Gebeya and KaiOS Join Hands

The 2019 African Developers Conference , organized by Gebeya, an online marketplace that connects top African IT experts with businesses to develop technology solutions, was held on October 18 & 19 and It brought the KaiOS Technologies as one of the exhibitors and enabled it to give a workshop about developing apps for KaiOS to participants at their booth.

Miora Randriambeloma, Business Development and Partnerships Director – Africa at KaiOS Technologies, was also among the speakers for the conference, 2019 at the UN Economic Commission For Africa (UNECA) – Addis Ababa .

Following that, the KiaOS team in collaboration with Gebeya organized the very first Bootcamp introducing KaiOS Platform in Ethiopia on December 14, 2019. The boothcamp focused on the fundamental concepts of the KaiOS Platform.

KiaOS is a Linux based Operating System that is especially catered to feature phone devices. KaiOS is believed to be easy to understand OS which can be used by customers with low literacy rates who find it difficult to navigate on a touchscreen.

Google and Facebook were among the first to port their services to KaiOS. This year KaiOS has brought the smart app, WhatsApp to feature phones. It has risen in popularity among tech companies because of its HTML5 app store that has allowed developers to easily build powerful web apps for KaiOS.

On December 23, 2019 Gebeya officially announced a partnership with KaiOS Technologies.

The partnership is aimed at introducing the KaiOS ecosystem to the African tech community which will, in turn, encourage the development of applications suitable for smart feature phones.

According to the press release this partnership is also expected to bring forth a new wave of technology for the country and tackle the current unemployment issue of several African nations as Innovative entrepreneurs will get the opportunity to develop applications that will be made accessible to the public in the KaiStore.

Following this partnership Gebeya is now developing a curriculum that incorporates a track solely aimed at developing technologies for the KaiOS platform to provide imperative knowledge of the KaiOS ecosystem and equip trainees with the necessary skill set for a growing market of opportunities.

Gebeya further announced that this addition to Gebeya’s training module will enable trainees to build applications as per KaiOS development standards while accelerating the growing need of KaiOS developers in the African market. And recruitment of interested trainees is already underway with more students eagerly registering to partake in the track which will begin in early January.

“KaiOS’s mission is to connect the next 4 billion users to the Internet, starting with a billion people in Africa. We are proud to partner with Gebeya to build a community of KaiOS developers who will build locally relevant services for the continent, but also for other emerging regions,” said Miora Randriambeloma, Partnerships Director at KaiOS Technologies

Amadou, CEO, and Co-Founder of Gebeya said in his part “African nations are on an upward climb in their efforts towards digital transformation thanks to the tireless work of countless dedicated individuals and institutions,”. Today, a growing number of game-changers who elect to contribute to Africa’s digital revolution have become imperative to our continent’s resilient fight for a better future. I strongly believe that this new partnership between Gebeya and KaiOS is a crucial stepping stone towards fostering the journeys of these aspirational young tech talents whose innovative solutions could ease the lives of many, many African communities.”

It is executed that this collaborative effort of Gebeya and KaiOS will result in quality output and the creation of a dynamic community of highly experienced developers that can bring invaluable social as well as economic values in the long term.