@NestleESAR Gives #Chocolate Lovers Access to #TheGoodLife @KitKatSA @AeroSouthAfrica @BarOne_SA

Hi Friends, 

Nestlé is back with more tasty treats for chocolate lovers, after last year’s Taste the Good Life Campaign. This year, it launched the Good Life Grand Giveaway on Friday the 1st of March at a trendy rooftop venue, The Roof in Fourways, Sandton.

The Good Life Grand Giveaway campaign is a key focus for the confectionary following the success of the Taste the Good Life Campaign. The main aim of the campaign is to reward loyal Nestlé Chocolate consumers and unlock amazing experiences that they truly deserve.

The Good Life Grand Giveaway is one of Nestlé South Africa’s biggest campaign offering, consumers a chance to win exciting prizes worth a Million Rand in cash and lifestyle prizes including Sorbert, Zando, Takealot, Uber and Airtime Vouchers. All this through purchasing their favorite Nestlé chocolate brand which includes Aero, Bar One, Kit Kat, Milkybar Smarties.

The launch event saw some of the top content curators such as Tshepi Vundla, Melody Molale, and MC for the day the lovely Mbali Nkosi in attendance. Guests were treated to delectable and very content worthy dishes inspired by Nestlé chocolates.

The Good Life Grand Giveaway kicks off earlier this year and will run from the 1st of March until the 31stof July. 

“We encourage our consumers to get themselves one of the yummy treats we have to offer for a chance to win some of the exciting prizes we have to offer. With a wide range of chocolates on offer there definitely is a treat for everyone and you get to walk away with amazing prizes what more could one ask for” said Ayanda MacKay, Marketing Manager of Assortments and Slabs at Nestlé South Africa.

The Good Life Grand Giveaway competition is all about giving Nestlé chocolate lovers access to the good life, this is done through awesome lifestyle and cash giveaways to the value of 3.5 million. The competition will run from 1st March – 31st July.

Luckily, I was also part of the amazing launch event! Thanks a lot! #AashishRaiJain #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra

“ Year on year, we see immense growth in the sales figures of our chocolates and this can only mean that our consumers enjoy and engage with our brands. So we hope that in 2019, they continue to support us,” – adds Mackay.

Entering is quite easy, all that one has to do is to SMS the last four digits of their barcode to *120*52070# and you could be a lucky winner.

Cheers!!!

Contact me at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate on your products, events, and services. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra!

#KCA #ZoëLife @Qualcomm Launch #KidzAlive App to Enhance Pediatric HIV Prevention & Treatment #WhenIGrowUp

Hi Friends, 

Keep A Child Alive and Zoë-Life, in collaboration with the Qualcomm® Wireless Reach™ Initiative, today launched the KidzAlive Talk Tool App, an innovative mobile health solution that equips healthcare workers to provide age-appropriate HIV education to children and adolescents, as well as their primary caregivers.

Great strides have been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS globally, and while this is particularly true among adults in South Africa, social and structural barriers are leaving children and adolescence behind. Primary caregivers fear to get their children tested because of the possibility of having to disclose an HIV-positive result and the stigma of living with HIV. Healthcare workers are often overwhelmed by the difficult task of talking to young children who are at risk and who require counseling and testing - they express a lack of confidence in how to approach these conversations and often do not have child-friendly job aids to assist in the process.

Innovated by Zoë-Life, the KidzAlive Talk Tool App provides healthcare workers with the support they need to interact with children and their caregivers in an age-appropriate way. Healthcare workers use the app to engage children in the animated journey of a frog named Sibusiso as he goes for HIV testing, learns his positive status and comes to understand the importance of adhering to his treatment.

The app has built-in prompts to assist healthcare workers in guiding children through their own journey of HIV testing, learning their test results, overcoming stigma and learning about prevention and healthy living. The app, which is currently available in three languages, includes interactive games which keep the children focused and engaged and increases their retention of information.

“The KidzAlive Talk Tool App demonstrates a creative and effective way to use mobile technology to improve health services and involve communities in HIV prevention and treatment,” says Antonio Ruiz-Giménez, Jr., Executive Chairman, and CEO, at Keep A Child Alive. “We are very excited about partnering with Qualcomm Wireless Reach on this project.”

