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20:27
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Gregg Zachary happened by Barcamp Nairobi last month and had a chance to meet with a few of the techies who were lingering around after the event. Conversations from that night spurred his article today in the New York Times titled, “Inside Nairobi, the Next Palo Alto?“.
It’s a good read on why Kenya, even after the violence in January and February, is still a tech hub in Africa. Between Skunkworks, Google Kenya and an active (and creative) coding community you have the makings of a great place to do web and mobile development in Africa.
Here’s the excerpt on Wilfred, who is building the Ushahidi iPhone application. He’s also using my old MacBook Pro and, assuming everything goes right, he’ll have an iPhone to play with later on this year. 
“Consider Wilfred Mworia, a 22-year-old engineering student and freelance code writer in Nairobi, Kenya. In the four weeks leading up to Apple’s much-anticipated release of a new iPhone on July 11, Mr. Mworia created an application for the phone that shows where events in Nairobi are happening and allows people to add details about them.
Mr. Mworia’s desire to develop an application for the iPhone is not unusual: many designers around the world are writing programs for the device. But his location posed some daunting obstacles: the iPhone doesn’t work in Nairobi, and Mr. Mworia doesn’t even own one. He wrote his program on an iPhone simulator.
“Even if I don’t have an iPhone,” Mr. Mworia says defiantly, “I can still have a world market for my work.”
It’s really good to see the Kenyan tech community get this high profile piece. Riyaz, Josiah and Eric have been the steady center-pieces of the growing Skunkworks crowd. Chris and Joe are doing great things at Google Kenya.
Oh, and Nairobi is a small town after all… Most don’t know that Josiah (Skunkworks) and Chris (Google Kenya) are old classmates from Starehe. A lot of old connections just like that tend to be the glue that keeps everything together.
 
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19:31
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Ruud Elmendorp is a well-known freelance videographer in East Africa, and someone I have been meaning to meet-up with while there. Last month while in Nairobi we finally got to link up for a coffee and discuss a little about his business and the kinds of stories he does. When you get a chance to talk to someone who has interviewed the infamous Joseph Kony in person, you don’t pass it up!
Interestingly enough, six years ago he decided to just pick up and move to Kenya to begin his business. It came after having done some work in Southern Sudan, and at a time when life beckoned for him to leave the Netherlands behind. It’s how a lot of first-timers get to Africa, for some it sticks and they thrive, others it breaks them.
Of course, we got started talking about equipment, me showing my little Sanyo Xacti vpc-E1 (an ultra-small waterproof video camera), and I swear I saw a little drool escape him at that point… It’s good to know he’s another gadget-head, and was neat to see how he used his mobile phone for a lot of his work (Nokia E-51).
A Video by Ruud
Here’s a recent video showing MTN’s Village Phone Project in Uganda:
‘I never expected to start a business.’ The 49-years-old Nakakande Uvumba got herself a Village Phone, where people can make cheap phone calls. 15,000 others in Uganda have a new future.
Interesting Facts
Ruud is the national correspondent for RTL (Netherlands) and a regular field correspondent for Rocketboom. He also runs the booming Facebook Videojournalist group.
One of these days I’ll be able to afford Ruud doing an AfriGadget documentary. Until then, I’ll enjoy his videos - doing stories that are interesting and always compelling.
Note: the funny picture above was taken using the Xacti video camera’s still image capture (6 Megapixel). Needless to say, Ruud wasn’t quite ready for it…
(hat tip to James Neal for jogging my memory on this story)
 
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17:10
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Worldclass Brand Monitoring Service from South Africa
South African marketing firm Quirk has launched a new brand monitoring service called BrandsEye. Global firms like Ogilvy, Standard Bank and the South African Tourism Board are already using it. I’ve yet to try it out, but Quirk is a solid company, and they have good companies already using it, so that’s promising.
Custom/Premium WordPress Themes out of South Africa
I’m a big fan of WordPress and all the customization and businesses that can grow out of it. A couple South African guys have been working in this space for a while, and have a great premium (meaning you pay money for them) themes offered at the new website WooThemes. (Adii, Mark, Magnus and Elliot have a great eye for detail, a boatload of experience with WordPress, and continue to impress on the international level.)
Google Launches an Africa Blog
Joe, head of Google Kenya, launched the Google Africa Blog last week. I’m sure all of us will be watching it with interest. No comments allowed though, which is kind of lame.
 
