resulting in an increased clientele base. The startup appreciated the quality and affordability of the research done.

Discovery. Knowledge. Sharing. These are the precepts on which iHub Research is based. The knowledge that we discover is useless unless we share it with our community. Startups form a significant part of this community and it is for this reason that we are always willing to work closely with them – those at the initial stage and those established looking into expanding their market base. We look forward to working with the community of developers, creatives, techpreneurs, startups et al towards actualizing their ideas.

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iHub Research engages in community-oriented research and is therefore keen to ensure community collaboration at different levels. It is for this reason that we have recently initiated an Outreach Program to the community that will use various ways to raise awareness of our activities and foster collaborations with the iHub community, academia, research organizations, policy makers and other stakeholders with interests in research.

As we are situated at the nexus point of technology innovation in East Africa, we are also embarking on a new research project on the African Technology Innovation Index (ATII) funded by the African Innovation Foundation. This project seeks to trace the path of innovation in Africa and develop a standardized metric system for iterating the first African Innovation Index. This project brings iHub Research together with Nairobi University Research Fellows and comes at a time when iHub Research sets to foster collaboration with the Academia as a way of enhancing technology research capacity at the institutional level. iHub Research will offer strategic advice based on its expertise in tech research as well as assist in logistics planning.

In 2012, iHub Research conducted a study on the Open Data Pre-incubator, an experiment that aimed to increase the public’s ability to make sense of data while at the same time galvanizing engagement around critical public issues by creating mass usage open data applications. This year, we will expand our research around the project, and the Kenyan Open Data initiative in general, to explore their long-term impacts on matters relating to critical public issues. Consequently, we will contribute to understanding the role that technology intermediaries play in facilitating impacts from open data the value of such interventions in various governance settings.

iHub Research will also continue to conduct rigorous and relevant market research studies with corporate clients, start-ups and entrepreneurs. We will use this market research to provide value to the thriving tech scene by understanding various customer needs and tech requirements; market opportunities to be seized; and current and future trends both locally and globally.

The country is preparing for the upcoming general elections in Kenya. IHub Research comes in to inform these political discussions through three new projects namely, Umati, a flagship project monitoring online dangerous speech; the Uchaguzi monitoring and evaluation project, a critical analysis of the use of ICTs to monitor elections; and a cutting edge project that looks to develop a framework for validation of crowdsourced information. Through these projects, we seek to develop use cases, recommendations, and toolkits that will aid in informing other communities and countries on different uses of technology during election periods.

These are some of the new and exciting projects that iHub Research will be engaging in this year. If you have any queries or comments on these or our on-going projects, kindly address them to research@ihub.co.ke

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Post by Matthew Dawes

In a few weeks’ time I’ll be heading back to Nairobi for the third edition of Mobile Web East Africa and after enduring a harsh winter in the UK I can’t wait to get some sun on my face. But that isn’t the only reason; I’m also really looking forward to seeing a few familiar and new faces at the conference and being able to again chart how the ecosystem has matured over the last 12 months.

I first came to Nairobi back in 2006 when I organised a conference with the CCK called Connecting Rural Communities. It was a great event and one of the triggers that started the ball rolling for me setting up my own company, All Amber, to organise the Mobile Web Africa series of conferences. That event was all about infrastructure, and whilst that is a crucial part of the jigsaw it’s absolutely nothing without content and services, which is what I chose to focus on. 7 years on, the change that has taken place and the range of options available to a mobile consumer is staggering.

Even more importantly, I’m also looking forward to checking out the progress of the Kenyan start-ups, developers and M4D projects. I see the growth of these elements of the ecosystem as fundamental in terms of the creation of innovative services and content. They light the way in terms of what can be achieved and as test beds are also educational – people learn a lot more from failure than success. Taking ICT4D as a case in point, over the last few years perhaps it hasn’t delivered as much as had been hoped. However, you can see people and projects are now streamlining their approach. Honing in on the end user, the target market. There seems to be less talk of scale or solving a huge problem and more focus on achieving success, just as any company needs to. And why shouldn’t the basic business principle of longevity be applied?

