Category: Science &Technology

{Ikirezi Ketia, is an 11 year old girl who has taken the IT community by surprise, has created an animation program on her laptop. Her innovation gave her the opportunity to meet one of the biggest champions for ICT in Rwanda- His Excellency President Paul Kagame at the Smart Rwanda Days this past October.}

Ketia recently completed the primary school national examinations this past month at Salesian Elementary School (EPAK) in Kimihurura, Kigali. This year Ketia also excelled in other subjects and took second place in her class.

Ni Nyampinga sat down with this young confident girl for an exclusive interview where she shared her passion for IT, excitement for the future and her achievements.

{{NN:}} In few words, who is Ketia?

{{Ketia: }} My name is Ikirezi Ketia, and I am 11 years old. I was born in Gisenyi (Rubavu district), and at the age of two I went to live with my grandmother in Cyangugu (Rusizi district). A few years later, my parents moved to Kigali and I joined them and continued my primary school here at EPAK Don Bosco.

{{NN:}} How did you get the opportunity to meet the President?

{{Ketia:}} Since Primary four, I took IT courses, where we used to have training on how to use the laptops we got from One Laptop Per Child program. In Primary six, they give us an assignment to think about a project that can help Rwandans through ICT, and to work on topic that we feel comfortable with. The top three students with the best projects were to present their projects at the Smart Rwanda Days event. I was selected among those three and participated in Smart Rwanda Days in October, and that is when I met our President.

{{NN}}: And what topic did you work on?

{{Ketia:}} My project was an animation of a mother talking to her children about having a balanced diet. I wanted to show the difference between children who have access to healthy food to the ones who do not.

{{NN: }} Did you present your project during Smart Rwanda Days?

{{Ketia}}: Yes, I did. We were three students from our school and other pupils from different schools. People came to our stand where we were sitting, and we presented to whoever was interested in our projects. I presented my project to the President and I also got a chance to ask him a question.

{{NN:}} What question did you ask him?

{{Ketia:}} I asked him, “Will we continue to use the same laptops, as we are finishing the primary school?” and also asked, “will we get opportunities to study subjects we like at secondary school? He answered that: “ The best is yet to come”. This response made me happy and so did my colleagues!

{{NN}}: Did you face any challenges while doing your project as a child and more especially as a young girl?

{{Ketia}}: Not really, the only challenge was that I had trouble mastering the laptop, but the school brought us two teachers who supported us.

{{NN}}: Please give advice to young girls like you who are afraid to use ICT.

{{Ketia}}: ICT is not difficult at all, same for other subjects. If you like something, do not be afraid to do it, whether you are a boy or girl. What a boy can do, a girl can do it too!

{China’s new stealth jet fighter rocketed skywards Wednesday as Beijing puts on an unprecedented display of openness — and military force — at the country’s premier airshow.}

The black J-31 rose in a nearly vertical climb on take-off in Zhuhai before circling back and doing two rolls, in the aircraft’s first announced public appearance.

“It’s the new one,” shouted one spectator.

The plane’s existence has been the subject of rumour and speculation for years, with photographs appearing increasingly frequently on military websites in recent months.

Defence analysts say the J-31 is China’s answer to the United States’ F-35, though the Chinese jet lags behind the American one technologically.

The fighter’s Chinese name is “Falcon Eagle” and it is manufactured by a unit of Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC), whose defence arm uses the slogan: “We are making the best weapons for guardians of the peace.”

The plane’s debut comes amid tensions between China and its neighbours over territorial disputes, particularly Japan which has feuded with Beijing over a group of islands in the East China Sea.

China’s air force said the display of military might at the airshow showed the intention to build a strong country.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air force “will make unremitting efforts to realise dreams of a strong China and powerful armed forces”, read a sign alongside an array of eight warplanes at the airshow.

“The display… demonstrates the strength and confidence of (the) PLA Air Force to fulfil missions and achieve world peace.”

China has steadily increased its defence budget for years, with funding projected to rise more than 12 percent to $132 billion in 2014. But the US has accused Beijing of under-reporting its spending by as much as 20 percent in the past.

Defence analysts said China appears eager to sell the new fifth generation fighter abroad, also putting on display a model with a designation typically used for overseas destinations: FC-31.

“China’s defence industry wants to show the potential for export,” said Andrew Erickson, associate professor at the China Maritime Studies Institute of the US Naval War College.

Ally Pakistan is a likely first market, he added.

France 24, AFP

{Rwanda launches a high speed (4G LTE) broadband network on 11 November.}

The network, has been established through an agreement between the Government of Rwanda and the KT Corporation, will cover 95% of the population by 2017.