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8:04
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Last week I talked about Google’s Global Cache, and how they will be housing this new project at Internet Exchange Points (IXP). A quote from Wikipedia’s definition explains the importance of IXPs best.
“The primary purpose of an IXP is to allow networks to interconnect directly, via the exchange, rather than through one or more 3rd party networks. The advantages of the direct interconnection are numerous, but the primary reasons are cost, latency, and bandwidth. Traffic passing through an exchange is typically not billed by any party, whereas traffic to an ISP’s upstream provider is.”
There are 18 IXPs in Africa in 15 countries (I stated 17 last week). A map of those countries is below (click on it to be taken to the interactive version):
Most of these are found in the capital of the country, but not always. For instance, iBiX is located in Ibadan, Nigeria not Abuja and Tanzania has two IXPs, one in Arusha and one in Dar es Salaam.
In list form, they are:
- Angola: IXP-ang
- Botswana: BINX
- Cote D’Ivoire: CI-IXP
- Dem. Rep. of Congo: KINIX
- Egypt: CR-IX and GPX
- Ghana: GIX
- Kenya: KIXP
- Nigeria: iBiX
- Mozambique: Moz-ix
- Rwanda: RINEX
- South Africa: JINX and GINX
- Swaziland: SZIXP
- Tanzania: TIX and AIXP
- Uganda: UiXP
- Zimbabwe: ZINX
There seems to be a definite advantage to having an IXP located in your country. Why then do so many African countries not have one? From my understanding, it isn’t cost prohibitive to create an IXP or to maintain it. Why would so many African nations, who all have local ISPs, not have a local IXP?
[Update: Michuki Mwangi, one of the godfather's of Kenyan tech (I believe he's responsible for getting Kenya's TLD: yourdomain.co.ke), responded with the following answers to my question.]
“Most of the reasons that countries dont have IXPs are non-technical and are either policy or politics. For instance in Senegal, Sonatel the Senegalese Telco operates in a monopolistic environment. There are almost no ISPs that exist there and those that do just resell ADSL links for the telco. In such a case, they own no infrastructure or services outside what the telco provides. Therefore, there’s been no need/demand for such. A similar case exists in Ethiopia.
In other countries like Nigeria, its getting the players to agree and look beyond the mistrust and competitive advantages that others have to form one. That takes a while.
In other countries its purely a regulatory policy issue that does not permit the existence of an IXP - its as a way of protecting the incumbent telco’s.”
If you are interested in finding out more about Africa’s IXPs, here are some resources:
AfrISPA - African Internet Server Provider Association
AfNOG - African Network Operators Group
EP.net - Africa - List of African IXPs with links
Packet Clearing House (PCH) - for information, statistics and locations
AfriNIC - African Internet Numbers Registry IP Addresses (IPv6)
 
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19:29
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Over the last couple of months I have been in the process of moving from my consultant position to working full-time on Ushahidi. One of my favorite projects to be a part of was the redesign of Investing in Africa, by Ryan Shen-Hoover. We’ve rebuilt the site from the ground up using Expression Engine as the core CMS, and have redesigned the look and feel completely.
One of the benefits (most of the time) of working so closely with people is that you tend to get to know them pretty well. Ryan ends up being one of those quiet and unassuming individuals who has a great depth of knowledge pertaining to Africa’s capital markets. As he states:
“…there is another side of Africa that gets a lot less press. It is a place full of hopeful and enterprising people who are confident of a better future. This is the Africa that I believe is home to some of the most attractive potential investments in the world today.”
At Investing in Africa, Ryan profiles companies and gives monthly detailed reports on his insights into local markets. So far his library includes annual reports, announcements, and financial results for more than 350 companies spanning 16 markets.
A few last changes are on the way, and a few bugs to be worked out. However, it’s up and ready to use, so take a look, sign-up for access to company reports, and definitely subscribe to his monthly newsletter ($49 annually). Below is a sample:
Investing in Africa: Sample Report, May 2008
 
