Safaricom blinks & the Nairobi barcamp

Saasa for life
Safaricom has extended its' Saasa tariff indefinitely (was due to expire on March 31) which has much cheaper calls and SMS’s from 2- 8 PM.

Celtel has come up with some much cheaper rates than Safaricom and many people (myself included) had been waiting to see what Safaricom would do to reign in customers considering a migration.

But for now my priority has changed to searching for a wireless communication provider. At the barcamp – the audience were asked how many had internet access at home – with only a fractional number saying 'yes' - because the costs are high. Next stop for me is to decide between Flashcom, Popote, Telkom Wireless, Celtel, KDN (Butterfly), Wananchi or Safaricom on a connection for a laptop. Another interesting option I read about but one which has to be discussed with the neighbors.

Barcamp
This was a great afternoon of interesting talks (interrupted by the Arsenal Liverpool game in between).

A notable point of discussion was the apparent disconnect between the business sector and the academia. With so many executives are taking parallel degree programmes on campus one would think they'd be an easy leap in mentoring and business incubation - but, no. A curious footnote was that audit/accounting firms like to hire engineering graduates (because of the analytical way they think) and many engineering students are disillusioned about their future prospects - smoething that will hopefuly be corrected by an ongoing curriculum review.

Others;
- Most interesting was how (Edit University of Nairobi) JKUAT students created a local area network (was also done at Moi University)
- Proposal to have another barcamp for content
- Stockskenya (by network associates) with popular bulletin boards and fantasy trading game which will plans to enable online trading

Real estate investment
Bandari villas in Bombolulu (Mombasa) will be completed later this year. The 105 maisonettes and 56 apartments are being put up by the pension fund of the Kenya Ports Authority and are located 6 km from Mombasa and 1.5 km off the Mombasa Malindi highway

The houses are being marketed at local investors and Kenyan in the Diaspora and will be sold by Lloyd Masika agents [e-mail bombolulu@lloydmasika.co.ke] at between 3.5 and 5 million shillings ($50,000 – 71,000)

More:
- This appears to be another write-up of the houses and write up
- More on the chequred past of the KPA pension scheme.
- An update of real estate investments from the Diaspora

Jobs
AY&R Group. Account directors, account managers, advertising creative teams, secretaries, graphic designers, graduate trainees, management accountant. Apply to AY&Rgroup_Info@ke.yr.com by 4/4
Brookside Dairies: country managers (Uganda and Tanzania), Sales Managers, chief accountant (Tz & Ug), accountants, sales supervisors, salesmen, merchandisers. Apply to hrm@brooksidedairies.co.ke by 15/4
Commercial Bank of Africa. Compliance unit manager, property manager, administration manager, management accountant, product development manager (personal banking), business development & projects manager (IT), Treasury sales. Apply to jobs@cba.co.ke by 16/4
Africa Regional HR manager at Crown Agents. Apply to jobscs@ke.crownagents.com by 13/4
CEO at East African Grantmakers Association. Apply to info@eaag.org by 23/4
Graduate trainees at East African Standard
Accountant at Kemri/CDC. Apply to recruitment@ke.cdc.gov by 13/4
K-Rep: branch managers, business development officers, bank clerks, system administrator, database administrator. Apply to chief HRO 25363-00100 by 13/4
KWAL: application systems supervisor, systems administrator by 12/4
Various jobs at Virgin Atlantic Naiorbi. D/L is 6/4
World Vision - Sudan: internal auditor, ICT specialist (infrastructure), IT specialist (system administration). Apply to recruitmentsdn@wvi.org