Fwd: Digital Villages Notes from Safaricom July 22, 2011
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warigia bowman
Aug 3, 2011, 6:54:47 AM8/3/11
to dv-pr...@googlegroups.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: warigia bowman <war...@aucegypt.edu>
Date: Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 12:28 PM
Subject: Digital Villages Notes from Safaricom July 22, 2011
To: Victor Gathara <vgat...@vimak.co.ke>, Paul Kukubo ICT Board <pku...@ict.go.ke>, Bitange Ndemo <Bnd...@information.go.ke>
Cc: "warigia bowman\"" <war...@gmail.com>
Wapendwa wenzangu
(Victor, Bwana PS, Director Kukubo)
Here are my notes from my meeting with Safaricom. Perhaps Victor Gathara captured some additional information in his notes. I will edit out the unflattering parts for sharing with the Kictanet list. I have highlighted the critical or sensitive material that I intend to delete before sharing with the list. Let me know if there is something else you want me to delete by highlighting it in your reply before I share it with others.
Q. Where is Safaricom with implementing your objectives?
A. Patrick Mule is in charge of the digital villages. He is the point person. We have about 500 DVs rolled out. When ytou go to visit, they are not to our standard. We rolled out cybers across the market. We are working on branding, and implementing standard guidelines. The majority are not up to our scale. Our goals is to have 5000 that are to our scale by the end of March 2012. Right now, 30 of the DVs are up to par. Our goal is to have one DV per constituency.
We have finalized our branding concept. The 500 that were rolled out were preexisting cybers. [The standards from the ICT Board were not completely clear. They were somewhat ambiguous.]
Q. How are Safaricom DVs related to Pashas?
A. Pashas can be branded as Safaricom Pasha Centers. But, they can also be supported by other providers, such as Orange, or Zain. The Pasha is a Kenya ICT Board project in conjunction with the World Bank.
We (Safaricom) have funded 500 cybers, we have given them routers, and guided them.
Q. What were the standards you used to select the 500?
A. The 30 upscaled ones, we have not yet reached where we want. The model village is in Thika.
Q. Is this corporate Social Responsibility, (CSR) or is this business.
A.It is business and CSR. We are investing in terms of manpower, training. People will walk into the DV and use connectivity, [Safaricom will make 300 to 400 milion per month from this project from connectivity.] We are giving out routers. We are doing branding. That costs about 20,000 shillings per cyber. This is a CSR initiative, because there will be e-health, e-learning. We are in partnership with Cisco for e-health. A visitor can come to the DV, connect with a doctor and get a consultation. The cyber just offers Internet. The Pasha will offer MPESA, and government services. It will offer access to the government portal. We want to build on to existing small cybers. We will help those who are already there to build capacity. Our interest here is connectivity. We have bought capacity in Seacom. The cable is here.
In urban areas, we use fixed fibre. In other areas, we use a 3G network. Which is satellite. The fibre helps us to provide a dedicated link. The government has made a commitment to connect rural areas. The Ministry has started NOFBI.
Q. I really need a map of NOFBI. Do you have one?
A. --
A. Two weeks ago, the President gave a directive that the Internet cost will be reduced. Where there is heavy traffic, if the 3G meets the fiber, we route the traffic to the fiber. (BTS-base transmission station) We do use wimax,but it cannot carry a lot of bandwidth.
Q What is your strategy for rolling out? Do you have documents for areas you have already covered? A plan to roll out 5000 DVs by March 2012 is very ambitious.
A. --
We have 27,000 MPESA agents on the ground. There is potential. We want to empower them, help them make more money.
Q. What is the status of Safaricom and the Universal Service Fund?
A. Safaricom has not paid in to the USF. We were exempted last year because of the DV project, and we are still in discussion re this year. Each operator was supposed to roll out a certain number of DVs, but only Safaricom did it.
Q. So, if you go to a DV, and you want to use a government service, what is the charge?
A. Say you want to pay your taxes. There is no additional fee to contact the Kenya Revenue Authority. You just pay for browsing time.
Q. What is your relationship with competitors such as Orange and Airtel? Is it exclusive, or share.
A. The ICT Board did not have global branding guidelines. Safaricom will brand and put their logo on the DVs. They can set up their own pashas.
Q. What about the e-education?
A. We are working with Inorero University. Former SPS. Paul Mugambi at Safaricom. He is working with the Kenya Institute of Education. We can work on an ecurriculum with the Ministry of Education.
Q. What about local content in local languages?
A. The content is in Kiswahili/English. We are helping local artists digitize their work.
Most of what has been done is at the initial stages. Re community awareness, we can use the DVs to create community awareness. Re e-learning,. we picked a teacher in eevry constituency. We taught them how to use a computer. This is capacity building.
