Monday 31 March 2008

02-06 June Africa Rail 2008

Saturday 29 March 2008

04-08 April - India-Africa Summit, New-Dehli, India


India-Africa summit to focus on agriculture, energy

Sandeep Dikshit ( The Hindu)

NEW DELHI: The largest-ever India-Africa conclave, being held here from March 19 to 21 will discuss 131 projects worth over $10 billion. Although relegated to the margins in mainstream discourses on merchandise trade, several African countries are India’s important trade partners and the summit is aimed at further intensifying and diversifying that relationship, it was noted a news conference ahead of the “The India Africa Project Partnership 2008.”

The conference will focus on four main areas: technology, agriculture, human resources and energy. Many countries with long-standing ties including Nigeria, India’s second largest source of imported crude petroleum; South Africa, the fourth-largest source for India’s gold imports; and Morocco and Senegal, leading sources of India’s global imports of inorganic chemicals, will attend the meet.

Ethiopian Ambassador Gannet Zewide pointed out the immense trade potential with African countries, many of whom are recording double digit growth. “Africa is striving to close the chapter of poverty,” she added.

High Commissioner of Ghana John Bentum Williams felt the involvement of Indian entrepreneurs in Africa was well timed, “as Africa has a lot of potential now.” Ugandan Ambassador Nimisha Madhwani said that Africa was a safe investment destination.

On the other hand, Chief Mentor of the CII Tarun Das emphasised that the core of the India-Africa relationship was the people-to-people liaison. Both countries shared common histories and challenges — to eliminate poverty and build infrastructure and connectivity through low-cost, appropriate technology. He hoped the conference would not only increase economic cooperation and joint partnerships, but also ‘build a human bridge between India and Africa.’ Africa, he said, “is the Continent of Light — that’s where the sun will shine tomorrow.”

Amosu in "The media industry’s rising stars: top 40 under 40"


Alexander Amosu, 32, was one of 40 rising stars in the Media Industry, under 40.

Founder of Amosu Luxury From his bedroom, Alexander Amosu made his first million by composing and selling mobile-phone ring tones for £1 a time. Last Christmas he was popular with the bling brigade for encrusting iPhones with £20,000 of diamonds. Motorola commissioned him to design a bejewelled Bluetooth headset. Amosu is preparing to deliver a gem-laden Blackberry, costing £45,000, to the rapper P Diddy. He is also expanding into watches.

Monday 24 March 2008

How to choose a domain name

  • Get both the .com and .co.uk versions. Don’t bother with anything
  • Don’t put hyphens or underscores in the name – they only confuse
  • Choose something memorable and easy to
  • Buy proxy domain names rich in relevant keywords to direct people to your site

Remember to renew the name every two years

Get a good name on the web

Source: The Sunday Times


Having the right web address can boost business for small firms.
Rachel Bridge looks at how to go about getting it

WHEN Stephen Phillips decided to buy a website address for his market-research firm, Spring Research, he made a big mistake. On the advice of his business partner he decided to buy only Springresearch.co.uk and did not bother to buy Spring research.com, too, even though it was still available.

“My business partner said I needed to advertise myself as a UK-based company so it was really important that I bought the .co.uk name. Which was fair enough, but I should have got the .com name as well. It was just sitting there,” he said.

Within a month Phillips realised he had been foolish not to acquire the .com name, but by then the name had been snapped up by someone else. It took four years and much haggling to buy the name and it ended up costing £700 instead of the few pounds it would have cost in the first place.

With websites becoming an increasingly important part of modern commerce, small businesses such as Spring Research are learning - sometimes the hard way - that website addresses, or domain names, are not just an optional extra but an essential part of their business.

Most small-business owners understand the concept, but they are often unsure how to find and keep a domain name.

Susan Hallam is the founder of Hallam Communications, an internet-marketing consultancy. She said: “It’s very rare these days to find a business that doesn’t understand it needs the internet. What many have trouble with, is that they don’t know the first step they need to take.”

In many ways Phillips was extremely lucky to have got the .com name he wanted – and to have paid so little for it.

However, if the domain name you want has already gone, do not despair. A lot have been bought up speculatively with a view to selling them on at a higher price rather than to use them for a business, so you may still be able to buy the one you want provided you are prepared to pay.

