AITEC MOBILE MONEY AND BANKING COMESA CONFERENCE PROGRAM

AITEC have put out the programme for the conference which kicks off tomorrow.

Programme
AITEC Banking &
Mobile Money COMESA
.......................................

Day 1: Wednesday 24 February 2010
BUSINESS STRATEGY BRIEFINGS
7.30am - Theatre 1 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Breakfast Briefing for Bankers on Mobile Banking (Guests by invitation)
Guest of Honour
Hon Uhuru Kenyatta, Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Finance, Kenya
Speaker
Claire Alexandre, Senior Program Officer, Financial Services for
the Poor, Gates Foundation, USA
MC
Patrick Mweheire, CEO, Renaissance Capital, Kenya
9am
SESSION 1: Theatre 2
CONFERENCE OPENING
2.30pm
MOBILE MONEY TRACK
SESSION 3: Theatre 2
MOBILE BANKING - NEW TECHNOLOGY AND REGULATORY FRONTIERS AND CHALLENGES FOR BANKS AND MOBILE OPERATORS
MODERATOR: Santanu Sengupta, Secretary, Change Innovators Society, India
SHOWCASE PRESENTATION Mobile payments vs Mobile banking: Where are the Banks? Paul Nilsen, Regional Sales Executive, Business Connexion, Tanzania PLENARY SESSION PLENARY SESSION BREAKFAST BRIEFING
A bank-centric model for mobile banking
Opening Address
MODERATOR: Sean Moroney, Chairman, AITEC Africa
Welcome Addresses
Martin Oduor-Otieno, Chairman, Kenya Bankers Association Bernard Matthewman, CEO, Paynet Group
Mr Nagababu, Delivery Manager, Manam Infotech, India
Bankers respond based on practical experience
• James Wainaina, Director, Personal Banking, NIC Bank • Joseph Arinaitwe, Head eBanking, United Bank of Africa2.30 -4.00PM, PARALLEL SESSIONS (UBA), Uganda
Hon Uhuru Kenyatta, Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Finance, Kenya
10am Refreshment Break & Group Photo
10.30am
SESSION 2: Theatre 2
KEYNOTES TO SET THE AGENDA
MODERATOR: Jonathan Campaigne, Executive Director, Pride
Africa, Kenya
The benefits of electronic payments in driving economic
development
Charles Niehaus, GM, Visa Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa
YOUNG INNOVATOR’S 10-MINUTE SPOTLIGHT Electronic micropayments in Third World countries Agosta Liko, Founder, PesaPal, Kenya RISK MANAGEMENT TRACK
2.30pm
SESSION 4: Theatre 3
COMPLIANCE & RISK MANAGEMENT IN THE
POST-MELTDOWN WORLD
MODERATOR Session 4: Sophia Bekele, Executive Director,
DotConnect Africa, Ethiopia
Why data security is crucial for all C- Level executives
Wayne Donnelly, Channel Development Manager, Networks
Unlimited, South Africa
Biometric technology and identity management as integrated risk tools in the banking sector
Louis Siebrits, Head of African Sales & Marketing, Ideco Group, South Africa
Sanctions and PEPs Filtering, why bother?
John Nash, Global Alliance Manager, Sword FircoSoft, UK
Shh, the market is talking. Listen and act!
Bernard Matthewman, CEO, Paynet Group, Kenya
Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission: A mandate for financial security
Bala Sanga, Principal Staff Officer to the Executive Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria
SHOWCASE PRESENTATION Consumer interaction and response to the evolution of the financial services sector Tim Smyth, MD, MillwardBrown, Kenya Steps to improving network security: PNT/VAS and network audits in securing your network
Steve Chege, CIO, Seven Seas Technologies, Kenya
SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT TRACK
2.30pm
SESSION 5: Theatre 4
INTERBANK PAYMENT REFORMS