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8:31
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Google is well known for snatching up top-level talent, this holds true in Kenya as well. ICT groundbreaker Joe Mucheru heads up the Kenya office, and he’s surrounded by a team of smart young technologists. I had the chance to meet Isis Nyong’o (Strategic Parter Development Manager) while getting ready for Barcamp Nairobi, and then Chris Kiagiri (Tech Lead) and Mark de Blois (Geographic Supervisor) last week before I left.
Google Kenya is Different
I found out a couple of interesting points that make the Google Kenya office even more interesting than before. It turns out that there are 3 offices in Africa; Kenya, South Africa and Egypt. However, the office in Kenya is neither a sales office nor an engineering office, which makes it unique globally. In fact, it is the only “deployment office” worldwide. This means that the Kenya office can be used as a launch point for new ideas and is the central focal point for Google’s Africa strategy.
It came down to a choice between Senegal and Kenya - one French-speaking and one English-speaking, and both with a fairly well developed technology sector. Senegal had a direct transatlantic cable, but Kenya had the right people available. At Google it seems, finding the right personnel usually trumps about everything else.
Speaking of which, they’re still looking for the right people, not only in Senegal, but also in Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Unfortunately, Google HR seems to be geographically challenged, as jobs in Egypt are somehow not in Africa…
Dealing with a Slow Internet in Africa
The Google Global Cache (GGC) was announced in May at the African Network Operators Group (AFNOG) conference in Morocco. In lieu of data centers in Africa, Google has created a strategy that is housed at major exchange points to serve Africa at the edge of Google’s network. Internal tests suggested at least 20% performance increase in high latency links, like East Africa.
[The top cycle (1,2,3 & 4) is how things normally work. The bottom cycle (5,6 &7) is where the changes are.]
It works like this. Once anyone within that exchange point’s sphere visits a webpage, the information is cached and it becomes much faster for anyone else visiting that website to access it. Pre-fetching of data also that improves performance over time, even for dynamic content.
This is an interesting strategy. It’s a win for ISP’s (less international traffic means lower costs), a win for end users (pages load faster), and a win for Google (faster, better usage).
The pilot in Africa was turned on in Kenya just 2 weeks ago. There are 17 international exchange points (IXP) in 15 African nations, so with a positive pilot in Kenya, this could soon be seen continent-wide.
Keep your ears open, there are hints of even more interesting stuff coming out of the Google Kenya office.
 
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15:52
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
The most recent technology review has a good article on the transoceanic internet cable build-out happening world wide. It’s got a nice little map visual too, which allows you to see where things are (white lines) and where new undersea cables are being installed.
East Africa is one of the last major regions in the world to not have true international broadband (aka: “fat pipes”). Having just returned from a 3-week stint in Nairobi, I can tell you that these cables will make a huge impact on the local market.
Uploading video, watching video, uploading images, sending emails with images, receiving images, downloading applications, uploading zip files, FTP, VoIP calls… and more. All that stuff is painfully slow or impractical to do right now. You don’t realize how much you use these types of service in the rest of the world, until you’re forced to do without for an extended period of time.
I, for one, will continue to pray to the undersea cable gods that East Africa will see this cable by this time next year.
[Sidenote: I know a certain individual is interning at Google doing a paper on how the lack of bandwidth has crippled web business in East Africa. I'm looking forward to seeing it.]
 
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13:25
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Recently, I’ve noticed a sudden buzz about ecommerce in Kenya. Brian Longwe talks about the beginnings of this with Mpesa, emails are bouncing around between companies I know, and last week I spent a morning listening in to what the Kenya ICT Board and Federation had to say about it.
Let me start with the Kenya ICT Board. The meeting was basically about legislation and the fact that ecommerce would be good for Kenya. Of course it is, anything that lowers transaction costs for both buyers and sellers greases the wheels of commerce and increases the amount of trade across all industries and sectors. That’s a given.
But how? See, that’s the big sticking point that I’ve been banging my head against the wall over for 2 years now. It’s not enough that you can buy and sell with a Visa or Mastercard in Kenya. As long as you continue to ignore the wananchi (average person), then you’ll only help the wealthy and not see the real gains and advantages of a level playing field.
 Which brings me to Brian talking about Mpesa, the mobile phone payment system in Kenya. For, in Mpesa, we have the beginnings of a payment system that can be used by everyone. He’s right about that. What’s wrong is that it’s mobile phone carrier dependent (Safaricom).
What we need is a carrier and bank agnostic ecommerce platform for Africa. Why?
Let’s go back to our “average person” again and talk about banks. They are generally unbanked (thus the use of Mpesa), or if they are, they have only a couple thousand shillings (less than $100) in the bank. The transaction costs for them having to keep their money in these aging institutions is often impractical. They have no, or very limited, opportunities to borrow money and they have no realistic way of getting any type of credit.
So, as can be seen, tying money, credit and debt to banks is not practical.
Now, let’s talk about why it needs to be carrier agnostic. This is even easier to understand. In Kenya there are two carriers; Safaricom (Mpesa) and Celtel (me2u). By the end of the year, there will be four. The barriers to use of a system that relies on one carrier is as ridiculous as requiring any payment system on the web to only go through one ISP. Sure, it makes sense if you’re that company to control that monopoly, but it’s bad for everyone else.
What does this mean then? Where do we go from here?
The upsides of a carrier and bank agnostic payment system is high. Not only would a system like this be used for the obvious domestic transactions (Kenya-to-Kenya) and external transactions (Kenya-to-world), but all of the sudden we have the ability to create real micro-loans and a new system to create credit scores for unbanked people over time. That’s wealth building, and it would transform Kenya.
Well, first off, let those who have the funds to do so, start building the right type of payment gateway. Start in Kenya and grow regionally, then continent-wide. It’s a semi-heavy investment (relative to who you are of course), but the return is absolutely insane. In fact, it’s ridiculous that after this long no one has done anything beyond build monopolies in this space.
[Note: My first post on this from 2 years ago]
 