We have three classes of cybers. Basic, Intermediate and advanced. We will have more computer learning and more facilities in the advanced ones. The idea is to have one advanced in each country. Each DV that we roll out will have someone doing training for the local community. We can have different services from the government.
From: warigia bowman <war...@aucegypt.edu>
Date: Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 12:28 PM
Subject: Digital Villages Notes from Safaricom July 22, 2011
To: Victor Gathara <vgat...@vimak.co.ke>, Paul Kukubo ICT Board <pku...@ict.go.ke>, Bitange Ndemo <Bnd...@information.go.ke>
Cc: "warigia bowman\"" <war...@gmail.com>
Wapendwa wenzangu
(Victor, Bwana PS, Director Kukubo)
Here are my notes from my meeting with Safaricom. Perhaps Victor Gathara captured some additional information in his notes. I will edit out the unflattering parts for sharing with the Kictanet list. I have highlighted the critical or sensitive material that I intend to delete before sharing with the list. Let me know if there is something else you want me to delete by highlighting it in your reply before I share it with others.
Q. Where is Safaricom with implementing your objectives?
A. Patrick Mule is in charge of the digital villages. He is the point person. We have about 500 DVs rolled out. When ytou go to visit, they are not to our standard. We rolled out cybers across the market. We are working on branding, and implementing standard guidelines. The majority are not up to our scale. Our goals is to have 5000 that are to our scale by the end of March 2012. Right now, 30 of the DVs are up to par. Our goal is to have one DV per constituency.
We have finalized our branding concept. The 500 that were rolled out were preexisting cybers. [The standards from the ICT Board were not completely clear. They were somewhat ambiguous.]
Q. How are Safaricom DVs related to Pashas?
A. Pashas can be branded as Safaricom Pasha Centers. But, they can also be supported by other providers, such as Orange, or Zain. The Pasha is a Kenya ICT Board project in conjunction with the World Bank.
We (Safaricom) have funded 500 cybers, we have given them routers, and guided them.
Q. What were the standards you used to select the 500?
A. The 30 upscaled ones, we have not yet reached where we want. The model village is in Thika.
Q. Is this corporate Social Responsibility, (CSR) or is this business.
A.It is business and CSR. We are investing in terms of manpower, training. People will walk into the DV and use connectivity, [Safaricom will make 300 to 400 milion per month from this project from connectivity.] We are giving out routers. We are doing branding. That costs about 20,000 shillings per cyber. This is a CSR initiative, because there will be e-health, e-learning. We are in partnership with Cisco for e-health. A visitor can come to the DV, connect with a doctor and get a consultation. The cyber just offers Internet. The Pasha will offer MPESA, and government services. It will offer access to the government portal. We want to build on to existing small cybers. We will help those who are already there to build capacity. Our interest here is connectivity. We have bought capacity in Seacom. The cable is here.
In urban areas, we use fixed fibre. In other areas, we use a 3G network. Which is satellite. The fibre helps us to provide a dedicated link. The government has made a commitment to connect rural areas. The Ministry has started NOFBI.
Q. I really need a map of NOFBI. Do you have one?
A. --
A. Two weeks ago, the President gave a directive that the Internet cost will be reduced. Where there is heavy traffic, if the 3G meets the fiber, we route the traffic to the fiber. (BTS-base transmission station) We do use wimax,but it cannot carry a lot of bandwidth.
Q What is your strategy for rolling out? Do you have documents for areas you have already covered? A plan to roll out 5000 DVs by March 2012 is very ambitious.
A. --
We have 27,000 MPESA agents on the ground. There is potential. We want to empower them, help them make more money.
Q. What is the status of Safaricom and the Universal Service Fund?
A. Safaricom has not paid in to the USF. We were exempted last year because of the DV project, and we are still in discussion re this year. Each operator was supposed to roll out a certain number of DVs, but only Safaricom did it.
Q. So, if you go to a DV, and you want to use a government service, what is the charge?
A. Say you want to pay your taxes. There is no additional fee to contact the Kenya Revenue Authority. You just pay for browsing time.
Q. What is your relationship with competitors such as Orange and Airtel? Is it exclusive, or share.
A. The ICT Board did not have global branding guidelines. Safaricom will brand and put their logo on the DVs. They can set up their own pashas.
Q. What about the e-education?
A. We are working with Inorero University. Former SPS. Paul Mugambi at Safaricom. He is working with the Kenya Institute of Education. We can work on an ecurriculum with the Ministry of Education.