– NEW TRANSACTION & SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS – Part 1 MODERATOR: Andrea Bonstedt, Publisher, Ratio Magazine, Kenya
Modernisation of payment systems in Kenya
Stephen Mwaura, Head, National Payments System, Central
1.15pm Lunch Bank of Kenya
2
Network lLearn lDo Business PLENARY SESSIONS
How innovation can drive growth and create differentiation
Rudolf Smit, Channel Manager for Africa, S1, South Africa
Addressing strategic reforms in the interbank payments cycle Marius Krige, Aperta, South Africa
MICROFINANCE TRACK
2.30PM
SESSION 6: Theatre 4
MICROFINANCE INNOVATION AND NEW FRONTIERS – Part 1
MODERATOR: David Cracknell, Africa Director, Microsave, Kenya
Change happens. Are you ready for it? An overview of the innovations in the microfinance marketplace and guidelines for adoption
Laura Frederick, President, echange, Uganda
Linking microfinance and MMT
Cameron Goldie-Scot, Africa Implementation Team Manager, Musoni, Kenya
Microfinance and branchless banking: How and if MFIs should engage
Lauren Braniff, Microfinance Analyst, CGAP, USA & Carol Caruso, Head, MD, Triple Jump Advisory Services, France
Accessibility vs. affordability in mobile payment models
Benjamin Lyon, Founder & Executive Director, FrontlineSMS:Credit, USA
4pm
SESSION 7
MOBILE BANKING BUSINESS STRATEGIES
MODERATOR: Muriuki Mureithi, CEO, Summit Strategies, Kenya
Report-back on the GSMA Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, focusing on how to build strong agent networks for mobile money
Seema Desai, Mobile Money for the Unbanked, GSM Association, UK
The growth of mobile money transfer services: The case of M-PESA in Kenya
Pauline Vaughan, Head of M-Pesa, Safaricom, Kenya
Understanding what works and does not work in mobile payments
Richard Ketley, Director and Head of Banking Strategy and Access to Financial Services Practices, Genesis Analytics, South Africa
Product innovation and access to finance
Dr Keith Jefferis, Economic Advisor, USAID Southern African Trade Hub, Botswana, Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of Botswana
SESSION 8
PANEL DISCUSSION: ARE COMESA’S FINANCIAL INSITITUTIONS WINNING THE WAR AGAINST CARD FRAUD?
MODERATOR: Catherine Mogambi, Chair, Kenya Credit & Debit Card Association
• Director, Banking Fraud Investigations, Central Bank of Kenya • Graham Gilmour, MD, The Business Phone, UK • Reshma Sookran, Fraud Control Executive, Payment System Risk, Visa CEMEA - Sub Saharan Africa, South Africa SESSION 9
INTERBANK PAYMENT REFORMS
– NEW TRANSACTION & SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS – Part 2 MODERATOR Session 9: Barry Ryan, MD, Fintech, Kenya
The future of cheques in the modern world of electronic payments
Rob Muller, Commercial Director, Finteq, South Africa
Operational and technical perspectives on cheque truncation systems
Sekar Ponniah, MD, Global Software Solutions
Fraud detection technologies in a cheque truncation environment
Anand Natarajan, Director & CTO, Image InfoSystems, India
SWIFT and security markets
Vasu Prakasam, MD, Kenya Commerce Exchange Service Bureau (KENEX)
SESSION 10
THE NEW FINANCIAL SERVICES ECOSYSTEM
– CHALLENGES OF INTEGRATION IN CARDS, CHEQUES & MOBILE MODERATOR: Stephen Roberts, Executive Director Neptune Software
Multi-channel payment systems
Barry Coetzee, CEO, iVeri, South Africa
Smart card challenges and smart ways to address them
Hoda Shoukry, MD Mediterranean Smart Cards Company, Egypt