In a recent pilot study of the KidzAlive Talk Tool App, 33 healthcare workers at private- and government-healthcare facilities in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal trialed the app following in-depth training. “After their training, healthcare workers experienced a 62 percent increase in confidence and competence in providing age-appropriate counseling and care for HIV-exposed and -infected children,” says Dr. Stephanie Thomas, Executive Director, at Zoë-Life. “Primary caregivers participating in the pilot study were more willing to give consent for their children to receive HIV testing and counseling.”

“At Qualcomm, we believe that advanced mobile technologies have a great role to play in improving access to healthcare services, lowering costs and increasing efficiencies,” says Elizabeth Migwalla, Senior Director of Government Affairs for Africa and the Middle East, Qualcomm International, Inc. “We are proud to collaborate with Zoë-Life and Keep A Child Alive to extend South Africa’s AIDS response to its most vulnerable populations and support the nation’s children in leading healthy lives.”

Zoë-Life is a non-profit organization which believes that unlocking a resilient future for the continent lies in bringing wholeness to its children and youth. To this end, its work revolves around forging pathways to a hopefully future by collectively raising a generation of healthy, productive and fulfilled individuals. The mission of their KidzAlive programme is to bring peace and comfort to children with chronic diseases and to free them from stigma and fear. Zoë-Life is the sub-grantee of Keep A Child Alive, founded in 2003 by AIDS activist Leigh Blake and Grammy Award-winner Alicia Keys to get life-saving medication to children dying of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

About Qualcomm

Qualcomm invents breakthrough technologies that transform how the world connects, computes and communicates. When we connected the phone to the Internet, the mobile revolution was born. Today, our inventions are the foundation for life-changing products, experiences, and industries. As we lead the world to 5G, we envision this next big change in cellular technology spurring a new era of intelligent, connected devices and enabling new opportunities in connected cars, remote delivery of health care services, and the IoT — including smart cities, smart homes, and wearables. Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, all of our engineering, research and development functions, and all of our products and services businesses, including, the QCT semiconductor business. For more information, visit Qualcomm’s website, OnQ blog, Twitter and Facebook pages.

Qualcomm and Wireless Reach are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries. Wireless Reach is a social responsibility program of Qualcomm Incorporated.

To find out more about how Qualcomm and its collaborators are using mobile technology to improve social and economic development in underserved communities, visit www.qualcomm.com/wirelessreach.

To learn more about Zoë-Life, visit http://www.zoe-life.co.za/.

To learn more about the KidzAlive programme, visit http://www.kidzalive.co.za/. 

To learn more about Keep A Child Alive, visit http://keepachildalive.org.

Cheers!!!

Contact me at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate on your products, events, and services. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra!

#BankingReImagined: How #HelloPaisa Is Driving Change Through Technology @HelloGroupSA @Sasfin

Hi Friends, 

In South Africa, over 60% of our residents live in informal settlements. This means that a substantial portion of our population cannot open a bank account, cannot deposit their hard-earned cash safely, cannot send or receive EFTs and cannot grow their businesses. It is with this in mind that Hello Paisa, in partnership with Sasfin Bank, has launched a new banking initiative that is set to revolutionize the banking experience in South Africa. They have a single vision: to improve the lives of all South African residents through easily accessible, tech-fuelled solutions.

What is fundamentally unique about Hello Paisa’s tech is that everything - and we mean everything - is built in-house, from the ground up. In fact, the only technology that Hello Group has outsourced to date is from Sasfin, to develop their banking infrastructure. From governance, risk and compliance to user experience development, Hello Paisa is passionate about consistent innovation on the ground to keep ahead of the competition. After all, sustainable and profound change can only be achieved through exceptional software.

According to Shaazim Khamissa, the Chief Technology Officer of Hello Group, it is these insights that set Hello Paisa’s banking solution apart from their competitors. “Because Hello Paisa takes a greenfields approach to technology and we build up all of our structures based on first principles, it makes us far more agile and responsive to our consumer’s needs. We have the rare opportunity to monitor user behavior across a spectrum of services, we have unprecedented insight into what problems our consumers have, and how better we can serve them. Because we work so closely with this data and ultimately have a single view of the customer, we have the opportunity to be both proactive and reactive to execute quick iterations to satisfy their needs.”

