| | | Hello Africa bonjour! |  It is with pride that I write the first comment in Africa Bizcommunity.com. Pride at being an African, proud of Africa and personally a hat-trick for me. This is the third significant pan-African development I have presided over – if I may be so presumptuous. As one of the founding directors of iafrica.com it fell to me to develop a significant African extension for the company. Subsequent to that I left for the heady delights of Nairobi as Group Head of Media and Marketing for the African Lakes Corporation operating then out of 14 countries (its principal brand and my development baby – AfricaOnline has just been bought by SA’s Telkom for a cool £10.5 million).
There we created the most significant African web portal responding, after lengthy research in the field and empirically, directly to the needs of the diverse African web community.
Today we salute another – cognisant of the galloping development of marketing skills on the continent and the quality of marketers as they face the unique challenges of mud and dust marketing (with apologies to Kuzwayo 2001) – we respond to pleadings from the continent to provide a daily marketing watch on the continent that is complemented with a newsletter. Our parent took six months to aggregate 6 000 newsletter subscribers, they now have 62 000. In a week we have reached and passed that mark. Thank you to all and please subscribe your friends to be in line to win our fabulous getaway to Cape Town.
www.bizcommunity.com is young, but like the continent will develop in leaps and bounds. Encourage your marketing colleagues to contribute on their African experiences and companies and help build this site into the central marketing authority on Africa.
Editorial contributions and news may be sent to africa@bizcommunity.com.
Robin Parker, Managing Director, Bizcommunity.com
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Marketing | | SOUTHERN AFRICA Coca-Cola Africa appoints marketing chief
 Coca-Cola has promoted its South African divisional marketing chief, Amanda Manchia, to the role of group marketing director of Coca-Cola Africa.
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Advertising | | SOUTH AFRICA Inaugural Dubai Lynx winners revealed
The winners of the first Dubai Lynx Awards, the new leading creative advertising competition for the Middle East and North Africa, were announced last week at the inaugural awards ceremony which took place at the Dubai Media City amphitheatre, attended by over 1200 guests. Saatchi & Saatchi Dubai was honoured with the first Agency of the Year trophy, with JWT Dubai coming in second place and Team/Y&R in third.
SOUTH AFRICA Loeries call to entry opens
 Yes, it’s that time of the year again! The Loerie Awards 2007 Call for Entry is now open – deadline 15 May 2007. So put the coffee percolator on, clear the whiteboard and start planning your entries. And remember – entries from the whole of Africa and the Middle East are eligible.
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Digital | | SOUTHERN AFRICA Education – direct to your rural TV
As a major ICT player in South Africa and Africa, Sentech is providing the ICT technology that will help deliver educational capacity across the continent.
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Education and Training | | WEST AFRICA Liberian journalist warns against past mistakes
[Michael Kpayili] Liberian journalist and assistant station manager of Radio Veritas, Frank Sainworla, has stressed the need to rethink the Unity Party-led government's reform agenda to determine if its achievement is a practical reality.
NORTH AFRICA Leading e-schooling in North Africa
The Egyptian Minister of Education, Dr Yousry Al-Gamal, officially launched the NEPAD e-Schools Demonstration Project at Al-Haddain Secondary School in El Behaira Governate, Egypt, last month. The project is a joint venture of the Egyptian Government, HP Consortium, Oracle Consortium and the NEPAD e-Africa Commission.
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Magazines | | AFRICA Banking on Africa
African Banker, IC Publications’ new quarterly magazine dedicated to banking and finance in Africa, is to be launched in May 2007.
WEST AFRICA Idols West Africa - from TV to print
Media24 Africa has secured the exclusive rights from Fremantle Media and M-Net to publish the official Idols West Africa magazine, a print supplement to the popular TV reality show of the same name.
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Media | | NIGERIA Commercialising Nigerian media
The Nigerian federal government is planning to partially commercialise four of its major state-owned organisations, with the expectation that they will become financially self-sustaining, officials reported on Saturday, 24 March 2007.
WEST AFRICA Sierra Leone journalists sign media code of conduct
The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, with assistance from the United Nations, the National Election Commission (NEC) of Sierra Leone and other civil society groups have agreed on a media code of conduct.