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0:49
From: White African
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16:47
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
I’ve been tracking a site called Jamati, an African entertainment portal, for a little while. Sitting out in Nairobi last week, I got an email wondering if I wanted to talk to the founder, a certain Elias Mageto, who happened to be in town from the US at the same time. Good timing!
“We want to be the go-to network for the diaspora.”
I thought Jamati was new. It isn’t. In fact, it was first launched in 2001, relaunched in 2005, and then relaunched again in 2007. The fact that I finally heard about it last year is proof that Elias finally has found the right mix to make it work.
Elias is Kenyan, with an American mother, and has no Kenyan accent at all (interestingly, a lot like a certain political candidate in the US). An unlikely background in Economics, time at the World Bank and Congressional Black Caucus wasn’t what I was expecting to hear as the background to his entrepreneurial drive into online entertainment. However, he saw a niche needing to be filled and, over 7 years, has continued to try to crack it open.
One of the things that Elias said struck me as very important for this type of pan-African portal play. That is, his seven-person team is made up of individuals from Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. Everyone in this space knows that it’s a lot easier to be regional than continental, but a team makeup like this means it’s easier to do. Those connections back into each major region are already there.
Competitively, two other new publishers,AfricanPath and African Loft, would seem to be the most logical comparison. However, knowing a little about both companies, I think they’re all doing different things (right now, but there will be greater overlap as they grow).
- AfricanPath is about African news, business and politics.
- African Loft is about African diaspora community and African news.
- Jamati is about African lifestyle and entertainment.
All bridge two worlds, with heavy readership percentages from the diaspora. It will be interesting to see which can grow as time passes, and more importantly, which can attract enough eyeballs for advertisers to start funding more growth.
 
