Following the launch of the Shell EasyGo card in February 2018, the card has attracted a lot of attention from our customers with massive sign up and usage. Vivo Energy Uganda has made the card even more convenient and easy by providing an online sign-up alternative for customers who may not have the time to go to our Shell service stations to sign up.

Customers can now conveniently sign up for the Shell EasyGo card directly from the EasyGo portal http://easygo.ug/ and have it delivered to their preferred Shell service station for pick up.

The EasyGo card is an all-around Visa-enabled payment solution that allows you to manage your fuel, service your car, shop at our service stations, other Visa outlets and online. Customers can enjoy cashback for every transaction made at Shell service station forecourts, as well as amazing discounts for promotions.  The card can easily be topped up with mobile money and cardholders can get SMS alerts after every transaction.

“Since we launched the Shell EasyGo card on the premise of providing convenient and relevant solutions to our customers, we are making it easy for our customers to get the card using the online card sign up platform. The EasyGo card was developed because of the growing trend of cashless and online transactions in Uganda,” said Vivo Energy Uganda’s Managing Director, Gilbert Assi.

The card enables customers to buy fuel, service their cars, shop at Shell service stations, buy or refill their gas, and eat at our partner restaurants like KFC, Café Pap, Prunes, Pizza Hut and Java House. It also allows them to shop online and pay for goods and services at any outlet all over the world that accepts Visa payments.

For even more convenience, EasyGo card owners can;

• Top up via Mobile Money by dialling *233*40# or at any Shell service station countrywide

• Use the EasyGo card at Shell service stations countrywide

• Receive an SMS for every transaction they make, so they can track usage

• Securely transact with the ‘chip and pin’ security feature in the card

• Access a self-service online portal https://www.thecardservicesonline.com/ugncustptl/ where they can view their real-time account balances, transaction statements and also change/reset their pin, block or mark the card as lost whenever they need to.

This means that the task of planning and budgeting for fuel for individuals and for commercial motorists, including drivers, boda-boda riders, taxi operators, and fleet owners is made easier. It further removes the need for motorists to carry cash for fuel and shopping, thus reducing the risks that come with carrying cash.

Press Release from Vivo Energy Uganda

The Uganda police have announced the launch of two Mobile Applications known as the ‘Lost and Found App’ and ‘Access to Police Station app’. The announcement was made this morning by AIGP Asan Kasingye at the Police headquarters in Naguru at a press briefing.

The application also known as the “Mobi App” provides users with details about the Uganda Police. Information about lost and found property, Police stations near you with respective contacts of officers, as well as the Police leadership structure.

In his remarks, AIGP Asan Kasingye noted that; “The Uganda Police Force has a constitutional mandate of protecting life and property. Actually, one of the rights we are born with and is universal is the right to property. Recently, we have realized that due very many reasons, the rate at which the Police is protecting this right, leave alone recover the property & bring the perpetrators to justice is reducing”

In 2006, the UPF developed a 5-year sector strategic plan for statistics to operationalize the above database systems. Limited progress has been made with regard to its implementation and as a result of the UPF still has no central information management system. The collection, analysis, dissemination of statistics have remained poor and uncoordinated.

He further noted that “This could be explained by many factors which include, advanced technology that is unmatched with Police innovation, lack of trust & confidence in the Police by the Public, poor investigations, etc. As a result, quite often than not, many Police stations are littered with many unclaimed properties or the owners cannot adduce enough evidence to prove that the property belongs to them.”

The Apps are set to tackle the following;

• Improve rights of people
• Reduce the incidence of property crime
• Quick and timely reunification of property to their owners
• Improve professionalism, discipline through maximizing technology
• Improve access to police services for which the public are entitled
• Improve access to information. The public must be informed of the property and existence of police station in their locations for ease of access to police services
• Improving openness and Transparency through efficient service delivery
• Improve value for money
• Gender Equality
• Redress i.e. if the promised standard of service is not delivered, the public must be offered a full explanation and a speedy and effective remedy and improve the image of the Police.

Source: Uganda Police

Twitter now recognizes Swahili, one of East Africa’s most common languages. And that’s poa sana — or as Twitter would tell you, pretty awesome. The recognition comes after a campaign by Kenyans on social media, who regularly used hashtags #SwahiliIsNotIndonesian and #TwitterRecognizeSwahili on the social media platform to demand recognition.

