In line with its focus on bringing people together and supporting the development of connected communities, Facebook has announced the names of 116 people worldwide who have been selected to join the Facebook Community Leadership Program. Around a dozen African community leaders have been selected to become programme residents and fellows.

“Many community leaders worldwide and in Africa turn to Facebook to create connections through Facebook groups, WhatsApp or Messenger,” says Nunu Ntshingila, Regional Director Facebook Africa. “This programme is all about empowering them with the tools, support and funding they need to advance their causes and build their communities.”

Since announcing the programme in February, Facebook received more than 6,000 applications from all over the world. A selection committee, which included employees as well as community experts from outside of Facebook, reviewed each application to identify leaders with a strong, clear and committed vision for their community.

Five participants have been selected globally as community Leaders in Residence, each will be awarded up to $1,000,000 to fund their community initiative. The final amount received will be determined based on the final budget proposal created and submitted by each resident as part of their program training.

Kenya’s Noah Nasiali, the selected leader in residence for Africa, has brought together more than 100,000 farmers across Africa through a Facebook group in less than a year. Farming is one of Africa’s most important industries, and Noah’s community helps farmers obtain and share critical information.

“Africa Farmers Club was formed to help farmers come together to access credible, reliable and applicable farming information that will help them develop their skills and most importantly help them to get a market for their products and in the end get returns for their hard work. I invite group members to share their stories both positive and negative through pictures so that we can learn together.

Whenever possible I personally visit members face-to-face to see for myself their challenges and we discuss how they can overcome and at the same time and improve. Our community aims to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal which is to End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.” Said Nasiali

The programme will also host more than 100 fellows and youth participants who will receive up to $50,000 each to be used for their community initiative.

Savio Lule Mark, The Youth Hub Uganda (Uganda); They provide guidance and to nature Ugandan Youth who use their Art, Music, Fashion and sports to impact positively to their communities. The Youth Hub helps Ugandan youth to realize their skills and talents and develop them to create a greater community and country at large through educating, empowering and inspiring youth and community development.

The Others include;

Felista Wangari, 52-Week Savings Challenge (Kenya)
Pamellah Oduor, Let’s Cook Kenyan Meals (Kenya)
Asha Mweru, #WomenWorkKE (Kenya)
Caroline Kihusa, Still A Mum (Kenya)
Truphosah Monah, Women And Realities of Disability Society (Kenya)
Anike Lawal, Mamalette (Nigeria)
Mamadou Sy, Docteur Nakamou (Senegal)
Gabriel Hoosain Khan, LGBTI community, Human Rights (South Africa)
Lusanda Magwape, Dream Factory Foundation (South Africa)
Nadine Maselle. Salt River High Tutoring (South Africa)

“Our group of African fellows and our resident represent diverse perspectives from different parts of the continent, but they share a common goal of helping their communities thrive. We know they will do great things over the next year and we’re excited to get them started,” says Ime Archibong, Vice President, Product Partnerships at Facebook.

On September 21, 2018, the Estonian think tank and company, the E-Governance Academy Foundation Company ranked Uganda number 1 in Africa in the National Cyber Security Index, with an index of 49.35.

The index is a global study covering up to 109 states that are included in the study. Uganda globally took the 40 positions, ahead of Mauritius that came in number 43 globally, and 2 in Africa, Nigeria at 45, 3 in Africa. Uganda was ahead of a number of other developed countries including Israel at number 42, Iceland 44, China 62 and South Africa at number 75.

The study revealed areas where Uganda has performed very well with 50% and above earned, while other areas revealed underperformance where the Ugandans and government should respond in order to improve the cybersecurity of the nation.
Good performance was recorded in cyber threat analysis and information at 80%, protection of digital services stood 80%, the education and professional development at 78%, de-identification and trust services 67%, cyber incident response, fight against cybercrime, and protection of essential services all standing at 50%.

Worst performance that led to decline in global rankings was in the development of cybersecurity policy at 29%, protection of personal data 25%, contribution to global security stood at 17%, cyber crisis management and military cyber operations all standing at 0%. The rankings somewhat indicate how to secure internet usage is in the country, building more trust in the endeavours of the government to improve cybersecurity in the country.