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18:35
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
Read This Entry & More At Kikuyumoja's realm
Just a short note on an interesting e-mail I’ve received today on the ecosanres Yahoo!Group on ecological sanitation: The (dutch NGO) WASTE “on behalf of the Programme Board of the INTEGRATED SUPPORT FOR A SUSTAINABLE URBAN ENVIRONMENT (ISSUE) programme” puts out an open tender for Knowledge Centres with tasks related to sanitation and waste mangement.
This is an invitation for a bid for the provision and distribution of ‘knowledge’ for the implementing partners of the ISSUE programme for a period ending on December 31, 2010. …Interested parties who have the pre-requisite experience in running and managing Knowledge Centres are requested to submit technical and financial proposals and any other supporting documentation not later than 1 August 2008.
Why is this interesting?
- “Countries specifically asked to respond are: India, Vietnam, Benin, Kenya or Tanzania, Malawi or Zambia”
Please note the “or”. As in: “one regional office will do.” Kenya vs Tanzania. Obviously, an opportunity for Kenyan experts.
- You may probably know that I am an admin at the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (website, whose link i will not repeat because our website is currently being relaunched and still too shabby to be shown around…*cough* *cough*) and we or at least I quite frequently come across ppl who are willing to do something but are lacking the adequate funding and/or don’t know how to apply for funds. Neither do I! However, what I do know is that funds - as limited as they are - will be made available once there are suitable local partners. So, what is actually required (I think!) are much more local networks that will help those funding agencies to approach a local market. And with “funding agencies” I am not only talking about the usual suspects aka dev aid orgs who make a living out of “helping” the poor. Instead, think of businesses from abroad, companies from the US and Europe who would like to invest into an African market and often don’t know whom to approach at first hand. Such a “knowledge centre” for the reproduction and dissemination of knowledge could be a perfect incubator (ok, now that is vc lingua already) for healthy businesses.
- The assignments runs from 2008 till 2010, the end of the ISSUE
programme. The total budget (3 years) for each KEN will be approximately:
Latin America (Costa Rica): 235000 Euro
South East Asia (Vietnam): 170000 Euro
South Asia (India): 145000 Euro
West Africa (Benin): 145000 Euro
East Africa (Kenya or Tanzania): 170000 Euro
Southern Africa (Zambia or Malawi 140000 Euro
Guys, what I am talking about is this upcoming market of sustainable toilet facilities that will rock communities across the globe in future. Just think of the Adopt-A-Light initiative (and what the GoK did to them once they realized there’s money to be made).
“Knowledge Centres” - to me - are local networks that provide much more than just a nice budget for a two years period. Hence this open tender is a first qualification programme to see who will be able to pool other consultants/manufacturers in and who will prepare the market for the future.
In other words: THERE’S MONEY TO BE MADE FROM “WASTE”. Think about it next time you toss out stuff out of your car window or go to toilet.
(disclaimer: “sanitation as a business” is my favourite subject ….pole :-)
AOB: Link of the week - PicLens - an advanced image viewer plugin for FF that will provide you with a “haiiaaaaaa”-effect. Try it!
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1:51
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Barcamp Nairobi ended up being quite an event, with 228 attendees and an overwhelming amount of good conversations. The list included bloggers, web and mobile developers, government officials and students. We had people from all over Kenya, as well as a couple who came in from Tanzania. It was truly eclectic and exactly what we were hoping it would be. Josiah Mugambi has the full run-down of topics covered in each room.
Pictures
Can be found on Picasa, Flickr and Facebook (you’ll have to friend John Wesonga for the Facebook ones).
Videos
I’m working on uploading a couple videos from Barcamp Nairobi. There were some really good conversations started, not all of which I was able to get on video, or even be in the room for. Hopefully, we’ll get some blog posts and videos from others who were there as well.
I’ll continue uploading additional videos throughout the week on YouTube.
Barcamp Nairobi Bloggers (let me know if I missed you):
O’Reilly Radar (Programming Languages Survey)
Al Kags (gov’t perspective)
Rob Rooker
The Deeper Meaning of Life (Liz)
John Wesonga
Wilfred Mworia
Josiah Mugambi
Clement “Omesa” Ongera
Peperuka
Frontline Interactive
69mb (poster) (post #2)
Louder than Swahili (post #2)
Startup Africa
Notes from the Road (on Ndemo)
SportsKenya
Tech Talk (NY Times columnist)
Girl in the Meadow
The Gitts Zone
Brian Longwe
Kenyan Poet
Open Source Africa
Do Good Well
Business in Focus
Odyssean
Network World
 
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17:07
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
What a great “day off”! The Tusker Safari Sevens was such a fun way to spend a Sunday. Taking sports photographs is one of my favorite things, and rugby is the best sport to do it in - so much action. I ended up wandering around like a press photographer, even climbing up the tower to get some unique views.
It’s the “Tusker” Safari Sevens, but I guess they don’t sponsor it well enough to also sponsor the team - they are sponsored by Virgin. In fact, I hear that it might not be called the Tusker Safari Sevens that much longer - too bad. I like that name, Kenyan beer and an internationally recognized Kenyan tournament, it’ll be sad to see it go.
This year brought in the world champion 7’s team from Fiji, as well as the French team. The emerging ‘Boks (South Africa’s team) were there as well, and they’ve won the last 3 years. Kenya ended up having to beat Fiji (which rumor says, each player would get 50,000/= shillings if they did).
Kenya won narrow, and hard fought, games against Fiji and Zimbabwe to get to the final. Meanwhile, the Emerging Boks smeared their competition on their way to meet Kenya. Honestly, I thought Kenya would have a hard time in this game. Instead, they blew the doors off with 2 quick tries, and never looked back as they won 31-12.
Of course, the crowd was rowdy as ever, singing familiar Kenyan rugby chants and getting drunker by the hour. Prime Minister Raila Odinga showed up mid-afternoon, to much fan fair and noise - a politically savvy move. All in all, it was a fabulously good time that I hope to see again next year.
(Note: I took over 1000 pictures, a couple dozen can be found here)
I’ve finally been able to upload some video, you can find more on my YouTube channel. Here is a shot of the last try by Kenya vs South Africa:
 
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12:23
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
I’m totally abusing the great (relative term) wifi connection left over at the Jacaranda Hotel after Barcamp Nairobi. Getting images loaded up as fast as possible…
Barcamp Nairobi ‘08 pictures can be found on Flickr using the search tag, “barcampnairobi“.
My images are going up on this set.
Below, NY Times journalist G. Pascal Zachary, showed up and we had a great chat on the local tech makeup, opportunities and economy. Steve Mutinda tells his story of making mobile phone applications.
 
