Motorcyclists to lobby for policy change in the motor cycle industry.

MotorCycle Kenya, the umbrella organization of Private Motorcycle Clubs, Associations and Groups in the country will tomorrow be petitioning the local and national Government to amend some already existing laws recently effected by the National Transport and Safety Authority and the Nairobi City County that infringe on private motorcycle sector.

More than 500 bikers comprised of – private bikers and boda boda associations will be converging at Uhuru Park, Nairobi County and will later on hold courtesy calls with the Ministry of Transport, National Transport Safety Authority, Kenya Police and the Supreme Court at the Chief Justice’s Office and Nairobi County headquarters to discuss the state of Motorcycle Industry in the country.

Currently, it is an offence for motorcyclists to overtake in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken otherwise known as lane splitting. Also, there are no city laws that legitimizes and govern operations of motorbikes (both commercial and private) within the cities and no designated parking spots for motorbikes which Motorcycle Kenya feels makes it difficult for private and public motorcyclists to optimally operate within the county.

“As an industry, we are hard hit by some of these laws in our sector. They affect our day-to-day operations as road users. We hope that the Government through the relevant bodies will act on some these teething challenges,” noted Nick Korir, Chairperson, MotorCycle Kenya.

Other proposed laws that MotorCycle Kenya is lobbying the government to amend include – a proposal to clamp down a cartel in the city at the Nairobi City Council that participate in the recent harassment of bikers leading to confisication of bikes by the council without subsequent charging in court.

The bikers will also be lobbying the government to participate in training and mobilization of bikers so as that they become change agents in the industry.

Motorcycle Kenya recently set aside July 31^st as the National Bikers Day, a day that will be used to champion the cause and grievances of those in the motorcycle industry. The Association exists to ensure appropriate legislation of policies, advocate for high standards in the motorcycle industry. They also promote safe riding to all bikers and facilitate continuous training for bikers.

How Kenyans on Twitter reacted to @POTUS’ visit

This past weekend saw Kenya host the President of the United States Barack Obama who is also known by his Twitter handle @POTUS. He arrived into the country to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (@GES2015Kenya) and the excitement was felt through Twitter. Prior to his arrival, Kenyans had begun Tweeting about his arrival using various hashtags that all became top local trends on Twitter.

Some of the top hashtags that many users on Twitter engaged with were ; #ObamaHomeComing, #ObamainKenya, #ObamaReturns and #GES2015 all Tweeting about Barack Obama’s visit to Kenya. In addition to the buzz, our President @UKenyatta also warmly welcomed @POTUS as he made this historic visit to Kenya.

Here is how #GES2015Kenya unfolded on Twitter http://reverb.guru/view/493017493897456002

Below is a sample of some of the tweets from this past weekend:

Upon the US Presidents arrival, #ObamainKenya trended with Kenyans Tweeting away and sharing moments of Obama’s visit to Kenya with his speech being the climax.

President Barack Obama @POTUS expressed joy upon arrival in Kenya by Tweeting how happy he was to see family and friends.

This did not end there, upon @POTUS departure, Kenyans kept the conversation going with the hashtag #NowthatObamaIsGone, which begun to trend immediately after the @GES2015Kenya.

Kenyans were on the international spotlight for the two days that President Barack Obama was in Kenya. As illustrated, Twitter was the one place where Kenyans could get real time updates as they expressed their excitement and extended their warm welcome to the US President.

MasterCard Opens its Digital Security Lab to Customers

MasterCard today opened its digital security facility to its customers, driving further collaboration on key issues that can deliver greater payments peace of mind. Located in England, the MasterCard DigiSec Lab is focused on proactively testing threats to all forms of digital payments in coordination with government security agencies and leading academics.

Watch a short video about the facility here.

“The MasterCard DigiSec Lab represents our collective efforts to maximize product innovation and security investments,” said Ajay Bhalla, president of Enterprise Security Solutions at MasterCard. “While payments have never been safer, criminals have never been smarter. We’ve now opened the lab to our customers as part of an ongoing commitment to share insights, solutions and best practices to deliver the highest levels of security.”

Whether testing the latest in EMV chip cards, mobile payments or biometric authentication, the MasterCard DigiSec Lab team deconstructs the technology to identify opportunities to strengthen it and continue to protect consumers, merchants and financial institutions from fraud. 

Every day, they are tasked with uncovering potential threats and problems most people don’t even know exist. To aid in these efforts, the team fires lasers at payment cards, normally used in deep astronomy, and uses X-ray machines to analyze gadgets used by hackers, in addition to other activities.

The increased pace of technological change, along with the digital profile of today’s connected consumer, has created the need for greater collaboration and knowledge sharing. The broadened mandate of the lab will help jointly problem solve for fraud and risk by activating its tools, unique broad network view and technical know-how.

The MasterCard DigiSec Lab works in close partnership with other groups – including Information Security, Emerging Payments and MasterCard Labs – to deliver a multi-layered approach to address security risks and concerns wherever they may arise.

More Kenyans interested in doing business with Chinese

Final visitor numbers released today by the organisers of China Trade Week, hosted earlier this month by MIE Events in Nairobi, have shown that more Kenyans are keen on trading with China.

The three day event held between July 1^st and 3^rd recorded 16500 visitors and according to the organizers, it was “an overwhelming success.”

“When you launch an event into a new country you are never quite sure whether your visitor marketing campaign will deliver the goods! We had targeted to attract around 3000 visitors to our first exhibition and would have been happy with this. However, we realized a week before the show that the exhibition and our marketing had resonated with the Kenyan and East African business and SME community as we already had nearly 3000 pre-registered visitors through our China Trade Week website before we even opened the doors of the show,” said Gary Robinson, International Events Director of Dubai based, MIE Events.

Resounding success

“Our visitor numbers increased daily with our best attended day being the last day of the show where we had over 7100 visitors! In total we had 16,500 visitors over the 3 day show. It is certainly fair to say that our exhibitors had a great show and we have already re-booked over 50% of our exhibitors who will be returning for China Trade Week 2016.  Many of our exhibitors have already decided to set up offices in Kenya with others preparing to make investments,” said Robinson.

Mr. Robinson said following the runaway success of the expo, the organizers had increased the exhibition space for 2016 as well as increasing the number of exhibition days to two consecutive weeks.

Kenyan SME's attend the China Trade Week which took place on July 1st-3rd at the KICC, Nairobi

“In the first week we will focus on the sectors of Construction Materials, Construction equipment and vehicles, lighting and Automotive Parts and then change all the exhibitors for the second week and focus on sectors such as Consumer Electronics, Home Electrical Goods, Textiles & Clothing, Luggage, Furniture etc.  I believe we will have to use large tents next year to accommodate all our exhibitors,” he said.

China-Kenya Investment Forum

MIE Events Managing Director Mr. David Wang commended the institutional support the organisers received from Kenyan Investment Authority (KenInvest), Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) as well as the Kenyan Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), and the media getting the message out to the business community.

“Many visitors appreciated our China Sourcing Workshops had been for them and we fully intend to continue with these in next year’s show but on a much larger scale. In addition it is very likely that we will host a high level China-Kenya Investment Forum which will bring together both Chinese and Kenyan investors, entrepreneurs and project owners in a dynamic business matchmaking environment,” Mr. Wang said.