#FIFAfrica2016
Attending an African traditional leadership session  the first thing you learn is the position of the elders in the clan. Elders are never wrong and they are always right, they make the key decision for the well-being of the clan and they preserve values that protect the clan from the curse of the ancestors which might lead to calamities and disasters. Time has changed, over the period of time Africa has witnessed different elders; the traditional elders, the colonial rulers, postcolonial leaders, the puppets and the current government. One thing has never changed still the elders are right and everybody else is wrong at least in African culture perspective. 

  The internet freedom in Africa has been suffering the same fate that anything new to the African society has faced before, getting along with the elders. The internet has been trying to correct the elders in public something which is a serious offence and might lead you to be kicked out of the clan. It’s a shameful act which requires stern measures. The internet has been able to give the access to the clan members to contribute their thoughts and held the clan leaders accountable for their actions if they are leading the clan astray. Something that the clan leaders doesn’t like. They have never been questioned about their authority before and in the manner, they deemed to be inappropriate. They feel the internet is a curse to the clan and it should be avoided. 
But why so? Is it the approach? Is it fear of change? What is behind all these? The only way to understand this is to go back again to the African culture values. How do you approach elders when they are wrong? You sit down respectfully and talk to them. The challenge is you may not be matured enough to seat in the council of elders or at least the elders may think that way. Fighting for the right to have access to the unlimited and uncontrolled internet is like requesting elders to have a seat on their council. It is not an easy issue but it is not impossible. Organizations fighting for internet rights should sit down with the government and help them to understand the internet is not a curse to the clan but it is a blessing if it is to be spent nicely. A healer can be a witch and a medicine can be a poison if the instructions are not followed, that is exact what the internet is. Requesting internet freedom should go hand in hand with helping people to become responsible for their activities online and helping the government understand the positive side of the internet. 

  The informed council of elders will understand it is not about them it is about the clan too. If the clan feels they are benefited from the internet blessings more than the curse it has brought then they have the right to continue using it. The control and the decision should be made by the individuals within the clan rather than the council of elders. The council of elders should be there to advise, educate and protect the clan from the curse that might come from the internet and not prevent them completely from accessing it. If the council of elders themselves is using the internet to push the agenda from the council meetings, why individuals clan members should not enjoy the blessings of the internet? 

 It is the human nature when you are attacked you become defensive. On the effort of promoting free and uncontrolled internet access, stakeholders should focus more on selling the internet as the tool for social and economic development rather than the tool to exploit and expose the weaknesses of the government. To the elders, the internet is the curse which as came to destroy the clan and to make them look weak. At least in Africa, nobody exposes the weaknesses of the council of the elders instead you educate the elders about the consequences of their decisions and help them to make a better one. They say culture eat strategy for breakfast. Maybe this is the right time to check if our traditional culture is eating our digital strategies. 

 The clan members should understand, they can’t make the decision of the clan without the council of elders. You need to get them involved. It is also the right time for the elders to start listening. The time has passed and things are changing very fast they can’t continue on the old ways of thinking everything new is the curse to the clan, some are blessings and there are no needs to resist. They can’t always be right, and that is the reason we occasionally offer sacrifices to the ancestors to ask for forgiveness for a wrong decision made by the council of elders.  Informed council of elders makes better decisions for the clan than the one which is not informed. The question is how do you want to inform the council of elders by attacking them or by educating them? 

