The Blankets and Wine edition was the best event for UG Pineapple to shine as it resonates with the Gin’s niche market, lounge in the sun and catch a cocktail. As the afternoon turned to evening and into the night, Kampala party revellers flocked Lugogo cricket oval in their hundreds.

The event is a good excuse for girls to show off their fashion sense and Kampala girls do not disappoint. Girls in hot pants, girls in overalls, girls bringing African Fabric to the fore. Every fashion imaginable. The best place to harvest some eye candy was the UG Pineapple photo booth because if fashion must walk the Blankets and Wine red carpet, then the world must see in it pictures.

Uganda’s legend music goddess Joanita Kawalya bellowed her most favourite hits over the years, bringing a relaxing mood to the evening sunset.

By 8pm when Distruction Boys stepped on stage, Cricket oval was filled to capacity. The due put up an energetic performance, picking songs from all over Africa and crowning their performance with their all time favourite hit, Omunye.

Information and communication technology is developing at an unprecedented pace sweeping us into a digital era, where information has become a more important resource than raw materials and energy. The information economy is characterized by processing and developing data, instead of industrial production. Access to information is now essential for individuals’ development and national inclusive and sustainable growth.

The African Union Agenda 2063 has acknowledged the importance of digital inclusivity to bring the continent on par with the rest of the world as an information society. Many African countries have embarked on their individual digital transformation journeys, by providing government services digitally and expanding access to ICT to cover more areas.

However, there are still many people on the continent especially from rural areas which still lack basic access to information. According to the GSMA, in 2017, the number of unique mobile subscribers reached the symbolic mark of 5 billion, with 3.5 billion of them using mobile networks to access the internet. Despite this achievement, there are still 3.8 billion people who remain offline, out of which 1.2 billion are not covered by a broadband capable network – the vast majority of this uncovered population lives in the rural areas in developing countries. Africa is home to the largest number of developing countries. On average, 69 percent of the African population do not have access to internet, with many of those unconnected living in rural areas.

A few months ago I travelled to Zambia where I visited Mushindushi, a small village 300 kilometres from Lusaka. There I heard that people usually climbed 2-story high ant hills to get network to make a call. Due to poor coverage, locals don’t usually carry their mobile phones with them including teachers at a local primary school. Since we were planning to cover the area, I talked with one of the teachers and asked him what he was expecting the future to be with adequate network and access to Internet, he hesitated for quite a while without eventually giving me an answer. This reminds me of a survey conducted by Facebook in 11 countries, which found that over two thirds of people who are currently offline did not know what Internet is, let alone how to benefit from this powerful tool.

Rural coverage is an universal challenge not only for countries in Africa; deploying infrastructure in remote areas can be twice as expensive, while revenue opportunities are as much as 10 times lower, a combination that deeply affects the business case for carriers to deploy communication infrastructure. In other words, high prices of deploying infrastructure in rural areas, combined with a relatively weak demand for mobile internet services, results in a supply-demand equilibrium with low population coverage.

Governments usually require carriers to cover specific locations in rural areas from the perspective of social development and realization of basic human rights. It is true that it is a social obligation to cover rural areas, but it is also true that there must be a sustainable commercial imperative for rural coverage.

According to GSMA’s report titled Enabling Rural Coverage, coverage obligations that are too ambitious and disregard the realities of the market will be impossible to attain, “without creating any incentive to expand coverage”.

To break this vicious cycle and help carriers go the last mile for rural coverage, Huawei leveraged its global R&D resources and come up with a site solution called RuralStar. With this innovation, a base station can be deployed within one week, shortened from one month, with total costs reduced by around 70{0945c2a372ac1e8bbfe7cc3e10f9b82eb0b8ae872b07368d754f0396b6ef2afe}. Moreover, it uses special equipment to cut down the power consumption to about 200 watts, equivalent to the power of about five regular light bulbs. This allows it to use solar panels in areas with little or no electric power.

For carriers, this innovation means that instead of covering a wide area including those sparsely populated places with costly base stations, operators can now flag and cost-effectively target relatively populous areas, where there is a larger user base for revenue generation; the payback period of investment in rural coverage can be shortened by up to 70{0945c2a372ac1e8bbfe7cc3e10f9b82eb0b8ae872b07368d754f0396b6ef2afe} from 10 years to less than 3 years. This makes rural coverage a profitable business which in turn will benefit rural areas socially and economically.

This transformation means dynamic economic performance stimulated by active flows of information, goods and capital; it means agricultural produce can be sold in time and at good price, and teaching materials can be available at any time in any place; it also means health workers which are usually scarce resources in rural areas can be just a phone call away.

Innovation opens a door for the unconnected and under connected people to a world of numerous possibilities for development. With this innovation-driven connectivity comes opportunity and the potential for more inclusive growth and sustainable development.