Several websites act as brokers for domain names. If you go on to one of these sites, you can browse the domain names that are for sale or put in a request for the name you want if it ever comes up for sale. Brokers include Pool.com, Sedo.co.uk, Snapnames.com and Dotpound. com. Some will also give a free valuation of any unwanted domain names you own.

Hallam said: “There’s a huge market for domain names and lots of organisations that do nothing but broker them. They match up buyers and sellers. The value of a domain name is purely a function of the demand for it.”

Approaching the owner of the website name you want can also yield results. You can find out who owns which website at Whois.org. Hallam said: “A lot of people bought domain names speculatively because they thought they would be able to sell them at a profit some day and now they are sitting on thousands of them. So they might be happy to shift some. A small business may be able to acquire a domain name for a couple of hundred pounds.”

Acquiring the right domain name is very important, though, if you want the name to enhance your business.

Hallam said that to be able to choose a good domain name, it was vital that small-business owners got to grips with the way that internet search engines, notably Google, worked.

Research shows that when people are searching the web, hardly anyone bothers to look beyond the first page of results even though the search often produces hundreds of them. So, to get your company noticed, you need to give your website name enough pointers for it to be automatically placed on the first page.

“A domain name needs to be memorable, consistent and coherent with your brand,” said Hallam. “And it needs to be search-engine friendly. If, for example, you are a florist in Lincolnshire, it might be worth buying the domain name Lincoln shireflowers.co.uk, for example.” Hugh Boyle is the head of digital for Europe, Middle East and Asia at Ogilvy Action, a marketing communications agency. He said that when choosing a domain name small businesses should think about being a bit more creative than simply getting their business name and adding .com to it.

“People relate well to firms that don’t necessarily put their brand in the domain name,” he said. “And it is good to be clever or funky with them. It’s an area where you can be creative.”

Boyle himself, for example, has already speculatively bought the domain name Youarenot goingoutlikethat.com, which he thinks would be ideal for a teen fashion brand, and Fridayafternoon.com, which would work as a weekend events website.

One of the best examples of this, he said, was the DIY chain B&Q’s decision to buy and use the domain name DIY.com. “It’s brilliant,” he said. “What it is saying is, B&Q is DIY. It’s a clear statement of market leadership and of confidence.”

Prime domain names can also earn you big money if you decide not to use them yourself. Boyle cited a friend who bought a domain name for a few pounds and then sold it for £20,000.

Whatever name you came up with, he said, it was vital to get both the .com and the .co.uk versions. “If you can’t buy the .com and .co.uk, then think of another name,” he said. “Domain name endings such as .net, .uk.com, .ltd.com, .biz and .tv don’t resonate. And you won’t get many English companies using .eu.

“Also don’t have any hyphens. If people are going to the wrong site when they are looking for you, then unless they really need your product or service, they won’t bother to look again.”

You should also try to avoid confusion with another business with the same name. “Look at a different characteristic of your company and use that instead,” said Boyle. “If you are a plumber and you have the same name as a bookshop, don’t mess around with hyphens and .orgs because it just frustrates people. Choose something smart such as Leaky pipes.com.”

Once you have bought the name for your business, think about what proxy domains you need to buy. Proxy domains are website addresses that you don’t actually use but that link to your main site through vital keywords that will be picked up by a search engine such as Google.

Finally, once you have acquired a domain name that works for your business, you must renew it every two years. If you don’t, the consequences could be devastating. Hallam said: “Remember that you do not own a domain name, you only rent it. I’ve seen a lot of small firms get their fingers burnt because they forgot to renew their domain name. There’s a whole industry out there engaged in ‘sniping’.

“They sit there and see that your domain name is going to expire on March 4 at 5pm, and the second your domain name expires they have an automated piece of software to swoop in and buy it. Once they have it, you have no right to it. It’s a nightmare.”

Monday 17 March 2008

Monday 10 March 2008

Monday 3 March 2008

Sunday 2 March 2008

A card up Africa's sleeve


A CARD UP AFRICA’S SLEEVE

If you've ever drunkenly cursed the cash machine for swallowing your card because you have forgotten your Pin, keeping you from a kebab or a minicab ride home, here's an invention that could prove useful. This cash card doesn’t need anything other than our hand: biometric technology means a few crisp notes are just a fingerprint away.

