African cheetah population faces serious threats from Asian traders
While the elephant is the symbol endangered flora and fauna in the world, obscured from global attention is the threat the cheetah in eastern Africa wilds faces. Illicit trade between eastern Africa and the Middle East has significantly depleted the population to the extent Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) says the...
Blue Prism announces Service Assist to automate next generation contact centres
Blue Prism has announced the availability of Blue Prism Service Assist to address the increasing demands of customer contact centres and call centre agent productivity. The new offering will deliver a real-time, unified 360-degree view of all customer interactions helping free up agents so they can be more responsive, empathetic...
Julian Assange: Governments selectively enforcing laws to punish those who provoke their ire
As the extradition hearing for Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange unfolds, it is increasingly clear that the prosecution of Assange fits into a pattern of governments selectively enforcing laws to punish those who provoke their ire, reports freedom of information defenders Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). EFF now wants computer crime laws...
Huawei, Sunline launch contactless ‘Digital Loan One Box Solution’
Technology companies Sunline and Huawei have jointly released the Digital Loan One Box Solution — a global contactless solution for financial services. This solution will be rolled out across countries and regions such as Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, where financial inclusiveness is urgently necessary. According...
Cambridge Analytica neither misused data nor colluded with Russia, watchdog finds
Infamous now-defunct data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica did not directly misuse data to shift votes in the Brexit referendum, nor did it work with Russia to meddle in the vote, a three-year UK investigation has found. The organisation, which has in the past 10 years been blamed for electoral mess in...
Coronavirus accelerates need for mobile, self-service banking
The coronavirus has accelerated the need for mobile and self-service banking, with traditional branches seeing a fall in customer traffic, meaning their customer acquisition has also significantly declined. Though it may be tempting to conclude that this will lead to bank branches becoming obsolete, that is not the case. Instead,...
From the Maria Theresa Thaler, to the rupee, to the Kenya shilling
Early use of currency in Kenya commenced with the Arab influence who were among the first to use currency as we know it. In Muscat, they used a silver coin called the Maria Theresa Thaler (MT$), first minted in Austria in 1741 and, not surprisingly, they continued using it when...
Blast from the past: The evolution of the Kenyan currency
Two years after the unveiling new currency in December by the Central Bank of Kenya’s, the country seems to have put behind it the appearance of the money that characteristically bore portraits of heads of government and state.The present currency coins and notes unveiled on December 10, 2018 bear wildlife...
$170,000 banana, potato factory puts money in pockets of Kakamega youths
With Ksh17 million ($170,000) World Bank and national government funding, youths in a remote village in western Kenya are going about their lives with a spring in their legs. Reason? They are now reaping the benefits of a value addition factory in Khwisero subcounty in Kakamega County that is now...
A Nigerian’s public outcry against graft is proportional to distance to dabble in it
On June 13, 1988, Pini Jason Onyegbaduo (1948 – 2013), a popular Nigerian columnist, propounded a “Hypothesis of Corruption.” The hypothesis was intellectually articulated in the now-defunct THISWEEK newsmagazine. But unknown to Pini Jason, he had developed what would become known as the “Jason’s Law of Corruption.” The “Law” would...
