About Penplusbytes www.penplusbytes.org is a registered non profit since 18th July 2001. Vision "To be the leading institution for promoting effective governance using technology in Africa".
Hack4Citizens
enables better watchdog role for Beninese Civil society Groups
Technology has become one major tool of communication
all over Africa and globally. The second day of #Hack4Citizens in Cotonou,
Benin saw a display of the technological expertise of participants, derived
from civil society groups and software developers from Benin and Togo.
The different working groups have, for the past two
days (27th-28th September), been working on applications
than can help bridge the gap between citizens and duty bearers as well as react
with pertinent feedbacks.
The hackathon, organized by Penplusbytes with support
from OSIWA, was intended to bring together working groups to build digital solutions
similar to Kakum, Penplusbytes’ innovative application already famous in Ghana.
The groups presented their innovations including web,
mobile and offline platforms. At the end, the application Xo kambio, which offers education monitoring in local councils and
towns, won the first prize, followed by Society
scientist, which enhances civic participation and transparency, and Œil du citoyen, which was built purposefully
to monitor projects.
“Another aim of this hackathon is to build these applications
and make them useful to citizens immediately after further enhancements”, Jerry
Sam from Penplusbytes said.
Civil society groups were amused by the event and
further elated that it had come to ease their struggle.
“We are often interested in ICTs, without really
looking at the opportunities we can gain from them. This two-day event is very
important for us, to help us achieve our goals”, Joël Atayi-Guedegbe said.
“A very beneficial opportunity” qualified Pascaline
Cha-Cha from Rifonga-Bénin, “I would really like to attend another one.”
Penplusbytes invites all interested civil society
organisations within the sub region to a partnership in deploying such
innovative digital tools.
Amazon has announced new versions of its Echo smart speakers that promise improved sound and voice recognition.
The basic model also allows its shell to be changed to give it different looks - a feature already offered by Google's rival Home device.
A larger Echo Plus adds a "home hub", letting it control smart light bulbs and other third-party products without a separate data-linking device.
And the Echo Spot has a screen, making video calls and camera feeds possible.
Amazon has never released sales figures for the earlier Echo line-up.
But researchers suggest it and its smaller sibling the Echo Dot have been the best selling devices of their kind.
Media captionWATCH: Dave Lee gets a first look at the new Echo
The Echo family accounts for 75% of the US market for internet-connected speakers with built-in smart assistant functionality, estimated Consumer Intelligence Research Partners earlier this month. It suggested 15 million devices had been sold to date.
Colour choices
The new Echo is smaller than its predecessor and benefits from a dedicated bass tweeter.
It launches with a choice of six swappable shells that come in different materials.
It will cost £90/$100/100 euros - making it about 40% cheaper than the previous version, as well as undercutting the £129 Google Home.
The Echo Plus - which is compatible with the Zigbee smart home protocol - costs £140/$150/150 euros.
And the Echo Spot, with its 2.5-inch screen and built-in camera, has been priced at $130. It will launch in the US in December but has not yet been given a release date elsewhere.
Image captionThe Echo Spot can act as an alarm clock, stream feeds from smart cameras as well as enable video calls
"Amazon was first mover in this market, so it had an advantage over some of the others that entered the same space," commented Blake Kozak from the IHS Technology consultancy.
"But it's incredibly important for them to do this refresh - the original Echo came out in 2014 and the hardware hadn't been updated since, although the software and back-end services have been improved continuously.
"Since then we've seen other more 'premium' systems get announced - with higher quality speakers - so, Amazon needed to be seen to match the competition."
Many of those newer systems also feature Amazon's Alexa assistant and will not be seen as a threat.
Amazon has previously said it sells its speakers for roughly the price it costs to produce them, since its ultimate goal is to use Alexa as a means to drive sales of other goods and services.
But at Berlin's Ifa tech show earlier this month, several big name manufacturers - including Sony, Panasonic and JBL - launched systems powered by Google's rival Assistant.
Image copyrightGOOGLEImage captionThe new Echo is 30% cheaper than Google Home in the UK
Further competing systems are expected before the end of the year, including:
At its Seattle event, Amazon also announced Echo Buttons - small Bluetooth-based buzzers that can be used to play games on its speakers, including a forthcoming version of Trivial Pursuit.
In addition, it revealed the Echo Connect, a device that connects to a landline and turns its speakers into speakerphones.
And it announced a deal to bring Alexa to some of BMW's cars, including its Mini brand.
"Amazon has the momentum in the smart speaker and voice assistant space," said Geoff Blaber from the tech consultancy CCS Insight.