Rwanda has been in the news lately, thanks in part to an ambitious plan to turn the country into a cashless economy and achieve 80% financial inclusion by 2017.

With the introduction of the 4G LTE network, Rwanda is going to have unprecedented access to fast mobile internet.

With a population of 11.78-million people, Rwanda’s mobile penetration currently stands at 71.6% with internet penetration currently at 25%.

Among other thing the usage of 4G LTE will boost job creation in Rwanda and provide new opportunities to deliver better services across the country.

Furthermore the rapid deployment of high-speed broadband network in Rwanda is going to accelerate the Rwanda’s economic growth, create jobs, as well as help facilitate social and economic progress.

The launch of the 4G LTE network coincides with GLOCAL Innovation Convention on 11th-13th November 2014.

GLOCAL is an African Business & Innovation Startup convention whose purpose is to encourage content development with global marketability among Africa’s budding technology entrepreneurs.

{Rwanda is set to launch a high-speed (4G LTE) broadband network on 11th November 2014. The network to be launched was established through an agreement between the Government of Rwanda and KT Corporation, South Korea’s largest telecommunications provider. }

The network to be launched will cover 95 per cent of the population by 2017. While addressing the media on Friday, the Rwanda’s Minister of Youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana noted that “The usage of 4G LTE will boost job creation in Rwanda and provide new opportunities to deliver better services across the country.”

The launch will coincide with GLOCAL Innovation Convention on 11th-13th November 2014; GLOCAL is an African Business & Innovation Startup convention that aims at fostering local content development with global marketability among Africa’s budding technology entrepreneurs.

“The rapid deployment of high-speed broadband network in Rwanda will accelerate the Rwanda’s economic growth, create jobs, as well as help facilitate social and economic progress,” Minister Nsengimana stressed. Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest growing African ICT markets, from e-commerce and e-services, mobile technologies, applications development and automation to becoming a regional centre for the training of top quality ICT professionals and research.

With a population of 11.78 million people, Rwanda’s mobile penetration currently stands at 71.6% with internet penetration currently at 25%.

Source: http://www.biztechafrica.com

{Silk Road 2.0 and 400 other sites believed to be selling illegal items including drugs and weapons have been shut down.}

The sites operated on the Tor network – a part of the internet unreachable via traditional search engines.

The joint operation between 16 European countries and the US saw 17 arrests, including Blake Benthall who is said to be behind Silk Road 2.0.

Experts believe the shutdown represents a breakthrough for fighting cybercrime.

Six Britons were also arrested, including a 20-year-old man from Liverpool, a 19-year-old man from New Waltham, a 30 year-old-man from Cleethorpes and a man and woman, both aged 58, from Aberdovey, Wales.

All were interviewed and bailed according to the National Crime Agency.

Tor is home to thousands of illegal marketplaces, trading in drugs, child abuse images as well as sites for extremist groups.

Silk Road 2.0 – which launched in October last year – is one of the most notorious and deals in the buying and selling of illegal drugs.

It was resurrected after the original Silk Road site was shut down and its alleged owner arrested.

‘Serious organised crime’
The operation also saw the seizure of Bitcoins worth approximately $1m (£632,000).

“Today we have demonstrated that, together, we are able to efficiently remove vital criminal infrastructures that are supporting serious organised crime,” said Troels Oerting, head of Europol’s European cybercrime centre.

“And we are not ‘just’ removing these services from the open internet; this time we have also hit services on the dark net using Tor where, for a long time, criminals have considered themselves beyond reach,” he added.

The BBC understands that the raid represented both a technological breakthrough – with police using new techniques to track down the physical location of dark net servers – as well as seeing an unprecedented level of international co-operation among law enforcement agencies.

The so-called deep web – the anonymous part of the internet – is estimated to be anything up to 500 times the size of the surface web.

Within that experts refer to the dark net – the part of the network which Tor operates on. There are approximately three million Tor users but the number of sites may be smaller.

Alan Woodward, a security consultant who advises Europol, said that the shutdown represents a new era in the fight against cybercrime.

“Tor has long been considered beyond the reach of law enforcement. This action proves that it is neither invisible nor untouchable,” he said.

But, he added, it did not mean copycat sites would not spring up, or that the police had thrown light on the dark net.

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Explainer: What is Tor?
Tor is a special part of the internet that requires software, known as the Tor Browser bundle, to access it.

The name is an acronym for The Onion Router – just as there are many layers to the vegetable, there are many layers of encryption on the network.

It was originally designed by the US Naval Research Laboratory, and continues to receive funding from the US State Department.