The social media platform now offers translation for the language spoken by tens of millions in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and some parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It’s unclear when Twitter started recognizing Swahili. Before that, it described Swahili tweets as Indonesian and translated them into a mumbo-jumbo (or mambo, in Swahili) of incoherent words.

The social media platform is popular among Africans, who use it to amplify their concerns and create online communities. Africans on Twitter also use it to celebrate their cultures, air their grievances or just share a good joke.

Kenyans are among the most active social media users in Africa. They also use the network to crowd-fund for campaigns and highlight the positive side of Africa. This among other reasons could be the reason Twitter felt the need and pressure to recognize Swahili

Source: CNN

Yesterday evening, Google gave it’s 2018 I/O keynote, a jam-packed event with developers, programmers, Youtubers and tech bloggers in awe and anticipation of the news that Google was to unleash. CEO Sundar Pichai kicked things off by recognizing that the tech industry must always be responsible for the tools and services it creates.

When the event was done, major announcements from new, ambitious Android update on the way, John Legend lending his voice to Google Assistant, to Gmail almost being able to write emails entirely by itself and AI being made a big theme throughout, surely the day was to be what many call ‘LIT’

We gathered at least 5 major announcements that caught our eye and we believe will capture yours too and make you excited as much.

ANDROID P

As Android hits the 10 years mark ever since they made their first OS enabled smartphone, Google is rolling out Android P. It’s got a refreshed look with Key interactions like changing apps which closely are iPhone X-like gestures. Android P indeed shakes up a lot of what we’ve come to know about Google’s mobile OS.

It comes with a digital wellbeing Dashboard that’s meant to plainly show “how you’re spending time on your device, including time spent in apps, how many times you’ve unlocked your phone, and how many notifications you’ve received.” You can even set time limits for individual apps if you want to cut back on compulsively staring at your phone at any moment of downtime.

Android P is coming later this summer, but a public beta is available today for a handful of smartphones from Google, Essential, Sony, Nokia, and more.

GOOGLE MAPS

Google Maps is growing into a full-on social experience and has an integration which also combines the camera, computer vision technology, with Street View that’s squarely targeting Yelp and Foursquare. Maps now let you follow specific neighbourhoods to see new restaurants and business that are trending among other users. And you can even coordinate with friends in real time to make a “shortlist” when choosing a place to eat at.

With the camera/Maps combination, it really looks like you’ve jumped inside Street View.

GOOGLE NEWS

Google’s news app is being overhauled and its editorial focus is now powered largely by AI. The company says “it uses artificial intelligence to analyze all the content published to the web at any moment, and organize all of those articles, videos, and more into storylines. It spots the ones you might be interested in and puts them in your briefing.” News will also deliver “a range of perspectives” to bring you a little bit outside your bubble.

GOOGLE LENS

Because writing text from somewhere could be something really hard, Google yesterday demonstrated a feature called Google Lens that will enable one to point your phone’s camera at text in the real world — say, a written down Wi-Fi password — grab that text, and then paste it into a text field on your smartphone. How smart can that be? Wow!

Google Lens can do things like identify buildings, or even dog breeds, just by pointing your camera at the object in question. It will also be able to identify text. Google Lens still isn’t perfect at identifying precise items of clothing, but Google thinks it can get close enough.

GOOGLE PHOTOS

Google Photos is getting more AI-powered fixes like B&W photo colourization, brightness correction and suggested rotations. A new version of the Google Photos app will suggest quick fixes and tweaks like rotations, brightness corrections or adding pops of colour.

Google wants to become a photo hub and it’s able to woo potential users by offering powerful tools to edit, sort, and modify those photos. Each additional photo Google gets offers it more data and helps them get better and better at image recognition, which in the end not only improves the user experience for Google but also makes its own tools for its services better.

Credits: TechCrunch, The Verge

Following the Minister of ICT, Frank Tumwebaze’s announcement, Uganda Communications Commision has lifted the ban on sale and replacement of SIM cards in Uganda. This comes after Ugandan telecommunications companies were advised by UCC to immediately cease the sale of SIM cards through hawkers, street vendors, street agents and any other establishments that are not licensed by Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA) or other municipal and town authorities.

In the wake of today, after a couple of resolutions by the Uganda Communications Commission, new guidelines have been issued as regards the replacement, and acquisition of a new sim card. They Include;

-A customer seeking to acquire, Upgrade or replace a SIM Card must physically appear and present his/her original National ID to an operator’s designated customer care agent at a designated customer care centre or registration point.