There's one catch, though: It's not available in Britain. The Opportunity International Bank of

Malawi provides financial services in the world's fifth poorest country and its fingerprint technology gives secure access for those who may be illiterate or lack formal identification such as a passport.

Armoured-car banking

The bank says: 'You can't access someone's account even if you cut off their hand, take the hand to an ATM and try to Use their fingerprint The hand has' to have blood pumping through it for the ID to work.' Well that's a relief.

Last June, Opportunity International also launched mobile banking in Mozambique.

An armoured vehicle linked to the Central Bank’s IT system via cellular technology makes weekly visits to remote areas so farmers and poor households can access micro loans as well as, deposit savings, however small 'The poor aren't "risks"; they’re actually good stewards of money because their lives depend on it so much,' says Tamsin Morrison, of Opportunity.

And, despite lacking pensions and Isas, many poor people in Africa do save. They tend to keep their money in hiding places as banks may be far away or their savings too small to be accepted because the bank comes to them, clients don't have to leave their work and make long risky treks to the cities.

Opportunity’s innovations reveal just how far technology could offer an invaluable shortcut or Development, something highlighted by Development Secretary Douglas AIexander in a Foreign Policy Centre speech earlier this month. We’ve seen leapfrogging of technology, from the absence of land-based phones to the ubiquity of mobile telephony in sub-Saharan Africa,' he said. Emerging economies, it seems, can jump straight into the 21st century.

And, if current figures are anything to go by, 'leapfrogging' is happening more quickly than predicted. Within the next few months, China will take the place of the 'US as the country with .the world's largest number of internet users.

India introduced its own “people's car” in January, the Tata Nano, which retails at £I,250, and is now launching a mobile phone to sell for just a tenner. The Spice Telecom product is aimed at the 'next billion' owners of mobile phones in the developing world.

Quicker to catch on

Technology is spreading in emerging markets faster than it has ever done anywhere. The World Bank found that the gap between invention and widespread adoption is closing 'fast (see box): railways may have taken 120 years to catch on but mobile phones reached 80 per cent country coverage within just 16 years.

Since microfinance organization Grameen Bank (co-winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace prize) joined forces With Norway's Telenor to set up Grameenphone in 1996, Bangladesh has increased its phone penetration from one per 500 people to one per seven today.

Figures such as these have helped kick-start another form of mobile banking in developing countries: Vodafone and Safaricom in Kenya launched M-Pesa ('mobile money' in Swahili) last year, intending to streamline microfinance operations by allowing loans dispersal and repayment by ceil phones.

In the first three months, the service attracted 175,000 subscribers, and it was soon being used for person-to­ person transfers. Rather than needing a bank account, customers load money into their phones by paying cash at selected outlets" such as grocery stores and petrol stations. They then text money ('stored value') to other mobiles.

But while mobiles are suited to the challenge of quick-fix development, the World Bank has found that most technologies still take longer to spread, and reach fewer people, in developing countries. Reasons range from lack of old technologies to education or governance problems.

So old-fashioned development work is still needed. But technology can :bring economic benefits to poorer regions in a direct way. And, one day, it might help us get that taxi ride home. www.opportunity.org.uk

Saturday 1 March 2008

Africa Open for Business - Nigeria

Ooqoo Welcome

Fvb_ooqoo1

Dear All

Welcome to the Ooqoo World.
Ooqoo, family in Swahili, is the Viadeo Africa Hub’s blog developed on the Viadeo
website, one year ago for the English speakers.

An English-speaking
African Business Club joining together all the african people or people with a
strong interest for Africa.

Our targets:

  1. to share some informations
    about the business, the events for or from Africa.
  2. to pass from a
    virtual network to a real one.

Today, after four successful quarterly meetings in France in 2007, we would like to improve the English network
and to do the same in UK. Ooqoo is this improvement, a natural
evolution. An idea that becomes a reality.

The Ooqoo blog aims to
improve, to increase the visibility of a network which counts nearly 100
members throughout the world but also to be a window 100% dedicated to the
Members, 100% dedicated to their accomplishment, and 100% dedicated to the Africa networking
while remaining complementary to the Viadeo Africa Hub.