Q. What about local content in local languages?
A. The content is in Kiswahili/English. We are helping local artists digitize their work.
Most of what has been done is at the initial stages. Re community awareness, we can use the DVs to create community awareness. Re e-learning,. we picked a teacher in eevry constituency. We taught them how to use a computer. This is capacity building.
We have three classes of cybers. Basic, Intermediate and advanced. We will have more computer learning and more facilities in the advanced ones. The idea is to have one advanced in each country. Each DV that we roll out will have someone doing training for the local community. We can have different services from the government.
Wainaina
Aug 3, 2011, 4:05:42 PM8/3/11
to dv-pr...@googlegroups.com
Hi Warigia,
Correct me if I am wrong but from your notes and a quick calculation, had Safaricom paid into the USF in 2010, that would have been £6.7 million because it's revenue was £670 million last year. That's a billion Kenya shillings.
Safaricom claim to have funded upto 500 DVs and have invested atleast KSh. 20,000 per DV. That a meagre KSh. 10 million at best. From what is on the ground, we know they spent much less on average and only 30 DVs can stand up to be counted. That brings the figure to below 1 million shillings.
It seems we'd rather they paid into the USF and we manage the USF better. Maybe the USF is a good entry point for the Editorial feature.
Wainaina
Warigia Bowman
Aug 4, 2011, 3:49:22 AM8/4/11
to Digital Villages Project
Dear Wainana
You are correct. It is a high profit for a low investment. This should
go into our report.
This being the case, how do we deal with the fact that the primary
school money was eaten? How do we deal with the fact that the
government wont bring food to . hungry kenyans?
How do we make both Safaricom more accountable, as well as making the
government more accountable.
We need to raise these ideas in our report
On Aug 3, 11:05 pm, Wainaina <waina...@bungesms.com> wrote:
> Hi Warigia,
>
> Correct me if I am wrong but from your notes and a quick calculation, had
> Safaricom paid into the USF in 2010, that would have been £6.7 million
> because it's revenue was £670 million last year. That's a billion Kenya
> shillings.
>
> Safaricom claim to have funded upto 500 DVs and have invested atleast KSh.
> 20,000 per DV. That a meagre KSh. 10 million at best. From what is on the
> ground, we know they spent much less on average and only 30 DVs can stand up
> to be counted. That brings the figure to below 1 million shillings.
>
> It seems we'd rather they paid into the USF and we manage the USF better.
> Maybe the USF is a good entry point for the Editorial feature.
>
> Wainaina
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:54 PM, warigia bowman <wari...@aucegypt.edu> wrote:
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: warigia bowman <wari...@aucegypt.edu>
> > Date: Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 12:28 PM
> > Subject: Digital Villages Notes from Safaricom July 22, 2011
> > To: Victor Gathara <vgath...@vimak.co.ke>, Paul Kukubo ICT Board <
> > pkuk...@ict.go.ke>, Bitange Ndemo <Bnd...@information.go.ke>
> > Cc: "warigia bowman\"" <wari...@gmail.com>
>
> > Wapendwa wenzangu
>
> > (*Victor, Bwana PS, Director Kukubo*)
> > delete by highlighting it in your reply before I share it with others. *
> > clear. They were somewhat ambiguous.]*
> > 300 to 400 milion per month from this project from connectivity.]* We are
> > services from the government.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
You are correct. It is a high profit for a low investment. This should
go into our report.
This being the case, how do we deal with the fact that the primary
school money was eaten? How do we deal with the fact that the
government wont bring food to . hungry kenyans?
How do we make both Safaricom more accountable, as well as making the
government more accountable.
We need to raise these ideas in our report
On Aug 3, 11:05 pm, Wainaina <waina...@bungesms.com> wrote:
> Hi Warigia,
>
> Correct me if I am wrong but from your notes and a quick calculation, had
> Safaricom paid into the USF in 2010, that would have been £6.7 million
> because it's revenue was £670 million last year. That's a billion Kenya
> shillings.
>
> Safaricom claim to have funded upto 500 DVs and have invested atleast KSh.
> 20,000 per DV. That a meagre KSh. 10 million at best. From what is on the
> ground, we know they spent much less on average and only 30 DVs can stand up
> to be counted. That brings the figure to below 1 million shillings.
>
> It seems we'd rather they paid into the USF and we manage the USF better.
> Maybe the USF is a good entry point for the Editorial feature.