The National Social Security Fund has upgraded their Mobile Application dubbed NSSFGO App to include access to more self – services and improve customer experience. Some of the new features added include contributions payments for voluntary savers and employers whose payments are less than shs4m monthly, member contacts update, retirement benefits projections, employment history, e-statement and direct contact to Relationship Manager.

Addressing media and selected members at Café Javas, Patrick Ayota, the Deputy Managing Director, said that the app was an affirmation of the Fund’s commitment to transparency to its members by giving them access to monitor their NSSF accounts anytime, anywhere.

“Our plan is to improve our business processes to make them more efficient & convenient to members through innovations by 2025. The new app not only increases efficiency and service delivery to our customers but also puts the power and control of their money in their hands” he said.

The upgraded app also gives members an opportunity to track their savings in a more detailed way and hold their employers accountable regarding their contributions.

“We expect to increase the compliance levels now that members are able to access more details of their account statement easily, like when last contributions were made, how much they received in a particular month, total contributions made by each of their employers including the first and current ones,” Ayota said.

In the future, more features will be added to the app to include both member and employer registrations without having to NSSF offices. This will be through partnerships with the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) and Uganda Registration Services Bureau. In addition, eligible members will be able to initiate their benefits claims and track progress using the NSSF Go app.

The NSSF Go App is part of a variety of electronic channels the Fund introduced to improve its service delivery. Other e-services channels include; The E-collections portal that allows employers to remit their employees’ contributions directly to their NSSF accounts through the Bank, within 24 hours, Mobile money payment platform, NSSF Payway and SMS alerts.

This is a Press Release From NSSF Uganda

WhatsApp has dropped support for a great number of smartphones on the market after the company raised the threshold operating software that would support the service. The company has released a new update version 2.18.90 which has introduced all these changes and made the software not supportable on a number of devices.

On its website, WhatsApp updated its FAQ page mentioning that “WhatsApp for iPhone requires iOS 8 or later.”

This leaves out all iPhones that are running a lower iOS 7, and 6. The affected devices that run the iOS 7 include iPhone 4. Devices running a lower iOS are no longer supported too.

The world’s most popular messaging service, however, gives a grace period, until which the affected devices will support WhatsApp. This grace period is not available for iOS 6 gadgets that are completely no longer supported.

“If WhatsApp is currently active on your iOS 7.1.2 device, you will be able to use it until February 1, 2020” reads the update.  This means that only those who have the application installed and are using the service with iOS 7, can continue to use the service. However, you cannot create new WhatsApp accounts or reverify an existing account.

The company encourages iPhone users to upgrade to the later version of iOS. However, Apple itself no longer updates iPhone 4 software, implying that those using the devices are condemned to purchase a later version of iPhones.

It seems iPhone 5 that uses iOS 7 can still is upgradable to iOS. Users can, therefore, seize the moment, and upgrade to iOS 8. iPhone 4S is also upgradable to iOS 8. For the android phones, all phones with Android 2.3.7 are no longer supported starting 1st February 2020.

A taxi-hailing app specially designed for women called An-Nisa has been unveiled in Nairobi, Kenya. An-Nisa was launched to empower women taxi drivers, with the company taking only a 10 per cent share from a trip.

Founder, Mehnaz Sarwar noted that the platform is for female drivers in a male-dominated area and that they were launching with 60 female drivers who would operate everywhere in the major towns.

“It is a source of empowerment for those ladies and at the same time, it makes a safer option for women who are not comfortable being driven by men, maybe for religious reasons or safety concerns,” she said.

An-Nisa is an Arabic word which means; for women, Mehnaz Sarwar did not rule out extending the services to men in the future. “As we go along, we will put in the option if the need arises.

For now, it is women and children,” she said. “We are only taking ten per cent. The benefit has to purely go to women. These are single mothers,” Sarwar said. 

According to her, she has that invested a capital of about Sh1 million into the venture, noting that bringing together all the female drivers was a key challenge.

Original Blog via Tech Gist Africa