YOUNG INNOVATOR’S 10-MINUTE SPOTLIGHT Online Payment systems in Kenya: Jambopay Danson Muchemi, CEO, Web Tribe, Kenya The ultimate in payment security: End-to-end encryption and VeriShield Protect
David Poole, VP Sales, Middle East and Africa, VeriFone, UK
Beyond simple payments: Leveraging managed services and infrastructure for value-adding partnerships
Raoul du Plessis, CTO, Transaction Payment Solutions, UK
6pm
Networking Cocktail Reception
Sponsored by Kenya Data Networks
3
DAY 2: Thursday 25 February 2010
TECHNOLOGY BRIEFINGS
9.00AM - 10.30AM, PARALLEL SESSIONS PLENARYSESSION
8am -Theatre 4 THINKING OUT OF THE BOX FOR BANKERS
Julius Kipng’etich, Director, Kenya Wildlife Service
9am
• Joseph Tiampati, Head of Retail Credit, Kenya Commercial Bank Fidelis Muia, ICT Consultant, Kenya Bankers Association • Jared Getenga, Project Manager, Kenya Credit Information Sharing Initiative, Kenya Bankers Association Credit bureau establishment
SESSION 11: Theatre 2
MOBILE BANKING IN THE REAL WORLD – Part 1
MODERATOR: Benjamin Lyon, Founder & Executive Director,
SMSFrontine:Credit, USA
Mobile payments and micropayments
David Svarrer, MD, Digital Age Institute, Kenya
Mobile money and banking: The pivot for financial inclusion
Santanu Sengupta, Secretary, Change Innovators Society, India
YOUNG INNOVATOR’S 10-MINUTE SPOTLIGHT M-Commerce solutions for carrying out real time mobile money transaction processing Philip Nyamwaya, Business Development - Enterprise Applications, Intrepid Data Systems, Kenya How Family Bank is leveraging M-PESA and mobile banking into its business
Kariuki Kevin Kihara, Relationship Manager, Family Bank
9am
SESSION 12: Theatre 3
NEW CHANNELS – BRANCHLESS, AGENT & POST-OFFICE BANKING
MODERATOR: Benjamin Nkungi, CEO, Association of Microfinance Institutions, Kenya
Overview of proposed supervisory and regulatory framework for agent banking in Kenya
Matu Mugo, Assistant Director, Bank Supervision, Central Bank
of Kenya
Mrs Nyambura Koigi, MD, PostBank, Kenya
11.00AM - 12.30AM, PARALLEL SESSIONS 9.00AM - 10.30AM, PARALLEL SESSIONS
Antony Ragui, Secretary, East African Credit Bureau Associa
tion, & GM, Compuscan, Kenya
9am
SESSION 14: Theatre 2
SMART BANKING SOLUTIONS – Part 1
MODERATOR Session 20: David Svarrer, CEO, Digital Age Institute
Business process management solutions
Jeff Thuo, Business Manager, Coseke Kenya
Operational excellence and customer service from a banking platform perspective
Martin Heraghty, Sales Director, SunGuard Ambit, UK (in association with Technology Associates
Business Intelligence in banking
Dennis Karanja, Regional Director, Sybase East Africa
Implementing a universal e-Banking strategy – One installation, many banks
Polys Hadjikyriakos, Sales Direcfor, NETinfo, Cyprus
10.30am Refreshment Break
11am
SESSION 15: Theatre 2
MOBILE BANKING IN THE REAL WORLD – Part 2
MODERATOR: Jonathan Petrides, Head of Operations, Mobile Ventures, Kenya
Liquidity management for a mobile banking agent
Frederik Eijkman, MD, PEP Intermedius, Kenya
Mobilizing commerce for SMMEs
Shaun Campbell, Business Manager for Africa, Sybase, UK
The role of m-Banking in enhancing transaction process
ing among SMEs in Kenya
Memba Florence, Lecturer, Jomo Kenyatta University of Science & Technology
11am
SESSION 16: Theatre 1
MICROFINANCE INNOVATION AND NEW FRONTIERS
– Part 2 MODERATOR: David Ferrand, Director, FSD Kenya
Of communities and financial intermediation: Why the
community banking model is better than the agency
banking model for Africa