"These announcements are designed to deepen its role in our daily lives.
"This raises the bar significantly for Apple and Google."
Analysis:
Image copyrightAMAZONImage captionThe new Echo should produce deeper bass when playing music
By Dave Lee, North America Technology reporter
Alexa is breeding!
Amazon has clearly been working incredibly hard to capitalise on the success of its smart assistant hardware. But I'm concerned this new line-up is now so complex, all but the most knowledgeable customers will be baffled as to what features they're getting for their money.
The choice is enormous: Echo, Echo Plus, Dot, Look, Spot, Show, Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, not to mention the Dash Wand.
Alexa's success to date has been about simplicity, and if I was its marketing team, I'd be very worried this flurry of new devices is overwhelming. As for the Echo Buttons... cute idea, but they'll need to do much more than just let you play games.
Amazon has the chance to do for home automation what Apple did for smartphones.
When we talk about the iPhone, we always say Apple's achievement wasn't in making the technology - others had done much of it first - but making that tech accessible and enjoyable to the public at large. I believe Alexa could be that product for smart assistants, but it's far from being a done deal.
Image copyrightAMAZONImage captionAmazon Buttons offer a new way to interact with the speakers
It all makes Google's launch next week a very interesting one.
The company needs to announce a smartphone better than the upcoming iPhone X, and now a home assistant set-up that is stronger than what Amazon showed us here today. That's a huge ask, even for Google
Penplusbytes Rolls out Social Accountability Tools (Kakum) in West Africa
After successfully deploying “Tech Driven Social Accountability for Results” www.platformafrica.net project powered by Kakum in Ghana, Penplusbytes is rolling out this exciting innovative tool in West Africa starting in Benin and Togo.
During project implementation in Ghana, Penplusbytes used Kakum to monitor two national policies (Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) and the Ghana School Feeding Project) creating pathways for citizens to track its implementation for better results.
From 27th to 28th September 2017, in Benin’s capital of Contonu, Penplusbytes is supporting 3 Béninoise civil society organizations to leverage Kakum through a hackathon #hack4citizens which will bring together teams of solution developers and civil society actors to customize Kakum to respond to peculiar needs of activists working in social interventions projects.
The main goal of #hack4citizens is to build on lessons learnt in Ghana while creating an innovative space to connect CSOs who are going to use Kakum in Benin to launch a version of Kakum customized to solve their peculiar problems. For example during Penplusbytes implementation of Kakum, the project supported timely input and processing of Ghana School Feeding Programme policy feedback from citizens which enabled corrective action to be undertaken when there was an issue with quality of food served to school children.
“We are elated about the opportunity to use Kakum,” Joell Atayi-Guedegbe, the head of “Nouvelle Ethique” (civil society) said, “without strong public opinion, there will be no democracy, we have to work more to awaken our consciences. The project and Penplusbytes rollout of Kakum in West Africa is coming at a good time since it will help us achieve our goals.”
Kakum is an open source citizens monitoring tool designed to help civil society and citizens to monitor the implementation of social interventions policies thereby ensuring better policy implementation and results.
Kakum comes with many features such as adding new projects to the platform; filter and categorize various issues; rate policies and provide citizens the opportunity to give feedback and raise issues on policies being tracked. It has the added feature of sending alerts to duty-bearers and also providing feedback to citizens on issues they had queried.
According to the executive director of Penplusbytes Kwami Ahiabenu II, “we are excited that we able to reach a number of West Africa countries with our innovations aimed at providing citizens with tools they need to monitor for delivery key public services . This is important because it contributes to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well”.
Over the next couple of months, Penplusbytes is expected to rollout out the adaptation and replication of Kakum in two (2) other West African countries after Benin supporting civil society organisations working around social accountability with an appropriate tool to ensure greater change and success in their interventions.
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About Penplusbytes
Penplusbytes is a not-for-profit organization driving change through innovations in three key areas: using new digital technologies to enable good governance and accountability, new media and innovations, and enhancing media oversight for effective utilization of mining, oil and gas revenue and resources.
About OSIWA
The Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) is active in 10 countries in the region (Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone) and focuses on law, justice and human rights, and economic and political governance. The initiative pursues the development of open societies by supporting and building partnerships with local and regional groups that promote inclusive democratic governance, transparency and accountability, and active citizenship.
