The article on Bitcoin reveals some surprising and little known facts about the money we use every day and introduces Bitcoin as a potential alternative. In a typical economy, it has been noted that money changes hands in every minute of the day, and it is exchanged through banks as virtual cash, physical cash when carrying out face to transactions, VISA, PayPal, mobile phone credit purchases and Virtual phone subscriber accounts like MTN Mobile Money, Mpesa, Pesa Pal, Airtel Money among others. All these have one common feature which is in most cases ignored or cannot merely avoided, and that aspect is that they are all monitored or taxed at all points which brings us to the aspect of privacy. In general, everyone loves their privacy to not be invaded at all.

The article is targeted at anyone who wants a crash course about this disruptive technology and has yet to find unbiased coverage that a layman can understand. I suspect that the article will be popular among young adults working in the technology, startup and finance sectors as well as anyone interested in Libertarian ideas. The solution to all the above mentioned is the invention of Bitcoin.

Read more: Introducing Bitcoin as a potential alternative of Money

Ladies and gentlemen I speak to you as a convert...NO....an oracle of the gods. Forget about the football gods, those are just wimps, the ones you should be scared of are the demo gods.

When you are preparing for a demo you must appease them or their wrath will be swift for their hand is unwavering and their vengeance knows no equal. They will make you appear a fool in front of investors, your boss, fellow students, potential customers...need I go on?.

Am I being paranoid?
I don’t blame you for thinking that, I was like you once, full of vigour and careless abandon with no regard for the gods until fate or what Roland of Gilead would call ka, made me have encounter with the demo gods. It was a day like any other, the sun was out and birds sung of cares or joys I know not of and my product was working fine last evening and it would do the same this morning….or so I thought. To my embarrassment and delight of the demo gods it was a catastrophic demo which was only dampened with my smooth promises of a future product built with code from the very codebase that designed the heavens.

Read more: Preparing for a demo? Have you appeased the gods?

I have always been of the opinion that nothing should be invented just for the sake of its novelty value, except art.

In the case of technology I have always been of the assertion that you should be able to monetize whatever technology or platform you invent. It just makes business sense considering how much you can potentially spend on research and development. 

I work in the online space, and I love it. As cliché as this may sound, it’s true. I may not love it every single day, but I love it enough. That’s because the Internet has the potential to literally determine how competitive a country can be in the global arena, based on how well it embraces the possibilities that it presents.

Read more: Technology should be used for social transformation

Electronic government (e-government), the ability for government to provide access to services and information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, is an emerging force in Africa. As a result, government service will be revolutionized as Africa progresses into the Digital Age. In this new age, good government is accessible government. Good government correlates to immediate access to pertinent information. Good government is faster, cheaper and more efficient.

There are three key areas namely; service provision, digital democracy, and economic development, that represent a broad definition of e-government and affect all customers of local government, including interactions between government and citizen (G2C), government and business (G2B), government and other government agencies (G2G), and between government and its own employees (G2E). While many current efforts focus on G2C like e-water, the three remaining areas can provide tremendous payback for government. A definition of e-government is not complete unless it identifies and considers all of its customers

Read more: Business model intergration in e-governemnt as a strategy for revenue generation

Mobile banking, due to the inherent characteristics of mobile phone as a device, can contribute to each of each of the strategic drivers:

Increase market penetration. Due to their accessibility, mobile phones provide an invaluable pportunity to reach rural and remote areas, thus opening a new unexplored segment for MFIs. In countries, where mobile telecommunication networks are already established and used by mobile network operators for their main businesses, it makes more financial sense to offer financial services through these networks, rather than invest in the roll-out of the costly branches and ATMs.

Sell more services to existing customers. Mobile phone represents an effective channel to offer new products and services to existing customers. Customers need more than payments and money transfer; providers should develop products that fit their real needs and use mobile phone to market and deliver them to clients.

Read more: Mobile banking in Africa