Davis Kambale Tayo, Branch Supervisor, Bank of Africa, Kenya
Branches all around: Agent banking
Kamal Budhabhatti, MD, Craft Silicon
9am
SESSION 13: Theatre 1
CREDIT BUREAUS: USHERING IN A NEW ERA
OF RISK MANAGEMENT
MODERATOR: James Kashangaki, Head, GrowthFin Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSD Kenya)
PANEL DISCUSSION ON NEW CREDIT BUREAU REGULATIONS
Panel Members:
• James Manyonge, Manager Legal Affairs, Bank Supervision Department, Central Bank of Kenya Measuring the return on investment in technology for microfinance
Craig Chelius, Global Consortium Manager, Technology for Microfinance Group, Grameen Foundation, USA
Electronic delivery systems for social cash transfers: Lessons learned and opportunities for Africa
Dr Katharine Vincent, Social Protection Consultant, Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme, South Africa
4
Network lLearn lDo Business Microfinance: The new frontier of mobile banking
Kahenya Kamunyu, CEO, Virn Instruments, Kenya
11am
SESSION 17: Theatre 4
DISASTER RECOVERY & BUSINESS CONTINUITY
MODERATOR: Tim McGinnis, Communications Consultant, Kenya
10 years on from the US Embassy Bomb Blast: A case study on Co-operative Bank’s recovery strategy
Sam Mutungi, CIO, Co-operative Bank
Capacity building in the context of emergency preparedness for Business Continuity (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP)
Syed Zain Khan, President & Managing Consultant, Alliances Consulting Group, Canada
SESSION 18:
COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS FOR BANKS
MODERATOR Jorge Perez Luna, IT Director,
2.20pm
SESSION 20: Theatre 4
SECURITY FOR AFRICA’S MOBILE BANKING ERA
MODERATOR Steve Schaefer, World Council of Credit Unions, USA
The widespread and rapid adoption of mobile commerce calls for an urgent need for a robust risk management framework
Duncan Oduor, CEO, MobiKash Afrika, Kenya
Appropriate regulatory frameworks for the e-money economy - How ready are COMESA member-states?
Michael Murungi, ICT Lawyer, Kenya
2.30pm
SESSION 21: Theatre 1
OUTSOURCING, SHARED INFRASTRUCTURE AND HOSTED SERVICES MODELS
MODERATOR: Syed Zain Khan, President & Contact centre Consultant, Alliances Consulting Group, Canada
How to grow your ATM footprint: The right hardware, the
right sites and the right partners
Marc Sternberg, MD, Spark ATM Systems, South Africa
Does the changing economic environment present
different opportunities?
Ron Webb, Group Technology Director, Paynet, Kenya
Outsourcing in the banking industry
Eric Nesbitt, Director, KenCall EPZ, Kenya
Technology & skills outsourcing in driving business agility
and competitiveness
Mike Macharia, CEO, Seven Seas Technologies, Kenya
2.30pm
SESSION 22: Theatre 1
SMART BANKING SOLUTIONS – 2
MODERATOR: David Stewart, BPO Consultant, Kenya
Moving to SOA: Supporting new trends in the banking industry
Adam Nyaga, GM Business Applications, Seven Seas Technologies, Kenya
Going beyond payment with integrated services
Roger Mechri, Head of Business Development Services & Rachid Oulad Akdim, EEMEA-Africa Director, Ingenico-Tracom, France
Integrating contact centres with business processes
Solomon Thuo, Technology Business Consultant, Seven Seas
Technologies, Kenya
2.30pm
SESSION 23: Theatre 3
“SOFT” BANKING SOLUTIONS
MODERATOR: Caroline Juma, MD, Kenya Computer Resources
PLENARY SESSION 11.00AM - 12.30AM, PARALLEL SESSIONS
2.30PM - 4.30PM, PARALLEL SESSIONS
Global Development Programme, Gates Foundation
The use of satcoms for the retail banking sector