That’s an illustration of one of the reasons why I enjoy organising events like Mobile Web East Africa so much, as I have witnessed that change over time. I always think that ‘revolution’ is an overused word. Personally, I think it’s always a case of evolution. Being in a position where I can create platforms that contribute to progress, especially now that it’s under the remit of my own company where I have the freedom to make the key decisions, is absolutely brilliant.

I create a forum on a subject of my choice. Then get as many of the stakeholders as possible in a progressive environment and let it happen – whether it’s learning or relationship building through interaction. The attendees take away from the event what they can achieve. My role has simply been one of facilitating it; I’m not dictating to anyone. I met a Nigerian contact recently and at one point he said something along the lines of “you don’t realise the effect that your events are having”. It’s always nice to receive a compliment. But knowing that the Mobile Web Africa series are having a positive effect and are making a contribution confirms that I am still achieving my overarching objective.

And what of mobile progress across the continent, or more specifically in Kenya? Will Silicon Savannah succeed? When will the mobile web and applications cement their place as a fundamental element of life? When will the content, services, pricing, infrastructure and user experience all come together to really deliver for citizens? Which will be the breakthrough start-up of 2013?

Well, don’t look to me for the answers – I’m just a conference organiser, but time will inevitably tell. My hope is that Mobile Web East Africa 2013 will contribute positively to making it all happen and will accelerate that evolution. I hope that you’ll be there to get involved.

Mobile Web East Africa 2013 will take place over 3 days on 19th, 20th & 21st February 2013 in the fantastic surroundings of the Southern Sun Mayfair. 92% of the 2012 attendees rated the event as ‘better’ or ‘much better’ than any other conference they had attended. For more information please visit www.mobileeastafrica.com or email info@allamber.co.uk. As is the case at each All Amber conference, Start-Ups, Developers, Academics and NGOs are encouraged to apply for a 50% subsidy on their ticket price.

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It’s with great excitement and anticipation that we can formally say that the iHub Cluster is finally up and running!

The iHub Cluster was a project thought of by an iHub Community member (Idd Salim) and was kindly funded by Google (through a grant) and Intel (through an infrastructure donation – Intel gave the iHub cluster a blade chassis populated with 3 blade servers).

Unfortunately, due to a myriad of reasons, the project was delayed over the last couple of months (primarily lags in shipping for the infrastructure we got).   There are two ideas behind the Cluster. One of the ideas is to act as a sandbox for parallel programming. Given the nature of mass market hardware today, it’s incumbent on the software developers in Kenya to catch up with the trends in the rest of the world and learn how to write software for multiple processor environments.

Centre for High Performance Computing

The second idea is to simply create a centre for high performance computing – there’s none in Sub Saharan Africa (with the exception of South Africa). The main problem with this situation is that a lot of research in fields both within and without computing cannot be conducted due to lack of requisite infrastructure. A simple example is, for example, weather forecasting, It’s not as accurate as it could be in Kenya.  Additionally, analytics is moving from the fringes of technology and is taking up a more mainstream role with regards to use and adoption in Kenya.

Eric Schmidt at the iHub Cluster with Phares Kariuki, iHub Cluster Lead

The biggest hindrance to both the aforementioned examples is compute power.   The current setup consists of 1 ‘head node’ which is basically the Intel Blade Chasis that Intel donated to the iHub (has been setup as a CPU cluster) along with two GPU clusters. Total output as it stands is 23 Tera Flops.   Within the next two weeks, another two nodes (both GPU Clusters) will be powered up, bringing the total number nodes (excluding the master node) in our deploy to four. We will have a total output of roughly 42 Tera flops.   We have a (soft) target of getting to 90 Tera Flops within the next twelve months.

What does this mean for the community? 

We unfortunately are not yet taking up requests for processing (apart from those who are involved in testing the platform) as we try and figure out how the platform will work – billing, scheduling, priority etc. This should be done by the 11th of February, 2013 and at that point, we will be open to the community.   This project will eventually morph into a traditional “Center for High Performance Computing” where we will be taking specific research requests, so partnerships with Universities are being worked on for sustainability in the medium to long term.

We would also like to thank all community members and our funders for their patience, especially because this process has been unnecessarily painful and drawn out. We are, however, learning from our mistakes. Keep reading the iHub blog and follow the iHub Cluster Twitter account (@iHubCluster) to get a feel of what we are doing/planning to do!

Related Stories

http://www.ihub.co.ke/blog/2012/09/the-ihub-cluster/

http://www.ihub.co.ke/blog/2012/05/the-ihub-ux-lab-and-supercomputer-cluster/

http://cluster.ihub.co.ke/

https://twitter.com/iHubCLuster

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AccessKenya to spend over Ksh 120 million to fuel Kenya’s bandwidth capacity by over 80 percent

By Sam Wakoba

Kenya’s corporate internet and IT solutions provider AccessKenya Group is driving up the country’s bandwidth capacity in a move to deliver faster internet speeds that will see  its subscribers enjoy speeds up by over 80 percent.

AccessKenya Group late December began converting all  its wireless Base Stations (BTS) to fibre optic cable links to yield more bandwidth capacity.

According to Cyril Oluoch , AccessKenya Group Network Manager, “The conversion will enable us achieve up to 1 Gigabit bandwidth, up from the maximum 200Mbps delivered on wireless backhauls.”

Faster Speeds, Bigger Capacity

Olouch added,“This will not only guarantee better speeds for our clients but also deliver upgraded capacities for more customers”.

AccessKenya Group MD Jonathan Somen (left) with CFO Peter Ndirangu admire a PABX server in the company’s Data Centre at Barclays Plaza.

The group’s 20 Base Stations in Nairobi in Kasarani, Lavington and Lower Kabete have already been converted to fibre optic links since the launch of the drive late last year for clients in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and other towns.

The upgrade is part of AccessKenya’s Group move to bolster internet connectivity over vast regions and deliver versatile Wide Area Network (WAN) solutions highly demanded among its corporate clientele.

Over Sh37m in Licence Fees
In 2012,  AccessKenya Group spent over Sh37 Million in licence fees but Mr. Oluoch says the move will reduce AccessKenya’s licensing related costs by over 50 percent and increase its profit margins.

Group Managing Director Jonathan Somen says the firm has diversified its range of services to include complex WAN solutions such as Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology to reach a wider population.

Access Kenya Chief, Jonathan Somen                                                                                     Image Credit: DailyNation

Ksh 120m for Nairobi and Mombasa Expansion

Somen says the group banks on wireless networks adding that over 50 percent of its base stations are on wireless backhauls and added that over Sh120 Million has been set aside this year to extend its metropolitan fibre network in Nairobi and Mombasa.

The group is also expanding its network across all major towns and counties in the country.

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Aspects of Activspaces model that their members appreciate the most

Author:

Hilda Moraa, iHub Research (hilda@ihub.co.ke)

ABSTRACT

This research is aimed at understanding the impact of the ActivSpaces model on its entrepreneurs. An ICT hub is a space where tech-entrepreneurs converge to network, learn from each other, design and program in order to conceptualize their mental creations. The first two Hub models of the 15 hubs in Africa to be profiled within this study were iHub, Nairobi’s innovation Hub for the Technology community and HiveColab, an innovation and collaboration space in Uganda. The third being Activspace, the model was different from the first 2 Hubs (iHub and Hive Colab), in that Activspaces has currently incorporated an open membership tier system. In addition, Activspaces can boast of having 2 location sites, one in Buea and the other in Douala. The other unique factor that differentiates Activspaces from the first 2 Hubs is on their sustainability model as was described in the model report.