 On 19 February 2016 Vodacom Tanzania organized the M-Pesa Innovation Forum, the platform for Tanzania technology innovators and entrepreneurs to meet with the M-Pesa team to explore the opportunities that comes with the product and how the innovators can make the most it.
The forum was organized by the M-Pesa Tanzania technical and business team whereby they provided opportunities for technology innovators to ask random questions about the challenges they get when it comes to trying to innovate around the product. The biggest question was, when will the API be readily available for developers to integrate different payment systems with M-Pesa platforms ?
M-Pesa Tanzania is the second largest mobile payment system in the world after Safaricom which  has more than 7 million active subscribers and more than 30,000 merchants all over the country. It is the largest mobile payments service provider in the country. Currently they are connected to almost 500 businesses and have working partnerships with 30 commercial banks in Tanzania. The company has 85,000 M-Pesa agents networks nationwide. This is what the Tanzania innovators and technology entrepreneurs are looking to tap into. They are looking to get into the value chain of the business which contributes to 37.5 percent of Tanzania’s GDP.
As the forum went on, most of the developers in the room were waiting for one thing, the link for the API so as to access it. That, unfortunately was not the case, as the Vodacom team was keen to explain about the API not just in the technical perspective but in both business and regulators perspectives. From the team the issues was not just to be able to access the API and be able to configure it with your product or service but rather to understand the business viability of your product first and what does the regulators (Central Bank) say about it.
Mr. Tulisindo Rashid, M-Commerce Solutions Architect Manager explained their new updated Consumer to Business (C2B) platform which allows more flexibility. For example, in the new API, money is not deducted until the service has been delivered hence cutting down customer complaints to a large extent. He also explained that the API can be integrated with different platforms to allow users to do their payments directly using their M-Pesa accounts, for example the API can be integrated with School Management Systems and allow parents to pay directly into the collection account of the platform.
There were 90 minutes of a technical session where the head of technology of Vodacom Tanzania,  explained to the developers about the API and how they can integrate it with their platforms. The session was followed by a number of technical questions from the developers who attended the session. The head of technology of Vodacom insisted that, the priority for Vodacom is reliability and security when it comes to integrating with any external systems, hence developers should make sure they invest time to work on that before dropping by Vodacom’s office looking to get connected.
Finally, the moment everyone was waiting for, Vodacom provided the procedure on how someone can access their API and start to do business with them. The business team provided a few simple steps on how someone can register and become their partner. These steps include:
  • Sending them emails to m-pesabusiness@vodacom.co.tz for enquiries
  • Providing your company registration documents
  • They will send you a Bank Indemnity form
  • You return the form with your company registration documents
  • If everything goes well you sign the contract with Vodacom Tanzania, and lastly;
  • The Service Level Agreement (SLA) and you are set to work with M-Pesa.
The M-Pesa Tanzania Product Manager, Mr. Polycarp Ndekana provided further explanations about having some challenges with regulation issues to some of the business models, which is outside Vodacom’s jurisdiction since it is being set by the Central Bank of Tanzania.
Vodacom also explained their new hosting solution – Vodacom cloud for companies that are looking to host through them. According to the service lead, the service is a new service and it is still at a preliminary stage. More information will be available in the near future.
Is this the new chapter we were looking  for? The answer is yes, the ecosystem needs this kind of collaboration between the corporate world and the innovators in the ecosystem, and Vodacom has just shown how it is done. We are expecting other MNOs to do the same. New innovations in the mobile industry will not come from their locked office doors but rather will come from young talented innovators available from the innovation spaces and tech startups companies where the urge to innovate is high compared to the big companies. They might not be able to replace the R&D departments but for sure they will bring the desired innovations.
I have been working with startups and early stage companies for the past 3 years helping them grow and scale their businesses to the next level. I work as a technology hub manager at Buni Hub, which is the innovation space established by the Tanzanian Government and Finnish government to foster innovation and technology entrepreneurship in Tanzania. Buni Hub runs different kinds of programme and training events targeting entrepreneurs.
Buni mentoring programme is the programme which is targeting entrepreneurs at mid-stage when they have a tested product and have managed to secure early stage adopters (consumers) of their products or services. The programme is distributed in 12 meetings with mentors whereby the entrepreneur will have to meet with the mentor at least once a week. The meetings are divided into 4 groups; Ideation meetings, Product (service) development meetings, Market entrance strategy meetings and Launching (scaling) meetings. In these meetings we use concepts like Human Centered Design, Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas to help these entrepreneurs to work on improving their products.
One of the key things they learn during the market entrance strategy meetings is early stage branding. They learn  how to brand their product with minimum resources possible. They learn the concept of digital branding on creating their digital (online) brand presence. They learn tips on how to build young brands but with the strong reputation. One key learning from working with the startups on branding their companies is that brand needs to communicate (talk) to the customers. The brand needs to constant engage with the beneficiaries of the brand. One customer dissatisfaction equals to all. 
In the book, TATA, “The Evolution of the Corporate Brand” by Morgen Witzel, Morgen explains “the consumer needs to fill the brand owners respect and treat them fairly”. This is supposed to start at the very early stage of the business when the brand is still very young since this is the time people start to define and understand your brand values.  When explaining the difference between sales, marketing and branding, brand experts always say the last is more of what your customers say about your product (services) rather than what you say to them.
Competitive strategy, when listening to tutorials by Prof. Tobias Kretschmer from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Tobias explains, the need for innovation to early stage companies (new entrants in the market) is high compared to  a monopoly company which has been existing in the industry for years. New and young brands need to create innovative and competitive brand identities or they will be phased out. The challenge is they will have to do that with the minimum budget possible. 
A tech startup working on a project management product shouldn't worry about other products such as Trello, Team Work and Asana but it should care. A brand can be a fish on a big sea or a frog in a small pond in both situations a brand needs to act accordingly. Failing to act accordingly is what makes most of the startup collapse and die. Again from my work experience what should the young startups do when it comes to branding? Here is what they should do;
Brand Definition, define your brand what should I choose your brand, what is your key value proposition. Whether I’m the new adopter of your product (services) or existing client I will always want to understand the individual values I’m getting from your product.
Brand communication and engagement, how does your brand communicate, consumer don’t like brands that don’t talk or engage with them. Consumers want to be treated as alphas when it comes to choosing their favourite brand. Brand should make them believe they have total control over the product (service) they are getting. For startups, they can start by replying email and replying messages on their official social media pages.
Brand should compete, every final sale is the result of one  brand being  chosen over another. You want to be the chosen brand. As a startup, you shouldn’t worry much about the competitors you should compete with your own standards and make sure you deliver quality service. Most of the time people shift from one startup to the other not because the other startup have a strong brand name but they get the quality service they are looking for.
Brand agility, startup branding strategy needs to be agile like the river stream it takes the shape of every path it takes very quick and easily. Don’t be rigid, being small and flexible is the only advantage  startups have against larger well-established companies. Your startup needs to behave the same.
Proximity, startups brands needs to be close to their customers, they should focus on what customer want to hear and how they hear it. It’s difficult for Microsoft to share my name on their official social media pages after I purchased a new server from them but startups can share names of all people who have purchased their products for the first time on their official social media accounts. It doesn’t cost anything but it can make a huge difference.
Collaborate, you don’t have to do it alone. You can Google Samsung Armani if the big guys can work together why not your young startup. You can always find a brand partner that you can complement each other. One important thing, don’t be desperate they will always come and you can find your perfect match.  
The news is no longer news, the traditional media sources are struggling to keep up with the pace of the digital media. The 2015 election has proved that on average the incidence can be reported on social media number of times before it becomes a news to be reported on a newspaper or other traditional media platforms such as TV stations and Radio stations.