Issa Odtallah, Regional Manager, Inmarsat, United Arab Emir
ates
.
Secure network in a rapidly changing environment
Kai Wulff, MD, Kenya Data Networks
Effective communications: How intranets can help banks
cut costs, go green and increase ROI
Martin Njuguna, Business Development Manager, Digital Vision,
Kenya
Effective communications systems as a key enabler for
banks in Africa
Chuks Ofor, GM, Gateway Communications, Kenya
12.30pm
SESSION 19:
CIO PANEL DISCUSSION: HOW CAN WE MAKE OUR BOARDS SEE MORE VALUE IN INVESTING IN TECHNOLOGY?
MODERATOR: Joseph Wariungi, MD, Advantech Consulting, Kenya
• Peter Gachau, GM ICT, Equity Bank • Dr Tony Githuku, Divisional Director Operations & Technology, Kenya Commercial Bank • Kasasine Ole Pertet, Chief Information Officer, K-Rep Bank SHOWCASE PRESENTATION Empowering Africa’s new mobile merchants Graham Gilmour, CEO, the Business Phone, UK 2.00pm Lunch Communicating bank marketing messages both through mobile and broadcasting
Salim Amin, Chairman & Asif Sheikh, CEO, A24 Media, Kenya
5
Programme Advisory Board Sean Moroney, Chairman, AITEC Africa & Programme Director Kamal Budhabhatti, Founder & CEO, Craft Silicon, Kenya Catherine Mogambi, Chair, Credit & Debit Card Association of Kenya Waceke Mbugua, Marketing Manager, M-PESA Jonathan Campaign, CEO, Pride Africa, Kenya Barry Coetzee, CEO, iVeri, South Africa David Cracknell, Africa Director, Microsave, Kenya David Ferrand, Director, FSD Kenya Tom Juma, COO, Old Mutual, Kenya Bernard Matthewman, CEO, Paynet, Kenya Jackson Machuhi, GM, East Africa, DELISYS Delivery Systems, Kenya Benjamin Nkungi, CEO, Association of Microfinance Institutions, Kenya Emmanuel Okoegwale, Founder & CEO, Mobile Money Africa, Nigeria Stephen Roberts, Executive Director, Neptune Software Barry Ryan, CEO, Fintech, Kenya Pauline Vaughan, Head of M-Pesa, Safaricom, Kenya George Wainaina, GM, Kenswitch John K. Wanyela, Executive Director, Kenya Bankers Association 6SHOWCASE PRESENTATION Power protection solutions for the banking industry Arlene Nazereth, Territory Account Manager East Africa, APC by Schneider Electric, Kenya This presentation will benefit all IT decision-makers in Corporate organizations, especially if you have concerns about Inefficiency due to over-sizing your datacentre/ server room, down time due to long lead times for maintenance, need to better optimize white space, unpredictability for future growth, or having to wait for scheduled downtime in order to add or change capacity. The presentation will include an overview of APC solutions for desktop, server room and datacentre. Also featuring case studies for: Imperial Bank (Kenya) and First Rand Bank (South Africa)PLENARY SESSION PARALLELSESSIONS Creating a .africa domain for regional economic integration
Sophia Bekele, Executive Director, DotConnectAfrica, Ethiopia
Discover how the banking sector banks on HR technology
Balaji Ganesh, CEO, Adrenalin eSystems, India
4.30pm
CLOSING PLENARY
MODERATOR: Sean Moroney, Chairman, AITEC Africa
Kenya’s 2030 Vision, with special reference to the Financial Services Section of the Athii River Technology Business Park
Dr Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information & Communications
SUMMING UP
SETTING A LEADERSHIP & INNOVATION AGENDA
Stephen Mwaura, Head, National Payments System, Central Bank of Kenya & Benjamin Lyon, Founder & Executive Director, FrontlineSMS:Credit, USA
Network lLearn lDo Business