-The Operator must verify the authenticity of the National ID card using an Electronic Biometric Card reader, match the applicant’s live biometrics with biometrics on the card, and obtain real-time verification with the NIRA database through the API.

-The Operator must obtain a fresh Photograph of the applicant

-The Operator must register the applicant for the SIM Card and ensure that the applicant expressly gives authority to the Telecom Operator to access and match his/her details with the National Identification Database maintained by NIRA.

-The Operator must retain a record of all registration details of the applicants. With regards to lost SIM Cards, the applicant must present a valid letter from the Uganda Police Force confirming the loss of the customers Sim Card.

According to government officials, the enactment of the Registration of Persons Act 2015 makes the national ID a mandatory document to use for any form of registration services, SIM card registration inclusive.  Operators have tested readiness to conduct real-time online verification of customer’s information with the NIRA database and have been fully allowed to resume sale of SIM Cards.

On Friday 4th May, WAZIHUB, an Internet of Things (IoT) Innovation program was launched in Kampala, Uganda, as a collaborative problem solving and innovative approach to the foster creation of IoT products and services.

The launch which took place at Hive Colab, one of the consortium partners in Uganda is a collaborative problem solving and innovative approach to enable win-win outcomes for EU and African partners while tackling key societal problems and challenges by applying IoT and Big Data in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The launch was officiated by the Minister for ICT, Hon. Frank Tumwebaze who expressed his gratitude and appreciation for the WAZIHUB program and promised support for hubs in Uganda to help play their role in innovation in the country. He also promised to continue his best to enhance talents in ICT innovation.

The WAZIHUB launched with the main objective to support startups in IoT Products and
services with 30 percent female lead and 50 percent first market replication, expand the
IoT regional ecosystem inclusive of hubs, countries and partners to 20 African countries, 40 tech hubs and 200 Industry, SME and Government. WAZIHUB also aims at reaching stakeholders through awareness and communication and lastly to build capacity through training, support and mentorship.

Saturday 5th May saw the launch of the WAZIHUB accelerator program which aims at providing IoT startups and entrepreneurs with technical and business capacity building through training boot camps, seminars, growth hacking resources and workshops.

WAZIHUB’s “Out-of-the-Box” IoT development kit includes SDKs, IoT Gateway and Big
Data Platform. The kit offers all the features to develop IoT sensor application. From this training, the first Cohort of entrepreneurs will be selected as beneficiaries of the project and will be supported with practical training on how to build IoT solutions and with resources and funding connections to build successful businesses around IoT and Big Data.

They will also get help with building their prototype and deploying their
products rapidly. This project is implemented by 14 partners all over Africa and EU, including Sonatel, Create-Net, UPPA, Innotec21, Orange, UGB, WITU, iLab Africa, Kumasi Hive, Maker Space Foundation, Buni Hive, Hive Colab among others. In Uganda, WAZIHUB is implemented by both Hive Colab and WITU HUB.

Hardly two months after Pulse was launched, MTN Uganda is still giving more and more
benefits to current users of the newest and freshest community platform in town.
MTN Uganda has today partnered with SafeBoda on the MTN Pulse platform to provide
a unique travelling lifestyle to the youthful and outgoing Pulsers.

Under the partnership, SafeBoda will provide free rides worth UGX 5,000 that will be
given out to MTN Pulsers every month based on MTN Pulse bundles that they activate.
In addition, MTN Pulsers will be able to access the SafeBoda application at no cost with
the URL being zero rated as part of this partnership.

Speaking at the launch of the partnership Hellen Kirungi, Youth Segment Manager of
MTN Uganda, said that customers will be required to buy as many MTN Pulse bundles as
possible to stand a chance to win the SafeBoda credit worth UGX 5,000. This UGX 5,000
credit voucher code will be redeemed by dialling *157*4#

In addition, she highlighted the reasons for partnering with SafeBoda:
“Our MTN Pulsers are always on the move as they go on about their hustles, visiting
friends and relatives and partying in different parts of the city. SafeBoda is the safest,
fastest and most affordable way to get around Kampala. What’s better, they can also
load SafeBoda credit and pay for the service using MTN Mobile Money. With cashless
trips the SafeBoda experience is even more convenient for users.

MTN Pulse is a community platform that targets the youthful population in Uganda,
giving them the power to be themselves, unleash their full potential and live life with No
Fear.

“We are aware that our MTN Pulsers move a lot on boda bodas but do so with a lot of
fear. With this partnership we look forward to MTN Pulsers using a safe means of
transport to move with no fear. There is no fear in terms of safety since they can use
helmets when riding and no fear of spending a lot on transport money as the service is
affordable”, said Hellen Kirungi.

