P.O. Box 56046 – 00100 GPO, Nairobi, Kenya. Email : iddsalim@symbiotic.co.

ke
Cell : +254 711 444 224

Idd Salim Kithinji

Objective To work as a team leader or as a part of a development

team in a challenging and competitive environment in
developing state-of-the art software to the satisfaction of
consumers and clients.

Professional Jun2001 – Dec2001 Turnkey Africa LTD Nairobi, Kenya.

Software 6 Months Programmer Contract
Development
Actively participated as a contracted programmer in the
Experience design, programming and eventual deployment of an Insurance
system for the AON Minet Insurance Company Kenya Limited.

Was assigned sole responsibility for the design, implementation
and client site installation/support of a web based Customer
Relations and Management System running in Visual Basic COM
objects and Microsoft SQL Server 7.0.

Jan2002 – Aug2002 ISP Kenya LTD Nairobi, Kenya.

SQL Server DBA & Linux Admin & Programming

Monitored and administered the mission critical and very
sensitive customers billing system serving about 3000 clients
running on Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and IIS 5.0 (ASP 3.0).

Security Audit for the Internal, external and affiliate Windows,
RedHat Linux and Solaris Servers.

Maintenance of Company Websites (www.mailafrica.net and
www.ispkenya.com) running on PHP and MySQL Database
Server Back Ends.

Responsible for the Administration, troubleshooting and
maintenance of the Company Mail Servers serving 8000
subscribers.

Administration and maintenance of the company’s Web
Servers with 1200 registered and working domains.

Programming towards and research on new solutions and
improvements on existing company services and solutions so as
to ease the management of the existing data and resources.

Aug2002 – Apr2003 Mercury Technologies LTD Nairobi, Kenya.

Linux Systems Admin, DBA & Chief Programmer

Security Audit for the Internal, external and affiliate RedHat
 Linux Servers.

Management of the internal Media Monitoring applications
and equipments for monitoring clients’ advertisements on all the
local radio stations and reporting to the clients via email and
web-reporting interface.

Administration of the Local users’ system and Mail Accounts,

Installation and configuration of new Linux boxes and
supporting system services.

Coming up with new original strategies for data back-ups and
general system resource maximization.

Played the chief programmer role in the automation of the
advertisements monitoring and reporting system. The final system
was able to ‘listen’ to live radio streams from soundcards to
detect client advertisements and report them to the clients’ web
interface without any user intervention.

Apr2003 – Sep2003 myJobsEye.com LTD Nairobi, Kenya.

Contractual Linux Systems Programmer

Administration of the Local users’ system and Mail Accounts,
Installation and configuration of new Linux boxes and supporting
system services.

Coming up with new original strategies for data replication
between the Kenyan and Amsterdam Servers and general
system resource maximization.

Security Audit for the Internal, external and affiliate RedHat
Linux Servers.

Liaising with other developers in India to build and polish up the
site, www.myjobseye.com.

Developed a mass SMS engine to enable the company and
the website interact with the jobseekers and employers since
www.myjobseye.com is a recruitment website.

Oct2003 – Apr2004 KenGeeks Systems Nairobi, Kenya.

Desktop Systems Programmer

Worked in partnership as a Programmer on a Windows
environment to develop:

A Gym Management System,

A Calls management System,

A Video Library System,

A customized School management System (For Starehe Boys’
Center, Nairobi),

An Apartments Management System.

A Point of Sale System.
Apr2004 – Oct2006 SimpleSoft Systems LTD Kampala, Uganda.
CEO, Chief Programmer
The need for new challenges and for a change from desktop
systems to web-based and mobile-based applications made me
go freelance and go to Kampala, Uganda. I met with some other
Kenyan coders and registered a company, SimpleSoft Systems (U)
LTD (SSS). SSS has had great success over the period, the top 3
being :

DFCU Bank – SSS implemented a Network Management and

Monitoring system (SimpleAdmin) to monitor the Routers, Servers,
ATMs and UPSs and alert admins on errors and downtimes. The
system has a remote SMS administration interface that allows
DFCU IT staff to issue commands that manipulate, configure or
even reboot the machines via SMS from anywhere. The system
gives DFCU Bank risk reports and network performance reports of
servers, hard disks space and network traffic and bandwidth
utilization. The system was made using VB6SP6, SQL Server 2005
and Crystal Reports 11.

