Ndiho Media,LLC.

By Paul Ndiho
A mobile phone app is helping Ghanaian farmers increase crop yields and connect with industry players through a seamless communications medium that is easily accessible and cost-effective.
Farmers in northwestern Ghana are cultivating their crops in a more cost-effective way, thanks to a new mobile app called mfarms. Farmers use the internet-based platform to access a wide range of information which connects them with a network of potential buyers and sellers.
Bawa Yamusah grows vegetables and grains on his own small holding. He says m-Farms has helped him increase his family’s income.
“it’s has improved the yields and alternatively our income level has risen and we get a lot of food for our homes and the family then we get extra income from what we are going to dispose off selling of food surplus so we used that disposable foods to pay our children’s school fees and take care of medical and needs of the families.”
m-Farms was introduced to Ghana by image-ad, a local software development organization supported by the alliance for a green revolution in Africa.

By Paul Ndiho

In recognition of President Barack Obama’s historic U.S – Africa leaders summit taking place in the nations capital this week, D.C Mayor Vincent C. Gray and the Office on African affairs welcomed African delegations, tourists and visitors alike to the 5th Annual Africa Festival this weekend.

Washington D.C came alive with the sights and sounds of Africa at the 5th Annual Washington DC African Festival – taking place at the Ronald Regan building and international trade center.

The theme this year is from D.C to Africa showcasing Diaspora diversity, celebration of cultural diversity and the growing presence of Africans in the District.


Hundreds of people stepped out Sunday afternoon to enjoy a display of traditional African culture, cultural dances, fashion, arts & crafts, a taste of African cuisine, and countless other activities. Welcoming the mayor, Ngozi Nmezi, Executive director of the office the DC Mayor’s office on African affairs commended Mayor Vincent C Gray for his continued support to the African immigrant community leaving in district.

The District of Columbia offers a unique opportunity to many artists, entrepreneurs, organizations, and businesses of African heritage that contribute to the culture and Identity of the city. DC Mayor Vincent C. Gray.

In an effort to promote African business in Washington, the Ronald Regan building and international trade center was turned into a replica of a small African street. Vendors were selling everything from African handbags and clothing, to artifacts and colorful handcrafted jewelry from all over Africa. 


After many hours of braving the heat, shopping, sightseeing and tasting the delicious African delicacies, many visitors capped off the day by sitting down with family and friends to catch the live music.

Other showcased skills in braiding African hair

Several Africans from different parts of the United States represented their countries at the fair as they marched around waving flags.

Online weekly TV magazine channel to unveil and showcase innovations and technology in Africa

The boom of information and communication technologies in Africa has ignited interesting innovations across the continent. Unfortunately, there is no coherent effort to capture and showcase (introduce) these innovations to the world.

The Africa Innovation and Technology Channel will capture innovations in Africa and introduce these entrepreneurs to the global market with a goal of inspiring the next generation of innovators in Africa. The Technology Channel will also provide these new innovations a platform to expand market reach and exposure to the world markets.

Over the last decade, the role of technology has significantly increased in the lives of Africans. More than700 million Africans have access to mobile broadband.

Startups are emerging and there is an excitement for innovation related stories. Access is becoming easier, mobile is booming and a technology explosion is happening. Analyst say that tech hubs in Africa provide a home for those with new and innovative ideas, create an atmosphere where they are encouraged to try new things and, most importantly, are able to meet like-minded individuals they can grow with.

In the past few years, startups techs in Africa have built amazing products that can compete on the international stage. They have however lacked the platform to showcase these products. To build capacity, these techs need the exposure in order to move from the “start-up” to a fully viable tech industry provider.

From iCOW apps in Ghana; Spark in Nigeria; to BRCK connectivity and mobile gaming in Kenya; to a computer tablet that diagnoses cardiovascular diseases in rural Cameroon, and to a computer tablet that uses local languages in Congo. Young Africans are using access to the Internet to address challenges that affected the continent for decades.

Kenya is now considered a major technology center in the world thanks to the jobless youths who spend a lot of time at iHub in Nairobi ‘playing’ with technology and creating amazing applications.

By Paul Ndiho

Scores of Nigerian mobile phone users are heading to Abuja’s Global System for Mobile Communications Village for phone swaps or great deals known as Kankara. The market has become a popular destination in the capital, with clients cutting across all spectrum’s.
Abuja’s GSM Village, also known as the Wuse zone one is the place to be for Nigerians looking to buy a new or used mobile phone – or to trade their current one. The zone is a bustling market for sellers and shoppers of all sorts of phones. Many residents of Abuja and its suburbs frequent this market to buy mobile phones and accessories along with other phone services. But, there is catch!! Almost all the different types of phones sold here are imported from China and other parts of Asia.
“We import them from China, Hong Kong, owners of Nokia, Samsung, HTC, any smartphone in fact, we can do quite well.
All types of phones are brought back to life due to the ingenuity of these mostly young people who are determined to succeed in a country with very few opportunities.
“It takes me less than 30 minutes to put a new screen on iPhone. I taught myself how to do it. I knew I can do it better than I know. Any type of phone I can fix. Any kind of phone, Ipods, iPhones, any kind I can fix. Kenneth, software engineer, is another incredible phone technician.
“I do install applications on locked and unlocked phones. I flash out phones that have malfunctioned; I maintain PC’s or computers. I have a lot of software for blackberries, Samsung, for techno, for HTCs and so on and so forth.”
A visit this market is to witness entrepreneurship at its best, it’s a place where customers get great bargains on the various brands of phones….