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3:56
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Things started on Nairobi time, we had some chai and samosa, now we’re beginning the sessions. There seems to be over 100 people here already. T-shirts are being handed out, and we’re passing out O’Reilly books and Yahoo freebies during the day.
TAG for blogging, Twitter and Flickr: barcampnairobi
My Barcamp pictures are going up to this set on Flickr.
First up is:
- Where are the devs? - Riyaz Bachani talks about the increasing bandwidth options in Nairobi, but asks where are the online entrepreneurs?
- Google Maps as Platform - Mark from Google Kenya talks about using Google Maps in detail.
- BugLabs - Brian Muita gives an overview of hacking the BUGbundle, showing his new accelerometer game, then opening up the device for hacking by devs today.
Second group:
- Ubuntu - Mzungu talks about using Ubuntu, LTSP server, and running applications on the server instead of the workstation.
- Plone (cms) -
- Jahazi - Mugambi talks about his app.
I’ll be going up in the third session, talking about “blogging tips and tricks”.
 
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17:15
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Man, things are crazy. This last week has been very busy, and full of interesting stuff. Some of the more important, mixed with fun and mundane:
AfriGadget makes the Time.com list of “Top 50 Websites of 2008“. Completely unexpected, and thrilling to see. Thanks to all the editors like Steve, Juliana and JKE too.
Met up with an incredibly talented mobile phone application creator, Steve Mutinda, (J2ME) with two very cool mobile phone apps. Full video interviews on him too, and have just posted the first article.
Got together with some local Kenyan tech guys and we’re hacking away on a BugLabs BUGbundle, trying to get a cool app up and running on it by Barcamp Nairobi this weekend. Posting pictures on that soon.
Met up with a ton of local guys, with some really interesting projects and ideas that I’ll be blogging about soon. Including big thinker Al Kags of the ICT Board, talented designer Fadz of Ark, Matere Lutische with a really cool idea, and many more…
Redid the Ushahidi wireframes, and meeting with some local developers to help build version 2 with us. Got some neat stuff up our sleeves, and one big surprise for Saturday’s Barcamp.
Went and watched a lot of rugby (Pictures are up at Flickr), including Quins vs KCB, RVA vs Mang’u and the Safari Sevens veterans. I love rugby season, only wish I could play too.
Finally, the windup to tomorrow’s Barcamp Nairobi is at an end. Thanks to Google Kenya, Strategiclee, the Kenya ICT Board and Ushahidi for sponsoring it. We’re all set and ready to roll at the Jacaranda Hotel (Pizza Garden side). Should be a blast, and there will be a lot of pictures and posts to come.
 
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16:37
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
Part of you wants to ignore it and hope it will go away. Zimbabwe is such a messed up place that it hurts to even think about it. In the midst of it all, one group is making sure that actions and events are being documented: Sokwanele.
It’s amazing how simple visuals can take a bunch of data and make it real. Above is a chart showing the mayhem, broken down by type. It’s a sick story, but one that can be told in almost real-time because of our current technology.
This is why mapping and other visualizations are so important. Sokwanele is simply collecting the news reports then archiving and parsing them for information. When those stories come in ones and twos throughout the week, it’s easier to ignore. When they’re put forward as a body of evidence using visuals to show their aggregate statistics, it becomes damning and impossible to ignore.
That’s a busy map above. In fact, so busy that you’ll be surprised to know that it’s just the violence that has been perpetrated since the elections at the end of March. Anyone remember the “old” map, from way back then, 3 months ago? I do, and have the screenshot below:
By the way, both of those maps only show a small sample of what is being done. Not everything is reported to news organizations or directly to Sokwanele.
Some people might ask, “But, does Sokwanele’s map help at all?” I’m guessing that it doesn’t directly. However, what it does do is proved fodder for organizations inside and out to make an even stronger case against this repressive regime.
[Note: if you can handle graphically violent images, check out Sokwanele's Flickr stream.]
On a Personal Note
Those of us on the Ushahidi team think on this stuff a lot. We’re not off trying to win mashup competitions and raise funding for further development because we think it’s a fun startup idea. No, we’re doing this because it matters and we believe our tool will help raise awareness and empower organizations to understand and activate against wrongs.
If anything, I’m compelled more than ever to figure out how technology can continue to create change in truly screwed up places.
 
