January, 2020 - itbusinessdirect

Uganda new Electric Buses to run on electric batteries

January 10, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Uganda has moved closer to domestic vehicle manufacturing with the shipping in of a fully built unit and the assembling of a 90-seater bus by Kiira Motors Corporation in Nakasongola, 150 kilometres north of Kampala. According to officials at Kiira, technicians started building the Kayoola Electric Buses, which came as a semi-knocked down unit, on October 30, and hope to be done by end of December 2019. The bus’s components were supplied by Kiira Motor’s technology transfer partner, CHTC Motors of China. It is one of two market validation vehicles,…

Airlines acquire new aircraft with latest technology

January 10, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Airlines are acquiring new aircraft with the latest technology to operate more efficiently and economically as well as more environmentally. The majority of players in Africa’s growing aviation industry have signed agreements to prioritise the protection of the environment. Rolls-Royce, which powers all Airbus A350s and A330neos aircraft, and whose customers in Africa include Ethiopian Airlines, SAA, Air Mauritius, EgyptAir, Air Senegal, Uganda, Rwandair, and Air Tanzania, will be a key partner on this journey. The Business Daily spoke to Paul Stein, Rolls-Royce’s chief technology officer, on how Africa’s aviation…

Little shuttle suspends their shuttle service indefinitely

January 9, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Little, the ride hailing service in Kenya has today announced that they are suspending their Shuttle service again for an indefinite period. “We deeply regret to announce that the Little Shuttle service has been temporarily suspended effective immediately,” they said in the communique. “We apologize profusely for the inconvenience but the service will be back with a bang very soon.” They did not state the reason why they were suspending the service or give a definite timeline of when the service is yet to be back. Little Shuttle has not had…

Innovators create App to assist with Cancer awareness

January 9, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Late cancer diagnosis due to lack of adequate information has been cited as some of the drawbacks in the fight against the disease. However this may now become a thing of the past thanks to a new innovation. A group of three youths in Eldoret have developed a mobile platform to assist cancer patients obtain proper and correct information on the disease. Salim Bakari, one of the developers of the app dubbed Cancer and Chronic Diseases Focus, says they found that there is a widespread lack of information on cancer…

Telkom Kenya now offers more data for same price

January 9, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Telkom Kenya has revised their daily, weekly and monthly bundles where you now get more data for the same price. This is good news for the millions of Telkom users out there who use their network everyday Some of the data bundle offerings have received a 100% hike at the same price point which is nice to see. At the low end, you can get a healthy 70MB for only KES 10 and you can get as much as 50GB of data for KES 3,000 a month up from 36GB.…

Safaricom invites bids of a location tracking platform

January 9, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Safaricom has invited bids to seek suppliers of a location tracking and intelligence platform. In a bid notice, they express interest to take advantage of a location intelligence system which will help them build customer profiles based on their location, according to Business Daily. “Consequently, the evolution of the mobile network and devices has enabled Safaricom to gather information from the connected devices. At the core of any reliably connected device is an accurate location intelligence system,” the bid notice said. According to the latest sector statistics by the Communications Authority,…

Voice App makes life easy for throat cancer patients

January 8, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

Vlastimil Gular’s life took an unwelcome turn a year ago: minor surgery on his vocal cords revealed throat cancer, which led to the loss of his larynx and with it, his voice. But the 51-year-old father of four is still chatting away using his own voice rather than the tinny timbre of a robot, thanks to an innovative app developed by two Czech universities. “I find this very useful,” Gular told AFP, using the app to type in what he wanted to say, in his own voice, via a mobile phone.…

AI Diagnoses childhood diseases like doctors

January 8, 2020 Dianne Jacobs

An artificial intelligence (AI) programme developed in China that combs through test results, health records and even handwritten notes diagnosed childhood diseases as accurately as doctors, researchers said. From the flu and asthma to life-threatening pneumonia and meningitis, the system consistently matched or out-performed primary care pediatricians, they reported in Nature Medicine. Dozens of studies in recent months have detailed how AI is revolutionizing the detection of diseases including cancers, genetic disorders and Alzheimer’s. AI-based technology learns and improves in a way similar to humans, but has virtually unlimited capacity…