By Paul Ndiho, Abuja, Nigeria
Last week more than 60 women and girls managed to escape from the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram. They’re among several hundred that have been abducted in different parts of North Eastern Nigeria. However, Boko Haram is still holding more than 200 schoolgirls abducted in April.
Boko Haram triggered an international outcry when it captured more than 200 schoolgirls in Borno State’s Chibok town. It’s been nearly three months and still no news of their release. Parents of the abducted schoolgirls, concerned citizens and human rights activists are still pleading for action. I met up with the group in Unity Park in central Abuja over the girls, chanting: “Bring back our girls now and alive. Moreen Kabrik is one of the activists.

“We’re still carrying on with our campaign because our mission, our purpose of coming here everyday has not been achieved. The essence of our coming out here everyday is to serves as a reminder to each one of us as citizens of Nigeria, that something is wrong; our sisters are still being abducted. They haven’t come back yet to their parents and I think there is a need for us to continue coming out here.

“Initially the government said that they were doing everything they can, but we want to see results. We don’t want a situation where we see motion without movement. We want movement of the girls back to their parents and basically what the government is doing is trying to fight us.
In light of the recent developments including the bombing carried out by Boko Haram at Banex plaza, a popular shopping centre in the heart of the capital, Abuja — where at least 21 people died and several others injured, the government and security agencies continue to face criticism both at home and abroad – over how they have dealt with Boko Haram militants and the Kidnapped girls. However, the government says it’s fighting back. Mohammed Abubakar is Nigeria’s Inspector General of police or IGP.

“People don’t have a basic understanding of what terror is. You need to understand what terror is, their belief. It’s an ideological belief that they believe in and as far as I’m concerned, I know we have done so much. Not only as the police but all the security agencies, particularly the police as the lead internal security agency. So much is being done in terms of deployment, in terms of intelligence and terms of surveillance – Otherwise, the attacks could have been much more than this…”

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has increasingly targeted civilians in its bloody five-year insurgency. Critics of the government say there are raising public anger over government’s inability to protect citizens from violent attacks. The Inspector general of police and other security agencies are focusing on preventing other attacks

“In recent times, we have had several arrests made in different states that prevented other attacks. But generally we’re doing everything to reassure the public that the government is on top of the security situation and we’re not overwhelmed by such situations.” 

I was given access to Banex Plaza shopping centre, the scene of a bomb blast that had killed 21 people in the upscale neighborhood.

“ The whole place has been cordoned off for security reasons of course and as you can see there is no business activity taking place at this time.

I spoke to Adrian Uchena, a trader and one of the eyewitnesses; who narrowly survived the powerful blast that shuttered the entire shopping mall. He explains what really happened on that fateful day.

“What happened here a couple weeks ago is that– – we experienced these unprecedented happenings by Boko Haram people. They want to come in here, and security refused them to enter with their jeep they pretended that they’re going to bank. When they refused them the second time, that’s when bomb blow up.”

Last Month’s bomb attack was the third on the capital since April, but the other two – car bombings of a bus station and street both in the suburb of Nyanya that killed about 90 people between them – did not strike at the heart of the city.
Security analysts say, a spate of deadly bombings outside of its northeastern heartlands – in Jos, Kano and Abuja – suggests Boko Haram is trying to push its sphere of influence outwards across Africa’s biggest economy and top oil producer.
Today the government says it’s doing everything in its power to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again. People are getting back to their normal routine; renovations are taking place and hopefully things will change for better.

By Paul Ndiho

Nearly a year ago, U.S President Barack Obama unveiled a new “Power initiative for Africa” with the goal to dramatically increase access to power in sub-Saharan Africa. U.S. Government officials, African energy ministers, along with representatives from more than 30 U.S companies in the energy and petroleum sectors recently met Ethiopia to discuss energy policies and energy efficient technologies.
More than two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is without electricity and more than 85 percent of those living in rural areas lack access to power. The Power Africa Initiative is expected to build on Africa’s enormous power potential, including new discoveries of vast reserves of oil and gas, and the potential to develop clean geothermal, hydro, wind and solar energy.
President Obama explained the need for the 7 billion dollar initiative last year while speaking at the University of Cape Town.
“Access to electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age. It is the light that children study by. The energy that allows an idea to be transformed into a real business. The lifeline for families to meet their most basic needs. And it’s the connection that is needed to plug Africa into the grid of the global economy. You got to have power,”
The program was formally launched last week to make power more accessible to Africans who are not being serviced by their national grids, through small scale energy solutions dubbed ‘Beyond the Grid’. The initiative will use partnerships with 27 investors and energy companies committing to investing over 1 billion US dollars to grow off-grid and small scale solutions on the continent.
“Our Power Africa program already supports over 25 small-scale energy projects, but Beyond the Grid will expand this significantly facilitating over 1 billion in new private sector investments.”
According to the International Energy Agency, the region will require more than 300 billion U.S. dollars in investment to achieve universal electricity access by 2030.
The Power Africa Initiative aims to install 10,000 megawatts of new generation capacity, connect 20 million new customers, and improve electric reliability across the continent. Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Desalegn Hailemariam welcomed the initiative saying private sector investment in energy had been slow.
“Until recently the private sector has not shown much interest to invest in power sector in Africa due to its long return period. We the African governments also have not created the necessary environments to ease the risk associated with long term investment.”
Africa is rich in energy. There are enormous untapped resources of gas, oil, coal, geothermal, solar and wind power that could easily meet the region’s requirements.
Analysts say the big obstacle to electrification in Africa is not constructing power stations and building overhead power lines. It is working out how to help the region’s households – many with limited and irregular cash flows, little collateral and no access to credit – to pay for the huge investment needed to bring electricity to them.