Brenda Nambatya, the Brand and Partnerships Manager for SafeBoda Uganda,
highlighted the safety that comes with using their services.
“In Uganda, the death toll from road accidents is increasing at a worrying rate, the
number of people killed in boda accidents more than doubled between 2011 and
2016. Our aim is therefore to constantly innovate to professionalize transportation and
ensure safe access to mobility especially for the youth.”

SafeBoda has successfully leveraged their competitive advantage by building a
known, quality brand and by offering a great product, allowing customers to
electronically hail a trained boda boda rider and to travel with a helmet.

This is a Press Release from SafeBoda

On 23rd and 24th May, the Blockchain Association of Uganda with support from the Government of Uganda will host the Africa Blockchain Conference at the Kampala Serena Hotel. The conference, which will be held under the theme “The role of Blockchain Technology in Africa’s transformation” is scheduled to host policymakers, leaders in Industry, academia, youth, entrepreneurs and blockchain enthusiasts.

Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger platform that allows creation and management of decentralized systems and processes, which enhance efficiency and transparency of transactions across institutional or business operations. Blockchain
Technology, also described as the ‘technology of trust’ is disrupting and redefining traditional governance and business models across the world from the way information is
created, managed and shared to the way products and services are delivered.

While addressing the journalists at the Association offices at the Nakawa Business Park,
the Chairman of the Blockchain Association of Uganda, Kwame Rugunda, said he concurs
with the recent remarks made by President Yoweri Museveni regarding the need to
change Africa’s lag in innovation. While addressing delegates at the World Customs
Organization Conference in March 2018, President Museveni told delegates that Africa
had largely missed out on the industrial revolution, with the exception of the Iron Age
and stressed that Africa was now entering the digital revolution and that “Africa will not
miss out again!”

While reiterating these same remarks, Kwame Rugunda, explained that Africa is at the
right time to adopt this technology. “We have already seen glimpses into how it is
disrupting traditional models in areas such as finance, procurement, insurance, health,
identity management, contracts, governance, to mention but a few. Now is the right time
to engage with this novel technology, because each wave of technology presents
a profound opportunity, particularly for the early adopters,” he said.

The Africa Blockchain Conference is aimed at spurring engagement from both the public
and private sectors, by sharing understanding as to how it can be adopted and the
impact.

“The conference will focus on how we can build a blockchain eco-system and position
ourselves to be part of global discussions. “Some of the immediate benefits of using
blockchain include enhanced efficiencies with greater transparency and accountability in
our business and governance systems which are key factors in enabling Uganda become
an investment destination, and catapulting our economic growth” Rugunda noted.

The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, Vincent Bagiire
affirmed that the government is keen about embracing technology innovations. “We
are actively engaged in the discussions on blockchain and have collaborated with
different stakeholders to ensure we have the right information to advance our agenda
as government,” he noted. He added that the government recognizes the growing
trends in the technology sector and is positioning itself to be at the forefront so as to
take advantage of these opportunities.”

In attendance was also Stanbic Bank IT Manager Pius Okullo, who emphasized the need
for banks to adopt the growing form of technology that is Blockchain. Stanbic Bank is
also a partner of the upcoming African Blockchain Conference. In his remarks, Mr
Okullo noted; “It is a fast-growing form of technology and we are glad to be part of the
conference. There has been a great form of adoption and we would love to re-echo is
bitcoin only is not Blockchain, the technology is a whole lot bigger and interesting”
The Africa Blockchain Conference will showcase different but relevant use cases in
different sectors to demonstrate the value and importance of blockchain technology. The
conference will feature key global blockchain stakeholders who will be building a case for
the adoption of blockchain technology in Uganda and in Africa.

Steven Kirenga the Marketing and Communications Manager, National Information
Technology Authority further confirmed as a partner of the conference. In his remarks, Mr
Kirenga briefly explained what their role will be and what they bring to the table. “ We
are very grateful to partner with the Blockchain Association of Uganda and looking
forward to integrating the Blockchain technology that many don’t understand. We hope
when the conference is done, many will understand what Blockchain really is.”

The conference speakers and panellists will come from the host country Uganda, as well
as Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Europe, the United States and Asia. The topics of
the discussion will include governance, regulation and policy, cryptocurrencies and digital
assets, cybersecurity, innovation and technology, risk and investment opportunities
among others.