DFCU Limited – Based on the success of the SimpleAdmin
Project, DFCU Limited contracted SSS to design and implement
a Web Based system to manage the Legal Processes involved at
DFCU Limited to manage client Contracts for Loans, Mortgages,
POA and about 25 other contract types. The system saves
contract details, client details etc on an online database and
they can be easily retrieved by authenticated users or admins.
The System was made using PHP5 and MySQL 5.

UgandaDates™ Dating Website – SSS designed a website to
offer FREE and unlimited dating to Ugandans. The system is multi-
user and has all the features of a dating website and
demonstrates our ability to develop a system that can handle
multiple user requests simultaneously. The system was made in
PHP5 and MySQL 5.

Oct2006 – To Date SoftBase Technologies Nairobi, Kenya.

Partner, Chief Web/SMS Programming Consultant – Part-time
SoftBase Technologies (SBT) partnered with SSS to form a
formidable team to acquire a combined 47 years of experience in
client satisfaction, mission-critical application development and
adherence to professional ethics. SBT and SSS merged into the
current SBT in March 2007. So far we have accomplished the
following client projects.

Standard Investment Bank, Nairobi – Due to their expansion
from Hazina Towers Branch to another Branch at ICEA, SIB
needed a well configured network that will streamline access to
their core Stock Brokerage system, Emails, File Servers and
Windows Servers for DNS, DHCP and logon services. The idea
was to make sure that users in any branch accessed the same
network resources at the same speed and reliability. We also
 configured a Cisco and a Linux Firewall for network security.

Enhanced Stock Brokerage Information System (SBIS) – The
Desktop Based SBIS has been enhanced to also allow investors
buy and sell shares over the Web, SMS and even Emails direct to
the system without user intervention. This has the benefit of
unprecedented convenience and accessibility to the investor
and reduced queues at Broker’s Sites.

Oct2007 – To Date Symbiotic Media Consortium Nairobi, Kenya.

Partner, Chief Technical Officer/Chief Programmer – Full-time

Symbiotic Media Consortium is a vibrant Mobile applications

development house with a passion for innovation. I joined Symbiotic
as a partner because of the promise of a perfect synergy to develop
social and business applications with commercial values.

We have developed our own SMS gateway and can currently send a
minimum of 400 SMSes per second to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania,
Rwanda, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and Burundi. We also have
collocated servers capable of running any web/sms based
application/campaign.

A quick-10 among the projects/products we have undertaken are :

• Sembuse.com : This is a messaging and content portal (

available at www.sembuse.com )that enables anyone with
any Java device on any mobile network in any country
communicate at one FLAT rate. The system supports SMS
messaging and our proprietary Sembuse Messages.

• Zunguka.com : This is a mobile and web portal ( available at

www.zunguka.com ) that enhances the social, professional
and personal life of the subscribers. We have a host of
products e.g. SMSoko (buy and sell anything from your phone
via SMS), TumaSMS (Send cheap Corporate/Personal SMS),
Tarazaki/ Sync (Backup your mobile phone data with us) etc.

• Equity Bank: During the Safaricom IPO, we developed an alert

module for Equity Bank to make clients know when (and how
much of) the Safaricom shares they applied have been
bought and cleared. We moved over 300, 000 SMSes during
the IPO period.

• Standard Investment Bank (1): Symbiotic has resources

working in-house at SIB and we have helped secure their
internal broking procedures. We have put in controls such that
management gets notified via Email and SMS when activities
e.g. Clients Details change, Postage or Withdrawal of money
of a certain value etc.

• Standard Investment Bank (2): We also have SMS-enabled

their in-house brokerage system and (launching soon) clients
 can get alerts when their orders clear, make orders, view SMS
tatements, Stop Orders etc.