TECHNOLOGY IN NAIROBI THIS WEEK

Quite a few technology related events will be taking place in Nairobi this week.

Tuesday, 23rd February, 2009: ORACLE/DELOITTE BREAKFAST MEETING

The database maker and vendor, Oracle will together with audit firm/consultants Deloitte hold a breakfast meeting at the Serena tomorrow. 7AM.

The presentation will revolve around the ORACLE SECURITY STACK that includes:
· DATA BASE VAULT
· AUDIT VAULT
· IDENTITY MANAGEMENT ACCESS SUIT

The main presenter will be AVINASH RAMTOHUL from Oracle Mauritius.

Publicity for the event and the presenters is being done by Owens Muhiu of IMG Events and PR: omuhiu@imgkenya.com

Wednesday, 24th February, 2009: AITEC Banking & Mobile Money COMESA Conference

AITEC is facilitating this event at KICC for two days starting Wednesday.

In attendance will be bankers from the COMESA region. Nairobitech spoke to James Mwangi, AITEC CEO who said, "We want to chart a way forward in terms of innovations. What innovations are friendly to the customer in terms of cost, availability etc.."

The Opening Speech will be delivered by the Minister of Finance, Honourable Uhuru Kenyatta.
Preceding the opening ceremony will be a breakfast briefing hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for CEOs of financial institutions from within the region.
· Date: 24th February 2010
· Time: 7:00a.m.
· Venue: Tsavo Room (Theatre 1)
Uhuru Kenyatta will be Guest of honour at the breakfast. Other key guests and speakers at the opening ceremony include:
1. Clair Alexandre, Senior Program Officer, Financial Services for the Poor, Gates Foundation,
2. Bernard Matthewman, CEO, Paynet Group

3. Martin-Otieno Oduor, KCB CEO, in his capacity as Chairman of the Kenya Bankers Association.

Friday, 26 February, 2009: eMobilis Technology and Training academy STUDENTS PROJECTS PRESENTATION DAY.

The academy which trains developers for the mobile platform has already graduated its first batch of students. Students will be showcasing their projects at the academy's 3rd floor, Kipro Center premises on Sports Road opp Parkland's Baptist Church.

NairobiTech will try and bring you the digest from these events.

HOW NOT TO DO A BIG TIME CONVENTION!

The tragedy of big meetings is that they focus on big things as talking points and too often the very small but important innovations or ideas get ignored.

Take my advice, if you ever attend the Mobile World Congress or any other major industry or international get together, narrow down your purpose to one or two things that you want to learn more about and home in on those for the rest of your time there.

Running around the 8 humongous halls that housed all the major brand names in the world of Mobile Technology and Computing as well as hundreds of others you´ve never heard of, I realized you cannot take in the whole enchilada so to speak as far as things conventions are concerned not even when you are running a team of 10 battle hardened scribes with years of doing this behind them.

I started with wanting to attend all the major announcements headlined by the likes of Microsoft, Vodafone, the GSMA, Research In Motion et cetera et cetera while at the same time hoping to visit the stands of all the mobile payments innovators as well as the stands of all the country galleries where nations were showcasing some of the industries they´ve incubated in their own little Silicon Valleys and hoping to attract more innovators and venture capitalists while at it and so on and so forth.

BY the end of it, I realized I had achieved very little. I had seen a lot without forming any major themes that I could tell others about, only disjointed bits of this and that and half-beginnings of that idea etc.

Now that the event is over, I realize I did not get around to one of the most important topics that is going to become relevant for media in days to come - Mobile Advertising!

While there were many showcasings of mobile advertising solutions, the advertising companies are yet to migrate their dollars from the traditional media to mobile even as the latter is hyped as the current and future big thing.

I have some write ups from PR guys but given anotha opportunity, I would have dissected the convention with the sober precision of a surgeon not the brute passion of a butcher....

GOOGLE BRINGS IT DOWN!

Google full might was on display last night in the Catalonian City of Barcelona. An hour before CEO Eric Schmidt was scheduled to take the stage for the keynote speech of the day, the hall outside the auditorium was brimming with people and jostling was starting to take place with some beginning to sense they might not make it into the auditorium at all.

