Thuraya Telecommunications Company, a leading Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) operator and Bharti Airtel International BV today announced an agreement to provide Airtel Africa customers with mobile satellite products and services across 17 countries in Africa. The partnership will provide Airtel Africa customers voice and broadband connectivity via Thuraya’s satellite network across the continent’s most remote areas. Commencing from May onwards, Airtel Africa will sell Thuraya’s products and airtime packages at their retail outlets and through their Enterprise account team.

Extending mobile networks into remote or rural areas presents both geographical obstacles and business challenges for connecting people in Africa. Thuraya’s satellite network helps bridge the digital divide by providing an immediate and cost-effective way for Airtel Africa to extend its coverage, while generating new revenue streams and providing vital connectivity. Thuraya’s mobile satellite service can address the diverse voice and data communication needs of Airtel Africa enterprise users across the mining, energy, media, government and humanitarian NGO sectors.

Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) and Dhanush InfoTech, a leader in the IT industry are teaming up to set up ICT initiatives to benefit students together with the CUEA faculty. The partnership is looking at short term goals and long term programs that will ensure tech savvy staff and industry ready graduates esp. in IT related courses. Dhanush will seek to inject its competency in training and skill enhancement to through its training division DATAM Edu. Through their Center of Excellence – VTEC, students will be exposed to ERP modules being used in the market which have Supply Chain and Customer Relations as some of their modules.

Other attributes of this agreement will include medium and long term plans to establish cloud and network connectivity in the campus location, provide an Integrated Management System for CUEA, roll out LMS across their curriculum and Video conference based teaching and most importantly provide internship for students from CUEA with industry sponsored projects thus making them market ready.

Leading Corporate Internet and IT Solutions provider AccessKenya Group has launched a Security as a Service solution in the East African Market targeting the high-risk ICT environments and services sector. The solution, Managed Security Services (MSS) capable of full deployment within seven days after an audit, is a tripartite partnership venture with ICT Security firm, Security Risks Solution Limited and Internet Solutions Kenya Limited. While addressing  a breakfast meeting, Loren Bosch, the Head of Managed Services at AccessKenya and Internet Solutions said the new solution is able to capture real-time logs and alerts of manipulation of electronic files and any attempts to circumvent IT controls.

“We are introducing MSS as a single vendor solution with access to modules such as automated monitoring, Visibility, control and oversight, Cost savings, Reduced risk of obsolescence, flexibility and Security compliance. By deploying MSS, hosted on the AccessKenya and Internet Solution cloud, an organization will be able to free up critical human and financial resources”, he said.

MSS he explained, addresses one of the major failings affecting highly vulnerable environments and sectors such as banking, insurance and government revenue centers and that is non detection and reporting of incidents before they become crises.

Experts attribute this to a shortage of skilled personnel coupled by the high Capex requirement for developing a fully secure inhouse environment.  In 2013 over 71 percent of all attacks were directed at end user Devices and Personal Computers and another 51 percent targeted server systems for weaknesses.

“As the bring your own device (BYOD) trend continues at the workplace, we shall continue to see information security risks being exploited both from internal and external vulnerabilities such as poorly deployed business applications and downloads”, said Jason Finlayson, Director Security Risks Solution. According to Finlayson intrusions are rarely discovered in time by the victim, not until they are locked out through highly evolved theft of authentication credentials or malicious takeover of genuine applications.

“This means that organizations need to treat privacy as both a compliance and business risk issue to reduce regulatory sanctions and high impact security events that may lead to reputational damage and loss of customers due to privacy breaches”, he explained.

Leading Corporate Internet and IT Solutions Provider AccessKenya Group has appointed Kris Senanu as Deputy Chief Executive Officer. He will have a dual role and retain his current position of Managing Director of AccessKenya’s internet business. His added responsibilities will include driving AccessKenya’s go-to-market strategy and the company’s regional expansion. According to Jonathan Somen, AccessKenya’s Group Managing Director and CEO,“Senanu has great experience and skills to lead this expansion, our goal is to maintain our position as the leading provider of Corporate Internet and IT Solutions as we push forward with our strategic growth,” he said.

Senanu has over 20 years in the telecommunications and internet service industry, of which the last 13 years have been with AccessKenya. In August 2013, AccessKenya was acquired by Dimension Data, the USD 5.8 billion global solutions and services provider, for KES3.052 billion. At the time Dimension Data said that the acquisition of AccessKenya was in line with Dimension Data’s goal to pursue a strategy of expansion in sub–Saharan Africa.