Perhaps they meant "mbingu" which roughly translates to "heaven" or "wingu" which means "cloud". There is no direct Swahili translation for "sky" as far as I know. They should have done a quick check on any of the online Swahili dictionaries such as http://kamusi.org/ or http://www.kamusi.co.tz/ before erroneously naming their project.
East Africa's technological growth, particularly in Kenya and Rwanda, has been hampered by ridiculously expensive bandwidth. My university had (still has, I believe) a 2Mb/s internet connection that was shared by a faculty and student community of about 5000. It was practically unusable. Call centers in Nairobi simply couldn't stay afloat even after being given tax incentives and having low wage bills(typical monthly salary for a call center worker is $400/month).
Bandwidth prices have reduced by a factor of 4 and while its not expected that they will reach levels in Europe and America any time soon as ISPs and investors recoup their investment, the immediate benefits, lower latencies and higher reliability as compared to satellite, are already being felt. The are lots of bright people with great ideas that have been held back by the high cost of internet. With the arrival of the Seacom cable and TEAMS later on, I have no doubt that East Africa will become a major player in BPO, software development and research in the years to come.
Microsoft also bought the YES vote in Kenya by offering similar deals and filling the Kenya Bureau of Standards Technical commitee with its own people. Hopefully, it won't be enough for them to get ISO cetification.
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Perhaps they meant "mbingu" which roughly translates to "heaven" or "wingu" which means "cloud". There is no direct Swahili translation for "sky" as far as I know. They should have done a quick check on any of the online Swahili dictionaries such as http://kamusi.org/ or http://www.kamusi.co.tz/ before erroneously naming their project.
East Africa's technological growth, particularly in Kenya and Rwanda, has been hampered by ridiculously expensive bandwidth. My university had (still has, I believe) a 2Mb/s internet connection that was shared by a faculty and student community of about 5000. It was practically unusable. Call centers in Nairobi simply couldn't stay afloat even after being given tax incentives and having low wage bills(typical monthly salary for a call center worker is $400/month). Bandwidth prices have reduced by a factor of 4 and while its not expected that they will reach levels in Europe and America any time soon as ISPs and investors recoup their investment, the immediate benefits, lower latencies and higher reliability as compared to satellite, are already being felt. The are lots of bright people with great ideas that have been held back by the high cost of internet. With the arrival of the Seacom cable and TEAMS later on, I have no doubt that East Africa will become a major player in BPO, software development and research in the years to come.
Microsoft also bought the YES vote in Kenya by offering similar deals and filling the Kenya Bureau of Standards Technical commitee with its own people. Hopefully, it won't be enough for them to get ISO cetification.