While both the Microsoft Windows 7 Mobile announcement and the Nokia/Intel Corp., collabos had attracted full houses, there was a buzz in the crowd about Google and particularly what it intended to do about mobile technology.

Google did not disappoint. At least from a demonstration of cool but useful stuff. When Eric Schmidt strode on stage (the MC said he had to Google the Google CEO to get his background for the introduction) he did not strike as a revolutionary visionary in the mold of Steve Jobs at Apple or Jeff Bezos at Amazon, but rather more like a high school principal (turns out Schmidt, an Engineer lectured at Stanford).

But seeing as he runs the goliath of the internet environment by the way the new catchword being bandied around here is the ¨Mobile Ecosystem) even a staid Schmidt commanded attention.

His message was simple: Mobile First, that is to say everything here on out will concentrate on developments for the mobile Ëcosystem¨ and in fact he revealed that more Google programmers are now working on the mobile applications than for the personal computer.

Schmidt said for the entrepreneur who intends to remain relevant, they would need to bring together three things: Computing power, Interconnectivity and the Cloud. In English, you will need to bring the computer to the mobile phone first of all that is to say have alot more processing power on the device, second, enough broadband to allow the device to communicate (According to Schmidt, one of the areas that will likely grow in the coming years is Person to Person conferencing on the mobile - forget about the giant Cisco Telepresence monitors) and third, the ability to connect to thousands of servers storing trillions of data - the so-called cloud.

Now this makes sense when you consider the other area that the company sees exploding. Giant multiplayer video games being played on the Net. Right now for example, Zynga´s Farmville and Mafia Wars etc are simple games that cannot be played on the mobile environment as yet (But both NVIDIA with a so-called TIGRE chip for the mobile and Google with its latest instalment of Android now say they can support Flash Technology allowing for mobile phones to play these games).

Playing combat games on the net for example requires heavy graphics hence heavy processing power such as the NVIDIA chipset, you need big internet pipes as graphics consume heavy bandwidth and you need of course servers out there processing it all.

Schmidt did show off some cool stuff or at least the two nerds he came with on stage did.

One guy with a heavy German accent but who clearly Schmidt holds in high regard, was hilarious demonstrating how to use Google´s voice search. That is actually worked when he asked it to look for Good Spanish restaurants in Los Angeles must be testament to this features sheer brute force. I would have had to ask him twice what exactly he was asking for with that accent.

Another cool feature was using the phone on your camera to take a picture of a menu item that is written in another language and ask it to translate it into your own. Lastly, Google showed us a feature where you take a picture of an item such as a building and you search it to either see what it is or where it is in case you are using it as a landmark to figure out where you are.

The night ended with Schmidt taking questions from the audience which he was still doing as I made my way out in to the chilly Barcelona evening passing by another group on the lower floor that was huddled around a screen showing the Google CEO live.

Definitely, lived up to the billing!

WHEN M-PESA IS AN INTERNATIONAL IDENTITY FOR A KENYAN

Right - where there is a crush of international press, all the major media houses, the tech sites, bloggers combined with major IT companies and bankers, a Kenyan will hardly make waves. This is Barcelona, Mobile World Congress 2010 where more than 50,000 people have congregated at the meditarranean City known more for its FC Barcelona soccer team back home and perhaps from a distant past, for its hosting of the 1992 Olympic games.

I count few Africans at this convention of would be pushers of the next frontiers of technology particularly for the mobile and I expect little recognition. It is however a pleasant surprise that hardly have I said I´m Kenyan at most exhibitions that people´s eyes light up, ¨Ah so you know about M-PESA,¨ they say.

M-PESA is a global icon believe it or not. At all the major mobile payments exhibitions I´ve visited, people are instantly more willing to talk about their technology because they feel I understand exactly what they are talking about.

And it seems they not only know about it but they also keenly follow developments associated with it.

