Rwanda to debut upcode

Rwanda could become the centre for upcode - a highly developed program which enables a mobile phone to act as an optical reader to scan physical objects and retrieve data, says allAfrica.com.

This was revealed by Franco Kanimba, CEO of upcode media, a subsidiary of upcode Finland which is responsible for providing this service.

"Rwanda will be the first country to employ this technology in Africa. Not even South Africa has used it before," Kanimba said during an interview last week.

The Kenyan government is planning to build a 5 000-seat technology park at the export promotion zone by 2012, a move that is aimed at increasing the business process outsourcing resources in the country, reports allAfrica.com.

The initiative, which will be a private public partnership, is expected to lure big multinational IT investors into the country, said the ICT board chief executive, Paul Kukubo.

There is currently only one outsourcing company, KenCall, doing service export work at the zone. On completion, the park will link and provide infrastructure support to small and medium enterprises, educational and research institutions.

A toll-free mobile service being launched in selected remote areas in Africa promises to save lives by connecting people with emergency medical cases to health personnel, states allAfrica.com.

Under the initiative launched in Nairobi, health workers will also be trained through mobile phone sessions on day-to-day skills like collecting and sharing basic household health information.

Telecommunication equipment provider Ericsson and mobile phone service provider Zain have adopted the new approach in a bid to stimulate the demand of mobile solutions in areas they consider commercially challenging.