Mashada Blogs » September 4, 2008

Kenyanentrepreneur.com: Kenyan Entrepreneurs: It’s All About The “Internets”

kenyanentrepreneur — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:57:50 -0400

I was perusing the BD Africa Technology section and they’re a whole bunch of companies that are trying to strategically place themselves in the right place in order to take advantage of this high speed cable line that is supposedly coming. Now, I know a lot of Kenyans are still hung up on “old” industries like [...]

Kenyan Pundit: Ushahidi website relaunched and other big news

Ory Okolloh — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:12:46 -0400

So I’ve tinkered in a lot of activism / tree-hugging / save the world type endeavors in the last few (or more) years most of which have not achieved the notoriety of Mzalendo or Ushahidi…largely because I’ve been unable to clone myself, sometimes inertia, and then there’s that pesky problem of paying the bills. [...]

You Missed This: What is Ailing ODM?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:16:00 -0400

William Samoiye Ruto may have made history in 2006 by defying his godfather ex-President Moi while still serving as KANU secretary general to declare that he would be vying for presidency; but this history is something Raila Odinga had done way back in 2001, while Moi was still a serving powerful president, and even went further to persuade reluctant KANU hawks like Kalonzo Musyoka, Joseph Kamotho, William Ole Ntimama, Mody Awori, George Saitoti ,et al to defy Moi and join opposition – five whole years before William Ruto could master any guts.

Sadly for those of us who held the NARC dream dear and are presently holding the ODM dream close to their hearts, the political activities of William Ruto – who was literally assisted into political rehabilitation and continues to be sheltered from powerful foes – are being interpreted in ODM circles as a direct affront to the stability of the party and a threat to the political targets of the millions of party supporters. If these fears are confirmed, then it will be a massive betrayal by one person who was selected to negotiate the national peace accord with PNU on behalf of ODM. Read this link where fearless Gem MP Jakoyo Midiwo makes reference to an unnamed senior cabinet minister undermining ODM.

Whereas ODM democracy encourages fair internal competition amongst members, it is critical that party loyalty is observed given our laws and political circumstances. Unfortunately, emerging information indicates that Ruto’s underground activities are nothing but pure subversion. The fact remains that politicians commonly engage in scheming and strategy so as to retain or win powerful offices. Businesses do the same to remain competitive and any student of management will tell you that “strategy” is a core subject at any level in university. Perhaps because of panic or excitement, Ruto is assuming that strategy and subversion are two similar words.

One myth being peddled around is that William Ruto has now come of age and has set his eyes on the country’s top seat. Ruto is glorified in Kenyan press as being in total control of the expansive Rift Valley vote and that all that is now required is to revive Kamatusa, through an alliance with say Uhuru Kenyatta or Martha Karua and H.E. President William S. Ruto will be made a reality. This is the biggest joke that has now become a thorn in the flesh of ODM.

The last time I heard this myth, ex-president Moi was in ‘total control’ of the same constituency and that the votes in this province would go wherever the elder Moi led them to. To the amazement of many, the 2007 elections shattered the Moi myth to smithereens. This weekend, who-is-who in ODM are retreating to Naivasha to discuss ‘the party constitution’. Those of us in the know are aware party discipline is a major agenda. Additionally, the god-sent political parties act and the forthcoming ODM grassroot elections will be discussed.

If naivety prevails and any politician fail to strategise or scheme poorly, they will most certainly find themselves unceremoniously thrown out of the game.

Through ODM, William Ruto made an unsuccessful bid for the presidential ticket last year where he was beaten to a distant third behind second placed Musalia Mudavadi and unanimous winner Raila Odinga. That was despite the usual misinformed predictions that Raila would be given a run for his money by Ruto who was then purportedly controlling more delegates by virtue of being the Rift Valley candidate. You and I know Raila made mince meat of the Ruto myth in Kasarani historic primaries, but was then kind enough to extend a third critical lifeline by creating and drafting Ruto as a senior member of one of the most exciting and most prestigious political politburos ever witnessed since the NARC summit – the ODM PENTAGON. The first lifeline was when Ruto had to be guided into freely declaring his interest in the presidency when he was still serving as KANU SG amidst Moi’s massive shadow, while the second was when predicable Kalonzo puppets Maanzo and Chepkonga took off with ODM-K party certificate leaving many a naked souls less than six months to the general elections and no one knew where to take cover until Raila came to the rescue with his ODM scoop – a party whose ticket Ruto and many Rift Valley MPs were re-elected back to parliament and appointed to cabinet by Raila!

It will therefore come as a great surprise to many that William Ruto is the man being fingered to be behind the rebellion gripping the ODM. It is an open secret that Ruto has been unable to tame his ambition and has since January 2008, been spoiling for a political duel with DPM Musalia Mudavadi so as to upstage him as deputy captain and in the process place himself in a strategic position to, at most, run for president in the next elections or, at worst, land the PM’s seat.