>
> Wainaina
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:54 PM, warigia bowman <wari...@aucegypt.edu> wrote:
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: warigia bowman <wari...@aucegypt.edu>
> > Date: Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 12:28 PM
> > Subject: Digital Villages Notes from Safaricom July 22, 2011
> > pkuk...@ict.go.ke>, Bitange Ndemo <Bnd...@information.go.ke>
> > Cc: "warigia bowman\"" <wari...@gmail.com>
>
> > Wapendwa wenzangu
>
> > (*Victor, Bwana PS, Director Kukubo*)
>
> > Here are my notes from my meeting with Safaricom. Perhaps Victor Gathara
> > captured some additional information in his notes. I will edit out the
> > unflattering parts for sharing with the Kictanet list. I have highlighted
> > the critical or sensitive material that I intend to delete before sharing
> > with the list. *Let me know if there is something else you want me to
> > Here are my notes from my meeting with Safaricom. Perhaps Victor Gathara
> > captured some additional information in his notes. I will edit out the
> > unflattering parts for sharing with the Kictanet list. I have highlighted
> > the critical or sensitive material that I intend to delete before sharing
> > delete by highlighting it in your reply before I share it with others. *
>
> > Q. Where is Safaricom with implementing your objectives?
> > A. Patrick Mule is in charge of the digital villages. He is the point
> > person. We have about 500 DVs rolled out. When ytou go to visit, they are
> > not to our standard. We rolled out cybers across the market. We are working
> > on branding, and implementing standard guidelines. The majority are not up
> > to our scale. Our goals is to have 5000 that are to our scale by the end of
> > March 2012. Right now, 30 of the DVs are up to par. Our goal is to have one
> > DV per constituency.
>
> > We have finalized our branding concept. The 500 that were rolled out were
> > preexisting cybers. *[The standards from the ICT Board were not completely
> > Q. Where is Safaricom with implementing your objectives?
> > A. Patrick Mule is in charge of the digital villages. He is the point
> > person. We have about 500 DVs rolled out. When ytou go to visit, they are
> > not to our standard. We rolled out cybers across the market. We are working
> > on branding, and implementing standard guidelines. The majority are not up
> > to our scale. Our goals is to have 5000 that are to our scale by the end of
> > March 2012. Right now, 30 of the DVs are up to par. Our goal is to have one
> > DV per constituency.
>
> > We have finalized our branding concept. The 500 that were rolled out were
> > clear. They were somewhat ambiguous.]*
>
> > Q. How are Safaricom DVs related to Pashas?
> > A. Pashas can be branded as Safaricom Pasha Centers. But, they can also be
> > supported by other providers, such as Orange, or Zain. The Pasha is a Kenya
> > ICT Board project in conjunction with the World Bank.
>
> > We (Safaricom) have funded 500 cybers, we have given them routers, and
> > guided them.
>
> > Q. What were the standards you used to select the 500?
> > A. The 30 upscaled ones, we have not yet reached where we want. The model
> > village is in Thika.
>
> > Q. Is this corporate Social Responsibility, (CSR) or is this business.
> > A.It is business and CSR. We are investing in terms of manpower, training.
> > People will walk into the DV and use connectivity, *[Safaricom will make
> > Q. How are Safaricom DVs related to Pashas?
> > A. Pashas can be branded as Safaricom Pasha Centers. But, they can also be
> > supported by other providers, such as Orange, or Zain. The Pasha is a Kenya
> > ICT Board project in conjunction with the World Bank.
>
> > We (Safaricom) have funded 500 cybers, we have given them routers, and
> > guided them.
>
> > Q. What were the standards you used to select the 500?
> > A. The 30 upscaled ones, we have not yet reached where we want. The model
> > village is in Thika.
>
> > Q. Is this corporate Social Responsibility, (CSR) or is this business.
> > A.It is business and CSR. We are investing in terms of manpower, training.
> > 300 to 400 milion per month from this project from connectivity.]* We are
>
> - Show quoted text -
Warigia Bowman
Aug 4, 2011, 6:08:18 AM8/4/11
to Digital Villages Project
Wenzangu
with regard to these notes,
I would like to note that Safaricom claims they have rolled out 500
DVs. However, the list of tier 2 places they have given us only has
147 locations indicated.
I would like to hear from Victor on how we should approach this
matter.
Yours, Rigia
> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
with regard to these notes,
I would like to note that Safaricom claims they have rolled out 500
DVs. However, the list of tier 2 places they have given us only has
147 locations indicated.
I would like to hear from Victor on how we should approach this
matter.
Yours, Rigia
Victor Gathara
Aug 5, 2011, 1:45:32 AM8/5/11
to dv-pr...@googlegroups.com
I think this is a valid point and establishes that leaving the players to do their own thing with their usf contributions is probably not be the best way to go about it. We should definitely make that point in the report but what of other telcos? What has been their contribution? We may need to dig deeper on the whole issue of usf.
Victor
warigia bowman
Aug 5, 2011, 2:03:43 AM8/5/11
to dv-pr...@googlegroups.com
victor
This is an important point.
Rigia
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