Making Oil and Gas a headline Issue in the Media: Penplusbytes builds media capacity to set the agenda
A key ingredient to promoting good governance in the oil and gas sector is an effective and consistent media oversight in the sector which is anchored on an informed, responsive and dynamic media to provide necessary and accurate information to the public about critical governance issues. To achieve this goal, Penplusbytes with support from Ghana Oil and Gas for Inclusive Growth (GOGIG) is implementing a 6-month “Enhancing the role of the Media in promoting Oil and Gas sector transparency and accountability” project.
The project is aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in the sector through effective public oversight on oil and gas revenue management. In all, ten (10) journalists from leading media houses in Ghana will undergo an intensive 10 day training session on various topics such as budget tracking, project tracking, analytic story writing, forensics, data journalism as well as investigative journalism.
The training programme is designed to provide a holistic and comprehensive support to the selected journalists through specialized knowledge and skills modules; professional mentoring; field trips; innovative use and application of data journalism skills; access to sources and vital information. A key activity will be a power reporting series and networking session which will bring together peers, experts, policy makers, and oversight actors in the oil and gas sector to interact and network with the selected journalists. In addition, the journalists will be provided bursaries to undertake individual field trips to oil and gas funded projects to generate impactful stories aimed at promoting transparency and accountability in the sector.
This component of the project will start with a face-to-face training including field trips from the 24th of September till 3rd of October this year.
According to the Executive Director of Penplusbytes, Kwami Ahiabenu II, the training phase of the project is to support journalists and media houses to enhance quality and increase quantity of oil and gas investigative stories in the mass media. “There are countless questions surrounding the oil and gas sector such as corruption, misapplication of petroleum revenues and many others. These and other issues require deeper analysis and investigation to unearth and bring to light some of the issues. Penplusbytes with this project is seeking to make such issues prominent in mass media and amongst citizens”, he added.
By the end of the project, it is expected that oil and gas issues will become a headline topic in the media landscape and journalists will be at the forefront of providing relevant content for civil society and citizens to hold duty bearers to account in the advocacy towards good governance in the sector transparency, accountability and good governance over the oil and gas sector revenue would have increased for the development of Ghana.
About
Penplusbytes is a not-for-profit organization driving change through innovations in three key areas: using new digital technologies to enable good governance and accountability, new media and innovations, and driving oversight for effective utilization of mining, oil and gas revenue and resources.
Scholarship Opportunity for Journalists and International Students
The Gates
Cambridge Scholarship program, is opened for applications from journalists
and all International students.
The scholarship, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, allows
selected international applicants and journalists to pursue a full-time
postgraduate degree in any subject at the University of Cambridge.
Successful applicants must be able to demonstrate a clear ability to lead
and a commitment to the greater good.
The scholarship covers the full cost of studying at Cambridge, airfare,
stipend, family allowance, visa costs and some additional funding.
Deadline for application is October. 11 for U.S. residents and
December. 6 for international applicants.
The internet offers so many opportunities to explore,
innovate, create, and collaborate among other things; which helps to connect
the global world more easily. Therefore to make the most of the web, it is
important to keep yourself safe and secure. Being secured online makes you stay
free from the dangers associated to cyberspace such as cyber bullies and
getting your account hacked. You cannot really stay safe offline when you are
not secured online because most of the crimes which happen in real life are due
to the fact that some information were accessed online.
Irrespective of the many goodies that come with getting well
acquainted with the internet, the internet has however brought many subscribers
to their ruination, thus to stay safe and secure online, follow these tips;
Secure your passwords: Passwords prevent people
from getting access to your accounts, confidential documents, files and online
activities. You must put up passwords on all your online assets to prevent
others from having access to them. When generating your password, make sure to
create strong password by using letters, numbers and symbols.
Sign out of your account: make sure to sign out
each time you are done using your account, be it your email, Facebook, twitter
or Instagram.
Use secure platforms: Do not type in any
personal information such as bank account details and passwords on sites you
are not sure of their validity.
Lock up your screen and device: any time you are
away from your laptop, computer, devices, lock up the screens with passwords to
prevent people from having access to your vital information.
Use strong anti- virus programs: buy the
recommended anti-virus software to keep your device free from malware; the
malicious software designed to harm your device or network. Keep updating your
devices, and do not get used to using the free trial version of the anti-virus
software
Never tick that box! On most websites, after
entering your details, it asks if your password be remembered on that website,
always click on ‘never’ when such question is asked. Once you click on ‘yes’ or
tick the box, your password forever stays with that website. Example of such
incident is when you log in into your account on a new device; an automated
generated question pops up asking you if your password should be remembered,
once you click yes, you would not need your password anymore to log in to your
account on that particular device, in this sense, anyone who gets access to
your device is close to having access to your account.
Follow these tips to stay safe and secure online !!!