As the first company to be authorized as an Independent Money Transfer Operator in South Africa, Hello Paisa is no stranger to pushing the envelope. While this banking solution is a first for the company, Hello Paisa has been in the financial services software development game for the past five years and implemented digital onboarding more than eight years ago. With fourteen years’ experiences under their belt holistically, Hello Paisa have both the expertise and the tenacity to make a difference. Khamissa elaborates, “As a financial solutions provider, our aim is twofold: satisfying our regulators through compliance and satisfying our customers through bleeding edge technology. It may be novel, but this is the level of service demand and expect from any bank. So, we took on the challenge ourselves.” 

In order to meet their customer’s needs, Hello Paisa and Sasfin have tailored their banking solutions by addressing concerns that South African residents have with safety, security, and access to digital banking. Hello Paisa’s solution comprises an adaptable ecosystem of services, including an intuitive mobile app, mobile sim card bank account and a Visa debit card that operates at any ATM or POS device. Based on this ecosystem, Hello endeavors to bundle its offering to suit South African’s needs. 

Nadir Khamissa, founder and CEO of Hello Group, concludes that this collaboration with Sasfin, spurred by technology, will allow Hello Paisa to offer more value to their customers: “For the past fourteen years, Hello Paisa has thrived on the principle of doing well, and doing good. Fundamentally, we are a community company focused on empowering people, and creating a culture of social enterprise in which technology is the catalyst. We have changed lives, through offering our customers a SIM card to call their families, remittance solutions to send money home, and now we embark on the next chapter of offering a bank account to keep their money safe and a debit card to transact - anywhere and everywhere.”

Cheers!!!

Cheers!!! Contact me at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate on your products, events, and services. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra!

11 Years of Service in a Single Organization #TheLifesWayReviews

Hi Friends, 

It's been long 11 years in a single organization for me after my Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in Finance and Banking. It was definitely a dream come true to finally get into the organization which I could not gain entry after my engineering because of my awareness and careless attitude. It took me more than 6 years to get a job which can pay for my past, present and future requirements after Engineering and MBA degree in my hands. This is definitely a road to riches story for me as I started my wages from R20 per day before I started working for this organization. It was not because I was not educated, I was already an Engineer in Electronics and earning R20 a day I was still happy that I was able to wake up and go someplace at a certain time. I am still not rich to afford everything I want or desire but I am able to eat and travel wherever I want within my budget. I am grateful for all the 12 cheques I receive every year from this organization since last 11 years that I have been able to make my lifestyle and build a fortune.

My first month was for the Trainee Program to get into the culture of the organization and learn the specific skills required to work up the Corporate Ladder. The training program was full of new people to become friends with and enjoy the camaraderie among all the new joiners. We will go to a day-long class together, prepare case studies, play in the evening and then have dinner together. It was a culture to learn from them and also make them friends for life. I was given my preferred choice in terms of my career goals and location and soon I was there reporting to the allocation associates. I still remember that from my first salary, I bought myself jeans and a t-shirt as it was the worst purchase ever in my life because of the quality of clothes.

I spent some time on the bench before I could get into my first project as I was waiting for my training to get over in Oracle Apps. Soon I traveled to Kolkata on a business trip to learn the Oracle Apps in a classroom session and that's where I realized the grandeur of my organization. I got transit quarters to stay and was served best of food in the evening. It was there I watched Yuvraaj Singh hit 6 sixes live on TV one evening while enjoying the Air conditioning of the room.

Soon, I was back to projects and was assigned one after another. Some of them were as per my skills and some not. But overall I kept going and learning whatever I could from all the new associates I could meet in my organization and all the bosses I was working under. I did undergo a lot of online training in various topics when I was on the bench while learning Income Tax rules too and trying to save some money out of my junior trainee level salary. After my initial luck in the organization where my dream of drinking tea in a ceramic cup was achieved in a project where we were sitting at the client location and the catering there used to provide us food, tea, snacks, and cold drinks as and when we just call the kitchen. I really enjoyed my 3-4 months in that project before I took leave for my marriage.

After my marriage holidays, I was back on the bench and waited for more than 2 months to join another project and soon I was working day and night setting up myself in the project as well as at home as my wife came back to stay with me after leaving her job in Mumbai. This was the biggest mistake of my life and she could not find any suitable job for the next 2.5 years and my money problems raised instantly. I used to get some money from my brother to take care of all the accessories and special items needed to run the household and he was literally paying for all my credit card purchases. I continued to struggle to pay mines and my wife's education loan and savings was none.

