Absa Bank Kenya's Chief Data Officer, Hartnell Ndungi, emphasizes the critical importance of Data Privacy Week in today's digital landscape, highlighting how individuals generate valuable data through daily online activities, often without awareness of its usage.

• Data Privacy Week aims to empower individuals to manage their online data and make informed choices about its visibility and use, especially crucial as data can be sold to third parties.
• For financial institutions like Absa Bank, protecting sensitive customer information such as identity details, account balances, and loan histories is paramount to maintaining trust and security.
• Individuals are encouraged to adopt simple habits like using passwords of at least 12 characters, enabling multi-factor authentication, and regularly reviewing app permissions to reduce cyber risks.

Despite Safaricom's launch of M-Pesa Daraja 3.0 in November 2025, developers faced significant issues with its unstable sandbox environment, leading to the creation of a community-built, open-source alternative.

• A developer, OmentaElvis, released Pesa Playground in December 2025 to address the shortcomings of the official Daraja 3.0 sandbox.
• Pesa Playground offers a local-first architecture, a mini-economy simulator, and capabilities for edge case testing, running offline on a user's machine.
• The project, built with Rust and Tauri, quickly evolved, reaching version 1.0.0 in December 2025 and receiving multiple updates by January 2026.
• This alternative provides developers with a reliable way to test M-Pesa integrations, avoiding frustrations associated with the official sandbox's "happy path" problem and connectivity issues.

Oracle has confirmed that iXAfrica Data Centres in Nairobi, Kenya, will host its first public cloud region in East Africa, fulfilling a previous announcement made by President William Ruto.

• This new cloud region is specifically designed to support high-performance Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads, with facilities capable of handling 50 kW per rack compared to standard 4-8 kW.
• The selection of iXAfrica addresses critical issues such as data sovereignty for Kenyan enterprises, ensuring sensitive data remains within the country's borders and reducing latency from approximately 150ms to under 10ms.
• iXAfrica also boasts a carrier-neutral status and utilizes 90% renewable grid power, aligning with Oracle's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals.

Huawei has launched its ICT Competition 2025/2026 Regional Final Bootcamp Training in Kenya, selecting 21 students from nearly 3,000 applicants from universities and TVET institutions. This initiative aims to equip Kenyan youth with advanced digital skills and prepare them for global competition.

• A total of 21 students, including 3 from TVET institutions and 18 from universities, were selected for the bootcamp.
• The State Department for Technical Vocational Education and Training (SDTVET) and Huawei entered a three-year partnership (2025–2028) to enhance digital skills.
• Huawei plans to establish 150 ICT Academies in TVET institutions and certify 1,000 students annually at the HCIA level.
• Ms. Lucy Anampiu, Principal of PC Kinyanjui Technical Training Institute, highlighted the significant milestone of PC Kinyanjui's first-time representation.
• Top-performing teams from Kenya will compete against over 62 teams from 15 countries in the Regional Final, with the chance to advance to the Global Final in China in June 2026.

Binance has launched a new "Safety Campaign" in Kenya, aiming to connect road safety practices with digital asset protection. The initiative, unveiled in Nairobi during Data Privacy Week, targets prominent communities like boda boda riders.

• Binance distributed safety helmets and reflective gear to boda boda riders.
• Saruni Maina, Regional Operations Lead, Binance Africa, emphasized that Binance's secure platform allows individuals to control their financial future.
• Calvince Okumu, President of the Digital Boda Drivers and Deliveries Association of Kenya, highlighted the campaign's practical and symbolic impact on rider safety.