Social Media has rapidly grown in importance as a forum for political activism in its different forms. Social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube provide new ways to stimulate citizen engagement in political life, where elections and electoral campaigns have a central role. The recently trends of President JPM is the proof of that. #WhatWouldMagufuliDo hashtag has managed to create 3 million overall tweet impressions according to the tool hashtracking.com

Personal communication via social media brings politicians and parties closer to their potential voters. It allows politicians to communicate faster and reach citizens in a more targeted manner and vice versa, without the intermediate role of mass media.
 Reactions, feedback, conversations, and debates are generated online as well as support and participation for offline events. Messages posted to personal networks are multiplied when shared, which allow new audiences to be reached.



Social media has reshaped structures and methods of contemporary political communication by influencing the way politicians interact with citizens and each other. However, the role of this phenomenon in increasing political engagement and electoral participation is neither clear nor simple.

One of the clear advantages on social media is bridging the gap of youth engagement in politics, as they are the biggest beneficiaries of online communications. In Tanzania, there were 115,000 Internet users in 2000, but there is 7,590,794 Internet users in 2015, 14.9% of the population, the mobile penetration rate stands at 70 percent reaching even the most interior parts of the country. With the recent statistics of TCRA which was reported by IPP Media through their digital magazine, it is reported over 90 percent of internet users in Tanzania prefer using Social Media platforms compared to other online resources with Facebook taking the large portion of the share.

The age of data journalism and citizen journalism is already here, the hashtags (tools to share stories) of #HapaKaziTu and #Mabadiliko2015  created more contents, more views, more reach and more news than all the other traditional media put together in urban areas.

Data Journalism is a journalism specialty reflecting the increased role that numerical data is used in the production and distribution of information in the digital era. - Online Definition
Citizen Journalism the collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of the Internet.- Online Definition

 Social Media influence is not something to be neglected on any general election and it has been used as a tool to track transparency, accountability and citizens engagement during the election in different countries. For example, Reclaim Naija platform which uses Ushahidi to report election incidences in Nigeria. 
Ushahidi translates to “testimony” in Swahili, was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election violence in 2008. Since then, thousands have used our crowdsourcing tools to raise their voice. We’re a technology leader in Africa, headquartered in Nairobi, with a global team.


Through social media platforms, people can express their views in real time and engage with their leaders and decision makers directly. For example, the official Twitter account of President John P. Magufuli has almost 60,000 followers, meaning that over 59,000 people can reach out to the office of the President and share their opinions and this is very common to other countries already. For example, the official account of President Uhuru Kenyatta has more than a million followers.

Thank you to the contributor of this article, Brian Paul, Buni Hub Community Manager.