We were blessed with a baby girl and soon after she turned 6 months, my wife got an opportunity to join back in her job profile. It was hectic at first and soon we could find one nanny and soon it felt that life is on track now. Savings wise it was still zero and I tried stock market too with the advice of my father's friend but soon I lost out on that too. As I changed the house from one rented one to another, I was given an opportunity to go to London (Onsite) and work there for six months. That brought another kind of challenge as I had to leave them in India as my wife could not travel and nanny too ran away because of some police checkings at that time (2010).

Being in London was a dream come true, my savings increased with which I could pay my loan off in the next 6 months and during the next 8 I stayed there, I saved for my future house. I bought my first laptop, my first Walkman, my first iPod Dock, my first Sony Handycam and many more things which are still part of my day to day life. I am still using my Dell Laptop XPS today and wants to move to Apple MacBook Pro. The job there also gave me the confidence to work under pressure and with an intelligent client. Meanwhile, I had to come back after 14 months as my wife and daughter were struggling without me.

Once you come back from onsite, the next one will be like you have to stand at the back of the queue and will take you some projects in between. Life was good as you could meet your friends daily and drink the tea at the tapri outside office. India offers a lot of good food and during this time, I enjoyed a lot with family and friends. For me, it took me more than 2 years and two overseas banks (worked at offshore centers) to come to my third one here in Johannesburg, South Africa. Coming here also took a lot of time due to VISA and other requirement but it was worth the wait. I have been working in Johannesburg for the last 5 years with various clients and it's a great experience.

Loyalty with one company doesn't pay you much in terms of salary hikes but it pays in the long terms due to onsite travel where you get additional benefits like extra allowance to sustain your living expense in a foreign country. I have been able to make the best of it all as I never thought about changing my job to any other company. But one day, I too want to work for the Apple's and Google's of the world but only if I am some kind of expert in the area they are looking for the right person and I am able to fit in that puzzle piece.

Cheers!!! Contact me at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate on your products, events, and services. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra!

#TheLifesWayReviews @Xiaomi Mi Home iHealth Thermometer @TheGearbest

Hi Friends, 

Now always you come across stuff you fall in love with but with Xiaomi you will be wondering what this company is made of? Their products are innovative and make your life easy overall. I am not talking about their smartphones but the general home appliances and other gadgets they produce. 

The product I fell in love with was Mi Home iHealth Thermometer to measure your body temperature. It's as easy as just pointing the little device in front of your head and it measures the same almost instantly. If the distance between the head and the device is around 3cm and its switched ON, it will measure your body temperature. 

The best part is that children will not be afraid if you measure them this way using a non-contact infrared thermometer. With the ages-old Mercury thermometer, there is always a risk of breaking and mercury spilling on the ground etc. And also with new Digital thermometers, you need to insert the same in between their armpits or mouth which is very difficult with the kids.

With Xiaomi Mi Home iHealth Thermometer, all your worries are gone! It will measure in Celsius as per your setting and will last you longer as it runs on 2 AAA batteries. The interface is very easy to use as there is only a single button to control the device. The device comes with 2 batteries in the package for using as soon as you receive the same. Pressing the center button once will switch ON the unit and bringing it closer to your head at around 3cm away will pick up your body temperature within a second which is way too faster than many other thermometers. When I checked it against the thermometer in the hospitals, the temperature showcased by this device was 0.5-degree Celsius more in all the cases. Here it's being reproduced for your reference purposes -

To change the measurement unit: 
1) Turn off the device
2) Press and hold the only button on the device until both the C° and F° start blinking
3) Let go of the button, and press it one of two times until only the desired unit starts blinking
4) Press and hold the button once more until the unit stops blinking.
After that, the device will turn off. When you turn it on again, the selected unit will be displayed.

The other problem you will face in the package is the user manual is written in Chinese language but worry not these days all smartphones come with an onscreen translator which can help you read the manual in whatever language you want to. The price of the device is around USD 27-30 and can be easily ordered online. You can buy the same at one of the biggest online shops of GearBest and it will ship the product to you at the nominal charges across the world. I really fell in love with the choice of products they have and will continue to shop from them.

I really was wishing to fall sick so as to test the device when I received the same and was amazed at the wonderful sleek design of thermometer in the white color. Go check your temperature out! 

Cheers!!!
Contact me at thelifesway@gmail.com or editor@thelifesway.com to collaborate on your products, events, and services. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra!