A lot has been said about why Paypal, the biggest online payment system in the world, continues to limit its features in Africa. Some have even suggested that Africans should create their own e-payment service, tailored for the business environment in Africa. As some African geeks are trying to come up with their own solutions, it is interesting to see the emergence of  the Ukash service, currently the world’s fastest growing prepaid-cash issuing network. Continue reading this post…

The Grid, Vodacom’s mobile social network, was originally launched in South Africa in 2008. In 2009, The Grid launched into both Tanzania and Nigeria – both developing African countries with high volumes of mobile web traffic. With effect from today, people from all over the world can sign up and join the social network. Continue reading this post…

Afridocsearch is yet another interesting directory for Africa. The founder, David Amakobe, is based in the US, but he grew up in Africa. Afridocsearch provides a voice for clients of healthcare providers. They verify, list and rate the services rendered by these providers.
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The international remittance market is currently estimated at more than US$320 billion. It is expected to reach US$700 billion by 2012. On the other hand, the rapid growth of the mobile phone industry in low income countries has opened up yet another avenue, the international airtime transfer (IAT), through which folks in diaspora help to improve the quality of life in their home countries. Continue reading this post…

Two young Kenyan ladies, Akinyi Adongo and Zahra Haji, have developed InfoAfricaNow, a business directory for Africa.  They started working on it after realizing that information on Africa was little and scattered all over the internet.

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The 2010 Legatum Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship is receiving applications from small and medium-sized businesses in 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The Grand Prize is US$100,000 with a further five runners-up winning prizes of US$50,000 each.

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Yesterday, Chimwemwe Msuku, one of the most active Malawian Twitter users, tweeted about telephone interconnection problems in Malawi and urged the authorities to sort out these problems as soon as possible, before someone takes them to court. Continue reading this post…

With effect from 1st August 2010, Telecom Networks Malawi (TNM) and Zain (Malawi) are both charging for their services in Malawi Kwacha. This comes after consumer rights bodies criticized  the mobile operators for discreetly pegging their rates to the United States dollar.

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I have been thinking of creating a Social bookmarking site devoted to news and blogs about Malawi since last year. Early this year, I acquired the malawisoc.com domain with one year hosting for a meager US$9.95, courtesy of  the Siteground Special offer for customers and friends. I, however, could not find time to put things together.

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Every year, the Malawi Society of Japan, a group of former Japanese volunteers to Malawi, organizes a Nsima eating party, in liaison with the Malawi Embassy staff. So far, I have attended the 2008 and 2009 parties. The 2010 party will take place at the usual venue, JICA Hiroo Centre  in Tokyo, on  Saturday 31  July, 2010 from 16:00 to 17:30 p.m. Again, as usual, the party will be preceded by a seminar from 15:00pm to 16:00pm.

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