EAST AFRICA Eritrea’s press muzzling worsens
[Issa Sikiti da Silva] Independent media analysts believe that in recent years Eritrea has become the worst African country in terms of press muzzling, joining the list of ‘black holes of news’ such as Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Kenya and Guinea.
CENTRAL AFRICA The Media and the Rwanda Genocide - book launch
The news media played a crucial role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide: local media fuelled the killings, while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued what was happening. This is one of the conclusions of The Media and the Rwanda Genocide, the first book to explore both sides of that media equation.
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Mobile | | MOZAMBIQUE Vodacom’s latest move in Mozambique
Vodacom has announced that Intelec Holdings Limitada has taken up a shareholding in V.M. S.A.R.L., trading as Vodacom Mozambique.
NAMIBIA Cell One launches in Namibia
The much-anticipated launch of Namibia's second mobile operator, Cell One, took place on Friday, 16 March 2007, with the opening of several shops in Windhoek. Cell One, which was granted a licence by the Namibian Communications Commission early last year, will be competing with cellphone operator MTC and Telecom's Switch service. Although presently only available in Windhoek, Cell One intends broadening the network in phased roll-outs. "The company is working towards connecting most Namibians by the end of 2007," says Chief Executive Officer Mac Allman.
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Online Media | | EGYPT Egyptian blogger jailed for insulting Islam
An Egyptian appeals court has upheld a four-year jail sentence against 22-year-old blogger, Abdul Kareem Suleiman Amer, who was convicted of insulting Islam and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.
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Printing | | NORTH AFRICA Middle East Media Guide now includes North Africa
 The Middle Eastern region's comprehensive media directory has been renamed the Middle East & North Africa Media Guide, following the addition of four extra countries in the newly launched 2007 edition.
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Research | | AFRICA Leisure in African time
Next time you take a matatu and find everybody nodding to themselves with iPods on their laps, don’t sneer. Just walk to the next empty seat and flip to the entertainment section of your daily newspaper and make a date with your favourite TV soap.
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Sponsorship | | CENTRAL AFRICA Burundi receives $40 million IDA grant for development
[Bathandwa Mbola] The Burundian government has received US$40 million (over R291 million) to improve accountability and governance at the local level through intensive capacity building and rebuilding social cohesion in the country.
WEST AFRICA Pakistani peacekeepers refurbish school in Liberia
Over 200 Liberian students will benefit from a school recently refurbished by United Nations blue helmets, officials from the world body's peacekeeping mission said this week.
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TV | | AFRICA New satellite TV broadcaster for Africa
Gateway Communications has announced the launch of GTV, a pan-African pay-TV satellite delivered service. It will provide a bouquet of international and local entertainment content with a subscription price aimed at penetrating the chronically underserved African television market.
SOUTH AFRICA CNBC Africa to launch 1 June
 International business news television network CNBC will launch its African channel on 1 June 2007. CNBC Africa will focus on business, economics and markets news across South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. The station will also feature live crossings of essential business, economics and markets news from CNBC Europe, US, Middle East, Dubai, India, Pakistan and other CNBC affiliates across the world.
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| | Events to diarise | VoIP World Africa 2007 - Johannesburg, 2 May
Optimise communications through the convergence of voice, data and multi media technologies. | | | Telecoms World Africa 2007 - Johannesburg, 31 July
Telecoms World Africa, now in its 4th successful year, is set to be the place that brings you in contact with senior level decision makers with the power to purchase your solutions. | | | Wi-World Africa 2007 - Johannesburg, 27 August
Research has proven that Africa has become one of the most important growth markets in GSM mobile communications outside of Europe. | | | Africa Media & Broadcasting Congress 2007 - Johannesburg, 29 October
The challenge facing today’s broadcasters is to increase customer loyalty by improving services, programming and reducing the overall cost of delivering on customer demands. | | | | |
| | Quotes | | | "When a needle falls into a deep well, many people will look into the well, but few will be ready to go down after it." - African proverb | | More... Submit a Quote | | |
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