The show however, features a lot more. It will be a cultural festival, where all tribes and cultures from the west will be represented through music and cultural drinks and other forms of entertainment. According to Paul Edyau, MD of Legends Ventures and Marketing Agency, the organizers of the Mega Fest, the lineup is being led by diva and dance hall queen; Cindy Sanyu, Vampiino, Washington, comedian Swengere and the best comedy export from the East, Emma Napoleone.

“The event will be about three aspects. It will be an avenue for OB’s and OG’s from all the traditional schools in the East to meet up and network. People from schools like Mwirri College, Butiki, Jinja College, Ngora SS, Nabumali SS, Namasagali, Tororo Girls, Teso College and many more will reunite at the festival. Secondly, it will be a chance for everyone in the East to share culture. A reason traditional performances are being prepared to the same cause. Expect a lot of Embaile, Kadodi Drums, Adungu, Malwa, Millet, among a panoply of things that symbolize the different tribes in the East. It will also be a platform for domestic tourism promotion, “ relayed Edyau.

The event, which was hosted to empower Ugandan artists, musicians and producers, follows the successful partnership launch between TIDAL, a global music and video streaming platform, and MTN Uganda, the leading communications operator in Uganda offering mobile & fixed telecommunications.

According to Munyaradzi Chanetsa, Head of Operations at CCA, the conference aimed at empowering participants on the latest trends in the digital space that can be used to advance careers and commercial success of musicians and artists alike.

“The advancement of technology has positively impacted the global music industry. Musicians are now able to produce their music faster, cheaper and at better quality. At the Artists Collaboration Conference, we have seen Ugandan musicians eager to turn their talent into long term commercial success using digital channels”, said Munyaradzi Chanetsa.

CCA is an independently owned media and content business based in Johannesburg with extensive experience in the African entertainment industry.

The core of CCA’s offering is digital distribution of audio and visual content and through a seamless and specialized technical process, music and videos are submitted, digitized and ingested to platforms that deliver content products to millions of consumers across the World.

Jason Kpana, Senior Vice President Artist & Label Relations, explained how TIDAL came back to Uganda hot on the heels of their recent partnership launch with MTN.

“Our arrival in Uganda was met with so much excitement from consumers and artists alike. TIDAL will continue connecting with local musicians, producers, engineers and other players in the music industry to share all the tools necessary to take advantage of all we have to offer!”

On their part, MTN Uganda has been at the fore front of empowering musicians and advancing the music industry in Uganda, as told by their Chief Marketing Officer Olivier Prentout.

“Our twenty year strong existence in Uganda has seen us support musicians in various ways. With the Artists Collaboration Conference we have moved from just sponsoring their shows and launches to giving them the tools and expertise to earn money even when they are not on the stage performing” said Olivier Prentout.

Throughout the day long conference, musicians learned about the evolution of music, the impact of the digital revolution in the music industry, how to choose the right digital business partner, rights management and how to take advantage of digital marketing to advance their careers among many other topics.

Sodamola Oluseye Desmond – aka DJ SPINALL – and Kemar Donaldson popularly known – Kranium – made an appearance at the conference where they addressed the participants and networked freely with them.

Speakers at the conference included Aly Allibhai (CEO Talent Africa), Manny Teixeira (General Manager Digital Media & Services MTN Group), Susan Kayemba (Senior Manager Digital Services – MTN Uganda), Tom Mbalu (Business Unit Director & Head of Digital, TBWA Uganda) and Warrick Percy – Head of Licensing, CAPASSO SA.

Over 40 mothers check into the hospital every month for delivery. The hospital took a bold decision to accommodate only expectant mothers because of space constraints. The rest, with varying ailments, were referred to other health centres for management.

Today, a new block stands tall at the health centre ready to usher in patients who say they have been incurring heavy expenses and losing a lot of time traveling to Kasese for treatment. Hima Cement has built a new General Ward at the health centre. The ward, worth Shs 260 million, will help to ease access to medical services for the people of Hima and the wider Kasese community.

Hima Cement CEO Mr. Nicolas George said that this project is part of Hima Cement Corporate Social Responsibility to the communities where the company operates. He said that the communities have given Hima Cement the limestone to make cement but also an opportunity to create thousands of jobs and employ people in Kasese, Kampala and across the country.

“The least we can do is to give back to the community where we work. We will continue to contribute as much as we can in health, education and environment protection, which are key focus areas.”
He said this during the handover of the health centre to the community members and management of Hima Health Centre III in Kasese on 24th September.

Dr Manasseh Baluku, the in charge at Hima Health Centre III says while the hospital has enough staff to handle and manage patients, they do not have the equipment to diagnose many cases.
With a new facility in place, he says government should construct a theatre.

“It will be unfortunate to have all these facilities when we don’t put them to use. Now that we have a newly constructed ward, we call upon government to construct a theatre. We need to give our people proper services. You have put up this structure and we promise it will not remain empty. We have reached out to Ministry of Health to have it operationalised,” said Dr Baluku said.