¨The difference between this and M-PESA is...,¨started Bruno Errico of beeweeb technologies a firm selling mobile payments systems to SMEs in the US. The import of the statement being that Bruno also knows the intricacies of m-PESA and how it works.

Here at last, I feel on solid and sometimes higher ground than some of the guys showcasing so-called cutting edge technology in mobile financial services.

Gerhard Romen, the diretor of alliances for Nokia Money is another person quite familiar with M-PESA. He uses the development cycle of M-PESA to benchmark the gestation period for Nokia Money service.

¨If you look at M-PESA, they piloted in 2005 and launched in 2007, we see mobile money as a long term development business,¨said Ramen.

Interestingly, for Nokia Money, some of the marketing spiel that Romen pitches are basically ¨Been there, Done that¨for M-PESA.
¨
Par example: ¨We see it (Nokia Money) as a tool for financial inclusion. You can use it the cash for storage if you don´t have a bank account, we are looking at micro finance, government benefits, M-PESA is a great example of this.¨

At the MWC, M-PESA is coming up for yet another award this time as a bulk payments services system but unlike the previous years, the competition keeps getting stiffer even as they use M-PESA as an inspiration and a learning template.

I hope to be in the audience to see how the green giant of Kenya fares against such competition as Monitise International, Fundamo, T Cash from SK Telecom among others. But be warned, unless our regulator, Communications Commission of Kenya gets their act together and ropes in the Central Bank of Kenya to loosen the leash on M-PESA, ZAP and others in terms of innovations, come next year, Barcelona MWC 2011 and M-PESA, CCK and Kenyans in general will be doing the catching up. Time waits for no man not even CCK director general Charles Njoroge.

COULD NOKIA ABANDON MAKING HANDSETS?

Yesterday was the beginning of an interesting thought taking place in my head. Nokia, the world largest handset maker, took to podium at the MWC talking about merging their Maemo and Moblin platforms.

These are simplistically speaking, the slates upon which you write when you design an application to run on a Nokia or any other phone.

Just like English is the language I´m using to write this blog, mobile handsets have languages which they understand such that if you write an application in that language the handset understands and is able to run it on your phone when you install it.

The tie-up between the two giants; Nokia commands 40 per cent handset market share globally while Intel controls about 80 per cent of the computing chips market (hence the ubiquitous Intel Inside) logo on many PCs and laptops, could signal the future of the mobile computing environment.

Nokia could unfathomably, be moving out of making handsets to possibly, providing the solutions that run on handsets leaving just a few generic makers of handsets to provide the hardware.

This is not so unrealistic. After the proliferation of PC makers following the popularization and licensing of the IBM backed Microsoft DOS (Disk Operating System), the rise in popularity of applications to run on these machines meant that over time, being a software maker rather than a hardware manufacturer was more profitable.

As a result, many of the originals such as Olivetti, IBM, Compaq, etc are practically out of the scene. IBM is now sold as Lenovo after being bought out of by the Chinese, Compaq was swallowed by Hewlett Packard and Dell is only now regaining its footing. Apple Macs generate considerably less noise than their iPhone, iPad and iPod stablemates.

What Nairobi Tech figures is happening here and will seek to investigate is that the field of mobile computing is gearing up for a possible four way battle that will be determined over the next two years.

Victory will be decided by application developers and mobile phone users. Which platform will developers go for and which apps will most capture users imagination?

For that I´m heading out to get an angle on the four major protagonists in this war:

Nokia with its MeeGo platform

Google with its Android platform

Apple with its iPhone platform and

Microsoft with its Windows 7 mobile platform

Smaller players:

Research In Motion with its BlackBerry platform

Samsung´s Bada

etc etc...more later am off to talk to Nokia´s Head of Product Management, Michael Bramlage.

@THE WORLD MOBILE CONGRESS

Okay this place is huge. Everyone seems to be here, that is except for Apple.

Am doing a round of this place before I start posting whats up.