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10:53
From: White African
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I was quite excited at the opportunity, provided by Al Kags of Kenya’s ICT Board, to be a part of their meeting on eCommerce. This has always been a hot topic for me, as I strongly believe that the ability to transact business (through web or mobile) is one of the “killer apps” for Africa.
My take is that Africa needs a mobile payment system, akin to PayPal, that is both carrier and bank agnostic.
We’ll see if my definition of what it takes for eCommerce to work is the same as theirs.
NOTES from the meeting after the jump (long)
The private sector
Kevit Desai, Director of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance and the Kenya ICT Federation, starts off by reminding us that eCommerce effects all industries in Kenya, from health care to agriculture.
Marcel Werner, Chairman of KIF, steps up to state that eCommere will add 1% to Kenya’s GDP. Kenya is a champion in many areas, but not in eCommerce. There aren’t a lot of nations in Africa working in this area, except Rwanda, and he believes that Kenya should win that race. He states that eCommerce spurs entrepreneurship and innovation.
One of the great opportunities is in tourism, one of Kenya’s staples. However, eCommerce isn’t only for external forces and the export market, but also for domestic trade. Listing; rural B2C, B2B and G2C, also agricultural trade, healthcare, domestic trade, utilities, etc…
Gaps in the current legislation include the bills being light on fraud, the fact that liability ISPs aren’t defined and express support for eGovernment transactions. Beyond legislation though, which international affiliations should Kenya have? How does Kenya organize for arbitration?
Marcel talks a little about “transport”, as it relates to order fulfillment. It’s easy to sell things online, it’s hard to fulfill and deliver those orders. (I agree, fulfillment is a big deal. However, I also think that the private sector tends to figure this out pretty well, no matter the environment. Now, I don’t agree that it’s particularly easy to buy things online in Kenya right now though - not for the average person anyway.)
Kenya Law as it applies to eCommerce
Michael Murungi, Advocate Asst Editor of Kenya Law Reports. Defining eCommerce: Any form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically rather than by physical exchanges or direct physical contact.
Why legislate? To legalize, facilitate or control/regulate eCommerce? Michael states that the primary reason for legislation is to facilitate better eCommerce and to protect parties doing transactions. Examples are the need for laws that help with personal privacy. Believes that we don’t need multiple regulators for this industry either, but just a single one for efficiency. However, that governing body needs to be split up between administrative and regulatory areas.
He wonders if the provisions that Kenya is thinking of putting into place don’t foreclose on future developments in e-cash. Examples include Chipknip in the Netherlands and the Octopus card in Hong Kong.
Michael talks about the need for ISP immunity - as it’s crucial to the ICT industry. ISPs should have no general obligation to monitor data traffic, unless the ISP becomes aware of illegal activity. Limitation of liability for transmitting, cacheing, hosting and third-party linking.
Finally, there is a need for prosecution for electronic crime and security.
Paul Kukubo, CEO of the Kenya ICT Board, has come up to talk about both the ICT Board’s mandate and how eCommerce applies to it. Four long term goals:
- Establish and market Kenya as a leading ICT country in Africa
- Promote ICT industries in Kenya
- Promote ICT institutions (ex: ICT Board, KIF, etc.)
- Widen the services of ICTs for all Kenyans
The web plays a very large part in ICT in this space. Paul has had a great deal of experience implementing eCommerce in the private sector (previously at 3Mice). eCommerce legislation is important in order to increase the amount of transactions that could be taking place in Kenya. We don’t see enough eCommerce activity in Kenya… yet. Part of the ICT Boards responsibility is to raise awareness of eCommerce in the country.
A lot of the eCommerce activities will take place over the mobile phone. We must recognize that as the medium for the future for Kenya. I wouldn’t be surprised if MPesa does more transactions than some small banks. We must be aware of how our population is accessing goods and services through technologies.
Paul breaks into some thoughts on digitizing of forms and documents. Right now there is a propensity to store these documents in hard copy, and not digitally. Paul believes that they might be more secure saved digitally rather than in paper. Example given of a land deed contrasted to a banking/sale transaction for that property.
People are looking for goods and services that simplify their lives. So, what should the exclusions be in the laws? What are the principals behind them, rather than just the exclusions themselves? We see a world in which every record will be a digital record - in 10 years. So these are serious questions.
For international business, it’s incredibly important that we have legislation for data protection and privacy. If business process outsourcing (BPO) is one of the larger initiatives that we’re looking to do, then we must understand that the right legislation to attract international business is critical.
Dr. Juma Oketch, head of the e-government secretariat in the Office of the President - directly connected to the Ministry of information through the Kenya ICT Board.
 