The study on ActivSpaces found that most (n=11) of the individuals who frequent it are young people between the ages of 18-29. Additionally, two thirds (n=8) of the members hold a bachelors degree in various disciplines, most of which are in science-oriented fields. The study found that all of the entrepreneurs interviewed (n=12) appreciate the ActivSpaces as a conducive and innovative co-working space that drives continuous networking through the events, community meetups that leads to collaboration and partnerships, sharing skills and knowledge through teamwork activities, among others. Thus, having graduated with little to no forthcoming job opportunities, these talented entrepreneurs have had their talents and skills housed and nurtured under the Hub.

Overall, the entrepreneurs believe that the ActivSpaces can grow and strengthen its model by growing with institutional support, adopting tiered membership systems and premium courseware, and most importantly establishing an alumni network that share their experiences and skills with the community of members.

Keywords: ICT Hubs, Technology, Entrepreneurs, innovation, co-working space, Africa, Cameroon

To view and download the full report, click here

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The eGov Connect team with TIH officials receiving their cheque

Tuesday January 15,  eGov Connect and Smokeless coal took home R 250,000 each from the Gauteng Innovation Competition held at The Innovation Hub (TIH) showing growth of interest in applications bridging information exchange between citizens with government agencies and an increasing need for green initiatives.

eGov Connnect bridges citizen-government communication, reports faults and uses social media for a unified user experience simplifying interaction with public officials  while Smokeless Coal, a waste coal, clay and water combination for a smokeless energy source.

The two won the mobile technology and green technology prizes respectively.

The annual Gauteng Innovation Competition builds innovative entrepreneurial ideas to create jobs and reduce poverty. 2012′s competitions aimed at solving municipal problems and were held at and managed by SA’s  The Innovation Hub.

R1 Million
The total prize money was R1 million but R500,000 was set to be divided equally between the two winners from the mobile and the green theme.

The top three prize winners in each of the two themes were left with the following;
1st place – R250,000: R75,000 as a cash prize, and seed funding of R175000
2nd place – R150,000: R45,000 as a cash prize, and seed funding of R105,000
3rd place – R100,000: R30,000 as a cash prize, and seed funding of R70,000

According to The Innovation Hub CEO, McLean Sibanda, the winners will be supported apart from just receiving cash money and seed funding.

Support Above Seed Funding
Sibanda said:“The winners will receive significant support to commercialise their innovations, not only in the form of prize money but also through mentorship, intellectual property advice, and linkages to additional funding sources.”

There were over 100 applicants on before the 14 November 2012 deadline.  The judges identified innovations which could tackle issues facing municipalities. They looked the applicants business plans and  why they needed an investment and cut down the numbers to the final winners.

Not just any start-up could apply.

Green & Mobile Technology
The ideas had to fall within the two themes. The Green Technology theme  with four areas such waste to energy, energy efficiency,  solar energy and water management while under the Mobile Technology theme looked at mobile apps that can improve citizen participation,  citizen safety and transport and traffic management.
The Smokeless Coal team receiving their cheque from TIH officials

Not a Closed Door
Now this doesn’t mean guys developing enterprise solutions for accounts and HR are forever locked out of Gauteng Innovation Competitions. It is not true.
Last year,  GoMetro, a mobile railway information service application now adopted by MetroRail in the Western Cape and in Gauteng, took home the Innovation Competition Prize. It just depends on the theme of the year.

Other category winners included.

Vela Tsotsi’s USSD-based crime reporting tool took the  second prize in the mobile category , while Gov + Me, using  mobile location information to connect citizens with government information specific to their area of residence, took third prize.

SavvyLoo won the second prize under the green category, for its low cost, clean and easy to assemble waterless toilet.

Handy Power Chargers came third in the green category with its kinetic chargers for laptops, desktops, cell phones, lamps and radios where there is no grid electricity supply.

-By Sam Wakoba

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