Bahoneza

Month: March 2012

  • Bharti Airtel builds environmentally friendly mobile network

    An Indian Telecommunication company (Bharti Airtel) has announced significant milestones in its endeavour to build a ‘green’ environment friendly mobile network (wind power) intending to reduce its carbon footprint in Africa.

    As part of its commitment to the environment, the company has undertaken a series of initiatives that are starting to deliver tangible results in conserving environment while developing technology in communications.

    The Company revealed that over last one year, it has reduced the number of telecom sites running solely on diesel by more than 50 percent by overcoming the challenge of lack of grid connectivity through use of innovative models such as Hybrid Battery Bank.

    By 2013, the Company aims to completely eradicate the constant use of diesel to power its network. This means no telecom site of the company will rely solely on diesel power 24 hours a day.

    Hybrid Battery Banks collect the excess energy produced by the diesel powered generator in a battery that powers the site once the generator is switched off. This has helped reduce the use of diesel by up to 14 hours a day. Close to 60percent of Bharti Airtel’s telecom sites in Africa are now powered using the Hybrid model resulting in major reduction in emissions and also operating costs for the company.

    The Company is targeting over 70percent of all its sites to be powered by the Hybrid model by end of 2013. It added that, the work is targeting on increasing the use of solar and wind power to power its telecom sites.

  • Kagame is an Advocate of Social Media Use for Efficient Governance

    Whereas most people in their over 40 years of age have often found difficulty coping with Internet’s social media,Rwandan President Paul Kagame has gone beyond utilizing them to encouraging his team in utilizing the media for efficient governance.

    “In the case of Rwanda, we have instituted policies where our citizens can utilize social media to access their leaders.” President Kagame said at the Broadband Commission’s Youth forum in Kigali late last year 2011.

    If you have always wished to express your views to the president of the republic of Rwanda and you have never had the chance to, then through his actual Facebook and Twitter accounts, you should be rest assured that your message will get to him.

    Some of the beneficiaries of such head of state’s presence on facebook and twitter includes Rwandan university students who posed their monthly stipend questions and received answers through it, not to mention Arsenal football fans’ clarifications from the President’s Twitter account about the Sun’s article titled “Rwanda Leader: Wenger must go”.

    Subsequently we have seen each district of Rwanda create a webpage with links to the social media not to mention the minister of health Dr. Agnes Binagwaho’s “Monday’s with the minister on twitter”.

  • Uganda Voted the Best Place to Visit in 2012

    Uganda Voted the Best Place to Visit in 2012

    The Lonely Planet has voted the little known Uganda as the number one travel destination to visit in 2012. Uganda that emerged the top among the Best 10 Travel Destinations to be visited in 2012 is home to more than half of the few remaining mountain gorillas in the world. The country that was in the past known with the past dicatorship of Idi Amin Dada, is a growing tourism destination with much to see and do. From gorilla safaris that feature gorilla tracking in the natural tropical rainforests of Bwindi and Mgahinga to  wildlife tours in its national parks, this beautiful and natural country has much to see!

    The Lonely Planet which is the one of the best and largest World travel guide and media publisher in the world, voted Uganda over many other travel destinations that included Myanmar, Ukraine, Jordan, Denmark, Bhutan, Cuba, New Caledonia, Taiwan and Switzerland that followed in that order.

    On the criteria of choosing the top travel destinations for 2012, a team from Lonely Planet together with other bloggers and expert travelers came up with this list of the top ten countries to be visited by tourists for the year 2012. In choosing the best destinations, many factors were considered that include attractiveness, topicality, excitement, value and that special X-factor etc.

    For more information about Uganda and its tourist attractions visit the Uganda Tourism Info, a portal with all the best places and things to see in the country.

  • Rwanda to offer Hollywood like Multimedia Lessons

    Glittering Macintosh desktops, Nikon cameras and many other electronic systems are some of the materials you will see at Kigali’s new multimedia institution called Africa Digital Multimedia Academy (ADMA) located in Kigali town.

    According to Christopher Marler, ADMA’s Project Manager, he says that “Given a planning period of about 2 years, the government of Rwanda in partnership with multimedia Experts from USA, they have managed to gather high quality equipment necessary to provide products of the Hollywood standard.”

    Marler who is a senior vice president of a California based multimedia company named PixelCorps, says that ADMA is to offer as far as five different levels of multimedia professional courses.
    “We have an intake of 20 students who are on level 1 given the fact they are people who have been exercising a profession in the multimedia industry.” Explains the Multimedia Expert Marler
    “Rwanda government has for the past years invested in development of ICT as evidenced by fibre optic cables inter-linking all Rwandan districts, thus given the ICT infrastructure and ADMA’s experts, this school guarantees high quality multimedia skills” said the Director General of Workforce Development Authority WDA Gasana Jerome.

    The school is expected to begin offering studies on 5th March 2012, with 20 students enrolled who will later be joined by another bunch of 30students continuously every 3 months till a total of 100 students is reached required academic year.

  • No Strings attached to CMU-R Scholarships, says Kayonga William

    No Strings attached to CMU-R Scholarships, says Kayonga William

    The morning of 02 March 2012 brought good news to East Africans who are technology savvy as the government of Rwanda officially announced its offer of a 50% scholarship for tuition fees to all EAC students eligible of studying at Carnegie Mellon University- Rwanda.

    Following this program’s unusualness as regards most of African settings’ systems, skeptics questioned how an African government like Rwanda’s would be willing to offer 50% scholarship without attached strings (like signing side contracts with beneficiaries of the scholarships to work in Rwanda for a number of years before being free) .

    “There are no strings are attached, the government of Rwanda will only sponsor the 50% tuition fee whereas Carnegie Mellon University-Rwanda will handle admission, registration, graduation and all the other processes as their Pittsburg main campus does.” Said the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of East African Community, Ambassador William Kayonga at a press conference.

    Professor Bruce Krogh, Director of Carnegie Mellon University in Rwanda assured that CMU-R is to offer a learning environment and academic qualifications similar to those offered by the CMU main campus in Pittsburg.

    “We are convinced that the technological breakthroughs that are going to be the foundations of the ICT industry in Africa will come from inventors and entrepreneurs who work in Africa and understand the technological challenges and needs that are unique to Africa.” Said Professor Krogh

    Government of Rwanda continues to heavily invest in education especially in the ICT sector as evidenced by the current scholarships of master’s in communication at KIST and Hollywood like Multimedia Lessons at Africa Digital Multimedia Academy.