It attempts to hide a person’s location and identity by sending data across the internet via a very circuitous route involving several “nodes” – which, in this context, means using volunteers’ PCs and computer servers as connection points.

Encryption applied at each hop along this route makes it very hard to connect a person to any particular activity.

To the website that ultimately receives the request, it appears as if the data traffic comes from the last computer in the chain – known as an “exit relay” – rather than the person responsible.

More on {{BBC}}

{Rwanda had a mobile penetration rate of 71.6 percent on 30 September compared with 64.3 percent in January, New Times reported. }

The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (Rura) said that Tigo had 2.69 million subscribers compared with 2.64 million in August. This is an addition of 50,653 clients month-on-month. MTN gained close to 12,000 new subscribers over the period, expanding from 3.73 million in August to 3.74 million customers in September.

Airtel Rwanda, however, lost 26,390 subscribers during the period, falling from 1.12 million subscribers in August to 1.1 million at the end of September.

Jean Baptiste Mutabazi, the head of communication and media regulation at Rura, said promotions increase activities in the industry and he is optimistic that penetration levels would start inching up at a monthly average of one percent from the current average of 0.7 percent.

{China has developed an anti-drone laser technology that can apparently shoot down a low flying drone within a two kilometer radius.}

The official Xinhua news agency reports that the technology has been co-developed by the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), with the claim being that small-scale drones can be shot down within five seconds of the system locking on.

It said the reason for using laser as an anti-drone tech is to increase the accuracy with which drones can be blasted out of the sky — vs other less precision methods such as using a sniper or intercepting by helicopter. A test of the technology with more than 30 drones apparently resulted in a 100 per cent success rate.

The system will be installed or transported in vehicles, and used to bolster security during “major events in urban areas”, according to a CAEP statement.

There’s no quantification of how small-scale the drones have to be to be terminated by laser, but the CAEP statement specifies they must be within an altitude of 500 meters and flying at a speed below 50m/s. Lasers with greater power and range are also apparently being developed by the Academy.

An official involved in the project said the laser is being specifically developed to combat the risk posed by low cost, easy to use drone tech being misappropriated by terrorists to threaten public safety or national security, by engaging in unauthorized mapping activities of military or civil facilities.

By coincidence, French power company EDF has just launched an investigationafter unidentified drones were flown over seven of its nuclear facilities last month. It’s unclear who is responsible for flying the drones but the commercialization of drone technology has driven down costs, putting the ability to buzz a nuclear facility within reach of far more people.

Source:Websites

{Yesterday President Kagame arrived in Busan to attend the 19th International Telecommunication Union Plenipotentiary Conference. }

Held every four years, the plenipotentiary conference brings together member states to decide on the role of ITU, adopt four-year strategic and financial plans and elects the senior management team of the organization and the members of Council.

President Kagame begun his two day visit with an address at the plenary as well as gave the keynote at the evening dinner where both men and women received the Gender Equality Mainstreaming Technology award. The award is an ITU and UN Women initiative aimed at creating a platform for the advancement of women’s engagement with ICT and increases their role as decision makers in the ICT sector.

Speaking during the conference, Minister Nsengimana emphasized the role ICTs have played in Rwanda’s transformation:

“In Rwanda ICTs are saving lives, helping educating the next generation with initiatives such as the One Laptop Per Child, ICTs have played a major role in our efforts to be among the countries that are on course to meet all MDGs in Africa. They enabled government efforts that have transformed the country into one best places to do business in Africa and globally.”

The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference brings together over 3000 delegates from 175 ITU member states. During this year’s meeting, Rwanda was re-elected as member of the ITU council for the next four years with 110 votes.

Rwanda has been named yet again as a member state of the Council for the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

This is after Rwanda earned 110 votes at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, South Korea.

The policy-making council ensures that the ITU keeps up with changes in the telecommunications environment. The council also rules on administrative issues of the organisation.

Rwanda; then, is set to be a member state for the period 2014-2018.

“This is an opportunity to keep contributing to shaping the global ICT for development agenda,” said Rwanda’s Minister of Youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana in a statement.

Rwanda is regarded as one of Africa’s fastest growing technology markets.

“The Rwandan telecom sector has shown particularly strong growth in recent years, buttressed by a vibrant economy and a GDP which has sustained growth of between 7% and 8% annually since 2008,” says research firm BuddeComm on its website.

“As a result, the country is rapidly catching up with other markets in Africa, with increased penetration particularly evident in the internet and mobile sectors,” adds BuddeComm.
– See more at: http://www.itwebafrica.com/