But what is really driving Arap Ruto’s ambition? Is it qualification, self-belief, or the huge Rift Valley vote basket that he supposedly controls? Is it a bold attempt to keep Y2K mega-deals buried or maybe it is the fear of having to be made answerable for involvement in post election violence? Perhaps it is an attempt to keep the existing court process at arm’s length? Only time (read-elections) will tell.

If one asks Musakari Kombo, Raphael Tuju, Simeon Nyachae, Shem Ochuodho, Njenga Karume, Mukhisa Kituyi, Kalembe Ndile, Daniel arap Moi, or even Mwai Kibaki himself; poor political scheming and strategizing does have serious pitfalls. If it is intended to serve one’s individual interests without causing injury, harm or violence to others or the country, then it is all well and good. This is normally treated as acceptable behaviour that is within political ethics. But scheming to secure personal political advantages through the use of diabolical schemes such as violence, betrayal, infiltration and backstabbing is as destructive and diseased as the minds that conceptualize them. Remember gentlemen and ladies, just a few months after being sworn in, ODM – the people’s party – has already lost the lives of four sitting MPs through violence and accident(s) that so far remain unresolved.

bankelele: Stolen Crown

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:37:00 -0400

Stolen Crown

Kikuyumoja's realm: Bauchentscheidungen

jke — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:34:55 -0400

Wann weiß man(n) eigentlich, wann man die Richtige (Lebensabschnittsgefährtin) gefunden hat?

Wird das dann irgendwo angezeigt oder bekommt man es gesagt?

Neulich stand ich in einem Laden und sah eine sehr schöne Lederjacke. “Boah, die isset…”, dachte ich mir, “…aber der Preis…naa…kann ich mir nicht wirklich leisten”. Angezogen sah sie aber wirklich gut aus und war genau (!) das wonach ich geschaut hatte.

1 Woche später habe ich sie mir dann gekauft und bin seitdem glücklich damit.

Geht das auch so leicht mit Beziehungen? Wann weiß man, ob es die richtige Partnerin ist? Wenn man sie mit den Exen vergleicht? Oder mit der erstellten Liste der Traumfraumerkmale? Und was ist mit den christlichen Freunden, die irgendwie alle schon so (gefühlt)vorzeitig heiraten? Haben die ihre Wahl jemals bereut?

Not that I haven’t made up my mind on this. Ich glaube aber im Leben eines Mannes gibt es diese “George Clooney-ich-will-mich-nicht-festlegen” Momente. Ob das gut ist? Keine Ahnung.

Die Erkenntnis jedoch, dass man mit einer Person wirklich bis zum Ende zusammen sein und alles teilen möchte - das ist meiner Meinung nach genauso wichtig wie über evtl. Zweifel zu diskutieren. Daher die Frage: inweit darf, kann oder muss eine Entscheidung zur Partnerschaft eine Bauchentscheidung sein?

Oder anders gefragt: welcher Maßstab muss zur Beurteilung des eigenen Befindlichkeitzustandes angelegt werden? - Wie weiß man, wann es einem gut geht?

The Benin Epilogue Part I: Africa-Ready for Business: An Escalation of the War in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a Very Bad Policy.

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:12:00 -0400

The U.S. practices selective proliferation with India , and selective sovereignty with those it chooses (today Pakistan , tomorrow someone other than Pakistan ), while at the same time violating the sovereignty of other states- depending on its whim at the time. If he becomes the next US president (God Forbid), John McCain has vowed to stay put in Iraq to bring more misery to the Iraqis . On the other hand, the Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama has elaborated a pull out plan but says he will send more US soldiers into Afghanistan.

The extension of the war on terror by the U.S. is bad for a number of reasons: the perspective of the international Muslim community; the fact that a military solution has not worked thus far, so why keep kicking a dead horse ; the delicate balance of power in the immediate theatre and in the broader region; the likely negative reaction of other states; and last but not least, its potential impact on the price and availability of oil. Have you ever thought What would happen should the US find itself at war with the entire world...READ MORE

White African: Ushahidi Funding and a New Website!

HASH — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:33:29 -0400

Most of June I spent in Kenya, much of that time talking to developers and getting ready for the next big Ushahidi push. During that time there was a new article about Ushahidi being one of the “Ten Startups to Watch” in the Technology Review, which was exciting for us to say the least!

July and August have been spent working hard on getting the application rebuilt, the site redesigned and creating partnerships with other organizations. September is about launching the NEW Ushahidi.

A New Website

Now we’re off and running with a new website design, live today, that shows how our goals and focus have changed since things blew up in Kenya. (get a new Ushahidi button for your site.)

Funding

I’m very happy to announce that we’ve secured more than the $25,000 prize money from NetSquared (which has allowed us to do so much already). We have also just secured a grant of $200,000 from Humanity United!

Humanity United is an independent grantmaking organization committed to building a world where modern-day slavery and mass atrocities are no longer possible. They support efforts that empower affected communities and address the root causes of conflict and modern-day slavery to build lasting peace.