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0:00
From: White African
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Every once in a while, in this line of work, you get a genuinely welcome and unexpected surprise. That’s what happened the other night when I met up with some local tech guys and a certain Steve Mutinda showed up just happening to mention that he did some J2ME programming. He has created two mobile phone apps (and working on a third), which I’ll review over a couple of posts.
In brief, LiveQuotes let’s you track the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) from your GPRS enabled phone.
The NSE updates their data every time a trade happens, and that information can be downloaded as a CSV. Steve has it setup so that he checks it every minute, allowing you to have near real-time access to the exchange, and a scrolling ticker for your selected portfolio. Want to see how your stock has done over time? No problem, there is a basic line chart showing how your shares have done historically.
Steve started this about 3 months ago, soft-launching it to a few friends as he worked on new features and fixed things up. So far there are 200 users. I would expect that to change soon. 800,000 Kenyans have just bought into the Safaricom IPO was his inspiration, and a good one because it means there are hundreds of thousands of new stock owners in Kenya.
While it’s fee right now, plans are to charge 30/= Kenya Shillings per week ($0.50 cents) per user. Anyone can receive the application through a simple SMS with a link to the URL, and then registering on the spot. Safaricom or Celtel (depending on which carrier the end user has) will act as middleman for transactions, paying Steve on a monthly basis.
A little math will tell you that by getting just 10,000 users he will make about 300,000/= per week ($4,665). $18,000/month is a nice salary by almost anyone’s standards. I’ll be asking for a loan from him soon, I hope.
What else is in the future? Uganda and Tanzania for one, possibly the rest of Africa if things go well. On the technology side, look for some type of API that will allow others to access the same pre-parsed information.
See it in action in the video below:
 
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16:49
From: White African
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One of the thing I love about coming to Kenya is the passionate developers that are scattered around Nairobi. Tonight 6 of us got together to hack on the borrowed BugLabs device, and to brainstorm a Sony Ericsson SDK mobile phone application.
Brian Muita and Wilfred Mworia had their first chance to play with the BUGbundle, a device that you can hack about 10 ways from Sunday. So far we’re understanding the device, and are working on getting a premade working app on it. Needless to say, we’ll likely be in the BugLabs forums quite a lot this week so we can get it working in time for Saturday’s Barcamp Nairobi. (update: Brian got it to work!)
Eric Magutu, Laban Mwangi and Steve Mutinda were all there to brainstorm a cool application that would allow them to utilize some of the neat features available in the Sony Ericsson SDK that had been showcased at Skunkworks last week.
 
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15:18
From: White African
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Wananchi is one of the largest ISPs in Kenya. I was invited to come see the installation of Wananchi’s brand new Intel Sat satellite dish, for use in their new WiMax, fiber and cable TV offerings. Two reasons it was interesting.
First, because it’s being installed in Upper Hill, my old neighborhood. I just don’t recognize this place anymore with all of the new commercial buildings.
Second, and probably more interesting to everyone else, is that this dish is aimed directly at the mass market in Kenya and stands to drastically lower the costs of bandwidth to the home. Wananchi will be offering 512k broadband to the home for 3000 shillings ($). Compare that to the next best offerings by Safaricom with their new 3G service for 2000/= (700Mb) or 4000/= (2Gb), and Access Kenya with 256k at 6000 shillings.
From here, it looks like anyone wanting to stay untethered and who doesn’t have that high of bandwidth consumption would likely choose Safaricom (700Mb isn’t a lot). However, if you’re going to spend more than a modicum of your time on the internet, then Wananchi’s new service is the most attractive.
Wananchi’s towers also have fiber pumped directly into them, so more speed and reliability out of the gate. To manage their large 100 tower rollout in the Nairobi area, they’re piggybacking cell towers with Celtel, and hope to be done by around October. Certain towers, with service off of this new dish, will go live by the beginning of July.
All told, I have to say I’m impressed. Not just by Wananchi’s offering, which will come as great news for the public, but that the communications industry is moving along so quickly. Thought international fiber is still a dream in Kenya, local connectivity is booming.
So, where’s the local version of WordPress MU setup for local bloggers? Where are the local web services by local software guys for local companies? That we shall find out shortly, this w | |
