Kenya gets low-priced smartphone

Google is expected to unveil the key components of its mobile Internet strategy at the opening of the G-Kenya conference, where the global Internet giant will engage with local software developers, entrepreneurs, and computer science students.

Google is also expected to showcase a range of products aimed at driving innovation in local technology and business circles.

“In alignment with our core mission to organise the entire world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, we would like to provide training on localised tools that can spur economic development for the people of Kenya,” Google said in a statement.

G-Kenya is expected to bring together over 1,200 software engineers, product managers, entrepreneurs, students and web developers to discuss the future of applications development, and be trained on Google’s products and online business skills.

The forum will feature high profile Google speakers including one of the internet giant’s vice presidents Nelson Mattos, a team of product developers, engineers, the head of marketing for Africa, search specialists, and business marketing gurus.

Mr Mattos is Google’s VP in charge of product and engineering.

Google entered the Kenyan market in 2007, but has mostly played an observer role even as the country deepened its foray into new technologies such as mobile Internet.

The path of internet access growth in Kenya has been largely determined by the lack of fixed PC internet connections that has forced the consumers to rely on their mobile phones.

Industry researcher RNCOS says the number of mobile subscribers in Kenya will grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 15 per cent between 2010 and 2013 to reach 32 million by the end of 2013, representing a penetration rate of 72 per cent.

Kenya is said to be on the verge of becoming one of the fastest growing broadband markets in the continent, RNCOS says, with research pointing to the number of Internet users and broadband subscribers growing at a rate of nearly 130 per cent in the next two years.

Voice dialling

Available in black, yellow, blue, and purple, the IDEOS supports functions such as voice dialling, voice navigation, and the ability to run applications off the SD card.

Mr Tao said the name “IDEOS” embodies creativity and inspiration: the “ID” represents the industrial design-centric hardware platform, the “OS” represents the operating system as the core software platform, and the “E” symbolises the evolution to mobile Internet.