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East Africa Com is the leading event for innovation in the Telecoms, Media and ICT Industry.

After a record-breaking attendance in 2012, the market is looking forward to meeting again in May 2013. East Africa Com is a must-attend for anyone who wants to break into the East African Digital market.

The East Africa Com programme reflects the dynamism of East African market, with representatives from the region’s foremost operators, alternative service providers, innovative start-ups, creative developers and more.

What is GetH20 and what is it about?
GetH2O Challenge is a game about the challenges that slum dwellers face getting (clean) water. A fun game based on real life situation, with an educational purpose the game allows you to experience the race against the clock managing water, housing and pollution.

In the game you play the role of a ‘Change Maker’ who is working for the good of the community. Your aim in the game is to build houses and manage the water supply while keeping the pollution in check.

How is the web and mobile app game different from the board game?
The web and mobile app is not engaging, meaning you play vs a programmed script, but as for the board game it’s interactive and people express their views in the game.

The web and mobile platform is only limited to one character at a time but as for board game its has a limit of three players and five maximum.

The board game provokes discussion as for mobile and web does not. The mobile app can be played anywhere anytime all u need is 17kb of space in your phone.

What kind of feedback do you get on your game?
Participants are able to relate the challenges affecting them with every aspect of the game, 

What impact has GetH20 had on the users?
Participants open up and discuss issues affecting them through the game. Different people from different background have learnt to acknowledge that when they are placed the slum setup where resources are scarce, same conditions as characters in the game, they will be forced to do bad things too. The game has shown that similar occurrence (made in Nairobi slum complex is being realized within so many countries , Uganda, Iraq, Pakistan just to mention a few.

Any challenges along the way?
Not so many people in Kenya are fond of playing the board game. The game has a lot of preliminaries ( so many instance to follow and understand). The distribution of the game has been low due to the fact we do not have a budget to transport them to most place who could use the game better.

What are your future plans?
We are hoping for any partners to show up and help us distribute the game so they can be used effectively, as tool of addressing challenges within communities.

Anything else you would like to add?
We would like people to link us up with institutions or organization that conduct activities in the community so we may train them on how to engage further the community at large.

We would love to have someone finance a workshop or link us with the major stores in the city eg Nakummat, west gates, Sarit and many more to have a stand and demonstrate how to play the game.

Images courtesy of geth2ogame.com and 40rovers.net 

Kedrel, the company behind Eko, is a software application developer that comes up with "Solutions that make every day life simple". Inspired by the SME industry, Kedrel sought to help the small businesses get an affordable solution in accounting matters. In this interview they tell us about Eko and why we should use it.

What is Eko and how does it work?
Eko is a business management software for micro to medium-size enterprises. It allows users to carry out their normal business activities, by entering basic data such as sales, purchases and expenses and creates all the necessary accounting reports including Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash-flow Statement, Invoices and Receipts. Eko also performs VAT calculations and creates a report in the relevant Revenue Authority’s format.

Eko is also available as a mobile app.

What inspired you to develop the platform?
The original idea came from the small entrepreneur. We felt that this class of business person wasn’t sufficiently catered for, since the current IT tools are built mostly for large enterprises, making the capital cost too high for smaller business people.

Why should businesses use it?
Eko is an extremely easy to use application. It requires zero capital expenditure and has a low monthly cost.

In what countries can Eko be used?
Eko is currently only available in Kenya. However, Eko is being made customizable to run in virtually any country.

Eko takes into account the relatively low access to internet in some regions and allows transactions to be carried out offline on a limited scale, and synchronizes automatically when internet connectivity is achieved.

Would you like to share your final thoughts?
Eko was designed with the business person in mind. Most of the design and development was done using feedback from actual business owners and salespeople. A few tips on user interface ergonomics and simplicity were borrowed from existing software.

More on Eko from their website.

Photos and videos courtesy of Kedrel

Great idea for students by students. Emasomo was founded by two high school students who saw the need to help their colleagues in Kenya use the internet more productively. Read their story in the papers here.