There is an obvious fit between Humanity United and Ushahidi, after all, we were founded on the same beliefs back in January in Kenya. Though we’re creating the Ushahidi engine as an open source project, our goal remains to see it used to better understand, give warning of, and recover from mass atrocities.

The Vision

Ushahidi is moving from being a one-time mashup covering the post-election violence in Kenya to something bigger. We are setting out to create an engine that will allow anyone to do what we did. A free and open source tool that will help in the crowdsourcing of information - with our personal focus on crisis and early warning information.

We see this tool being used in two ways:

First, to crowdsource crisis information by creating an online space that allows “everyday” people all over the world to report what they see during a crisis situation, and whose reports are generally overlooked or under reported by most media and governments.
Second, make that software engine free and available to the world, so that others can benefit from a tool that allows distributed data gathering and data visualizations.

We’re aiming to release an alpha version of it in just a few weeks for internal testing, and for alpha testing with pre-screened pilot organizations.

Volunteer Devs, Designers and Others

One of the reasons Ory and I were in Kenya was to talk to developers about helping with Ushahidi. We were overwhelmed with the amount of interest and the quality of the people who stepped up. So far we have a team working on mobile phones, a designers group, and a number of PHP experts. Go ahead and take a look at the development wiki as well.

If you’d like to play a part, get in touch and we’ll see where you can best fit in. You don’t have to be a developer or designer either.

[Credits: Richard “Ochie” Flores for the excellent design, Kwame Nyong’o for the beautiful illustrations, and Ivan Bernat for the spotless HTML/CSS markup.)

Press Release: Ushahidi Funding & New Website (PDF)

AfriGadget: Farming innovations in a slum

Paula — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:35:04 -0400

Kibera from space

Google Earth is one way to appreciate the crush in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. Not surprisingly popular images of people living in desperate conditions aren’t far from the truth when it comes to this corner of Nairobi - but out of the madness comes a little hope.

Raw sewage flows above ground

I witnessed some amazing innovations in Kibera and conclude that people have adjusted to their situation and are making the most of it. Because of the stress associated with limitations on land, energy, water, and food the people have found innovative ways of surviving. This post is mainly about farming.

Vertical farming

like this guy and his vertical garden which feeds his family and he even sells some produce. It’s a variation on what JKE wrote about in the post on Keyhole gardens in Botswana.

Like the key hole garden of Swaziland, this veggie patch serves a family on a tiny piece of land

Finding land in rubbish

Now a local organic farming company Green Dreams has been documenting the progress of transforming a garbage dump to an organic farm on the Green Dreams blog. They are working with a local youth group comprising reformed criminals in converting garbage into organic manure, and garbage dumps into organic farms.

Before the clean up and farming

Clearing land of garbage

installing irrigation

Irrigation taps the mains water and supplies nutrient rich feeds from organic fertilizer produced on the site from crops and worms, yes they harvested local earthworms to start vermiculture.

Worm farm - just a tray with kitchen wastes feeds a bunch of earthworms that produce organic liquid manure

Planting seedlings, cleared waste is bundled under shade cloth and planted with pumpkin to create a green soil erosion barrier

Check out the planting implements, a PVC Pipe adapted to deliver seeds into a perfectly dug hole! This was invented to help with the back breaking work of planting.

Scarecrow

Garbage dump transformed this is the Kibera organic farm - 3 months after clearing the dump

After 3 months the community of 30 families were harvesting, eating and selling organic produce. Yum! Impossible to ignore how a dirty dump turned green, everyone wants a farm in Kibera now. This group is now selling their expertise to raise funds and help others.

Natural Bean Tenderizer

There was a smouldering fire where banana leaves were being reduced to ash, then the ash dissolved in water and the brown murky astringent solution sold for Ksh 50 ($.80) per 250 ml in vodka bottles! This is a bean tenderizer reducing the time to boil red kidney beans by 50%! Imagine the savings on charcoal/fuel.

Safe Dispensing of Fuel

Kerosene is dispensed from a caged petrol pump for security

Notice that there was no protection around the farm or it’s equipment. Apparently the reputation of these ‘reformed criminals’ is enough of a deterrent.

Kids in Kibera

Life might be hard in Kibera but yet when you visit you can’t ignore the vibrancy, colorfulness, camaraderie amongst the inhabitants it was one time that I got the feeling that people here love life

Black Looks: Quick Links

Sokari — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:34:01 -0400

South Africa is the only safe zone in Africa for LGBTI but how welcome are asylum seekers? SA IS one of only seven countries in the world that grants refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation. But people seeking that relief are battling as much as other refugees in the country. Asylum in Greece Campaign [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Quick Links", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/09/quick_links-12.html" });

Black Looks: Police brutality matters

Sokari — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:10:21 -0400

La Chola reminds us reminds us (just in case we’ve forgotten) “Why that police brutality stuff matters” I think that for violence against women to end, violence on all levels must be questioned, challenged and interrogated–violence on all levels regardless of who is committing it, must stop making sense. Police brutality at protest events matter because [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Police brutality matters", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/09/police_brutality_matters.html" });