• PadrePension Uganda: We have developed a fully-functional

pension system that avails pension data for contributors for
PadrePension Uganda. Through a simple SMS, a client can
know how much their contribution is worth, how much they
will be worth in x years, how much pay-rise they need to get
for their salary to reach amount X in X years etc. –
http://pension.padrepiosystems.com/ .

• Royal Media Services : Our foresight and ability to

commercialize even corporate websites saw us win the bid to
create the website for RMS. The website covers all the 11
Radio Stations and Citizen TV. The beta version is available at
http://rms.zunguka.com/ .

• Transparency International : In the run up to the general

elections, Transparency International needed a solution to
reach targeted demographic with positive messages built
around exercising one's right to vote. The messaging solution
enabled the target demographic to be reached in language
and lingo they understood best.

• ATM Finder Service - Nigeria : We designed an ATM location

finder service for a client, FanFad Nigeria Limited. The system
gave a user a list of all ATMs in a certain street or locality.

• Kenya ID Card/Passport Find Service : We have demonstrated

this system to the Minister of Immigration, Hon Otieno
Kajwang’. The system stores data of all lost and reported IDs
and the owner is instructed where to collect it via SMS.

• Chulaimbo Aids Initiative : This was an SMS based service

(running off TumaSMS on Zunguka) that would send SMS alerts
to HIV patients in multiple-languages to remind them take
ARVs, go for clinics and group meetings etc.

Education 1997–2000 Starehe Boys’ Center. Nairobi, Kenya

IT And Academics

Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education. Mean Grade of ‘B’
Plain.

Schools’ Student Network Administrator responsible for Novell
3.12 and Windows NT 4.0 Network of at least 30 Computers and
600 sensitive students’ and teachers’ accounts.

Network course tutor for the year 2000.

All IT knowledge and prowess has come with experience, working

with real people in real working environments and a lot of
research, reading and practice. I also actively participate in Linux
 system administration and Programming seminars with a group of
nationwide and internationally reputed system administrators and
programmers.

Systems Setup and Administration

Qualified, Credited and certifiable System Administrator for:
Summary of IT
RedHat Linux 7.2/8.0/9.0 Servers.
Qualifications

FreeBSD 7.1 Servers.

Windows 2003/2008 (DNS, DHCP, Active Directory).

SMTP Servers (Postfix MTA).

POP/IMAP Servers (Courier-Imap Server).

Apache Web Servers (Commercial and personal Hosting Servers
and Intranets).

Samba Server

DNS and BIND 9.3 Servers

File Servers (NFS)

Security Administrator and Consultant

BSD Firewall Administrator.

Netfilter (Linux IpTables) Firewall Administrator.

Network Penetration Testing (Windows, Unix, Linux, Routers).

Desktop/SMS Applications Programmer

Proficiency in Microsoft Visual Basic 6 SP6.

Back-end of SQL Server 2005 or MySQL 5.

Web/WAP Applications Programmer

Proficiency in PHP 5.2

Proficiency in ASP.

Elementary Perl 6, Ruby 1.8.4 and Python 2.4.

Database Administration

Proficiency in Managing SQL Server 2005.

Proficiency in Managing MySQL Server 5.

Proficient user of all Microsoft Office 2000 packages, all versions of

Microsoft Windows™ and RedHat Linux™. Security analyst trained
to detect systems intrusion attempts, possibilities and vulnerabilities. I
work for some clients as a standby security consultant for to
periodically test “how hack-able” their new and/or old servers are.
 Internet Research, Table Tennis, Soccer and Pool (Uganda
Interests
National Pool League).

References Mr. Fred Magala,

Head of IT, DFCU Bank
Kampala, Uganda.
fmagala@dfcugroup.com

Mr. Hillary Ruto Kimutai,

IT Manager, Alexander Forbes,
Kampala, Uganda.
ruto@liberty.co.ug

Mr. Donald Wangunyu,

Director, CEO, Standard Stock Brokers,
Nairobi, Kenya.
0712 230 668
dwangunyu@standardstocks.com