Mobile helping the community

Hard-pressed to find efficient ways of delivering aid, humanitarian agencies are turning to new technologies, reports IRIN Africa.

One such innovation involves mobile phones to send cash. A project was piloted in Baringo North and Pokot East districts of Kenya's Rift Valley province during post-election violence this year.

The target beneficiaries selected by the community from among the most vulnerable, were women who would receive fortnightly cash transfers of KSh320 ($4.70) per household member via short message service.

Some 100 teachers from government secondary and high schools in the Southwest province of Cameroon have been drilled on new developments in ICT and computer science, says The Post Online.

This is the outcome of a two-week workshop, which opened at the multimedia centre of the Bilingual Grammar School Molyko, Buea, recently.

The Southwest co-ordinator of computer science at the Delegation of Secondary Education, Rose Tchonta Guembou, said the workshop is aimed at training teachers interested in computers to use the available syllabuses of computer science to prepare students for the 2010 session of the Cameroon General Certificate of Education, GCE.

For telecoms consumers, it was cheering news last week when the Nigerian Communications Commission, (NCC) pronounced that telecoms service providers must put a stop to the regime of airtime validity period, saying that it is not an international best practice, says Vanguard Online.

The new directive from the regulatory authority which is expected to put smiles on the faces of the Nigerian subscribers means that any recharge card by any operator purchased by consumers will not have an expiry date attached as a condition for use.

The NCC executive vice-chairman, Ernest Ndukwe, who spoke during the parliamentary session in Ikeja, told the operating companies that "enough is enough" on airtime validity.