My Boarding Pass to Dadaab

As I boarded the twin engine turbo prop charter aircraft at Wilson at 7.43 am on Wednesday 22^nd May, I didn’t know what to expect on the other side. I had heard so many stories about Dadaab Refugee Camp; many negative stories of insecurity, dust storms, unbearable heat and scorpions. That sort of gave me a sick feeling in my stomach but I remembered Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice – “Every day do something new that scares you.” I wasn’t going to turn back. I was going to do this.

We arrived at about 9 am and were received by the UNHCR team of Erin and Rocco. We immediately got some chilled bottles of water (dude, that place is hot!) and boarded 2 armoured trucks to Hagadera. Dadaab is nothing like I expected. Immediately you get through the main gates from the air strip, you see a “Dadaab Equity Bank Branch” sign post. There are also several M-Pesa shops all over the main town. Seeing that Safaricom green sort of gave me a calming feeling – Some sort of reassurance that I could use my Saf’com number to call in case I needed help. We drove through a long stretch of road. Interestingly, we had to drive on the road’s shouldes which were a lot smoother than the actual road. Possibly the effect of rain water which I hear rises to knee level when it rains. Onward onto a police check-point where had to stop midway to Hagadera to get our assigned police escorts. Nothing too fancy, just 3 APs at the back of a blue police Land Rover. The same blue Land Rover I (and possibly every other Nairobi youth) is used to avoiding in Nairobi became my sense of security in a strange and forgotten land. There was a fire exchange incident between police and bandits just the pr Read more »

These are some of the applications that got pitched at the recently held Mobile Garage at the iHub:-

Look Around – An application that is used to look around where you are and then gives you directions and suggestions to bookmark places you’d like to go again in your map

Polar Sleeper – Allows you to sleep by playing sounds of rain and relaxing music so you can sleep. Application sends a Goodnight SMS to your friends telling them ‘walale salama’. App auto-closes after 15 minutes of activity and is going to be for free on the Google Play Store. Revenue model is to sell unlocks for more sounds as you do in-app purchases

SomoLeo -  (J2Me App by Jonathan Kibet) Helps on to sell and buy stuff  using deals Read more »

The following is a post by Marissa Mayer on Tumblr announcing the acquisition by Yahoo:

I’m delighted to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr!

We promise not to screw it up.  Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going.  We will operate Tumblr independently.  David Karp will remain CEO.  The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.  Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster.

Tumblr has built an amazing place to follow the world’s creators. From art to architecture, fashion to food, Tumblr hosts 105 million different blogs.  With more than 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 signups every day, Tumblr is one of thefastest-growing media networks in the world.  Tumblr sees 900 posts per second (!) and 24 billion minutes spent onsite each month.  On mobile, more than half of Tumblr’s users are using the mobile app, and those users do an average of 7 sessions per day.  Tumblr’s tremendous popularity and engagement among creators, curators and audiences of all ages brings a significant new community of users to the Yahoo! network.  The combination of Tumblr+Yahoo! could grow Yahoo!’s audience by 50% to more than a billion monthly visitors, and could grow traffic by approximately 20%.

In terms of working together, Tumblr can deploy Yahoo!’s personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love.  In turn, Tumblr brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day) to Yahoo!’s media network and search experiences.  The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance user experience.

As I’ve said before, companies are all about people.  Getting to know the Tumblr team has been really amazing.  I’ve long held the view that in all things art and design, you can feel the spirit and demeanor of those who create them.  That’s why it was no surprise to me that David Karp is one of the nicest, most empathetic people I’ve ever met.  He’s also one of the most perceptive, capable entrepreneurs I’ve worked with.  His respect for Tumblr’s community of creators is awesome, and I’m absolutely delighted to have him and his entire team join Yahoo!.

Both Tumblr and Yahoo! share a vision to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas by focusing on users, design — and building experiences that delight and inspire the world every day.

The question everyone is asking is whether the Galaxy S4 will outperform the very successful Samsung Galaxy S3 which surpassed the 3 million mark in just 21 days after launch.

Samsung in Korea has some numbers for us – it has shipped over six million units as at 10^th may 2013 which is just 14 days after launch. What is even more interesting is that about 4 million of these units were sold within 4 days of launch – This is about 1 million units a day.

What this means is that Samsung has managed to sell about 42,000 Samsung Galaxy S4 units per hour in the first 4 days. These are huge numbers.

Safaricom in Kenya had good numbers on pre-order Read more »

I am a big fan of ICT; especially as an enabler in emerging markets. That is why I was excited sometime in 2012 when Google announced their solution to carrying coins as fare in your pocket. It is the Beba Pay Card that is to enable daily commuters to pay from a debit card. So when Kenya’s very own deputy pres. Ruto announced that he was commissioning the Google Beba Card, I was excited because it not only moved us closer to Vision 2030, but it also went to affirm our faith that the new government is embracing ICT.

The initiative is in conjunction with Equity Bank, one of Kenya’s largest footprint banks whose model of attracting the low income mwananchi has placed them among one of the largest customer base banks in Kenya. It is run by Dr. James Mwangi, crowned Africa Forbes Person of the Year, 2012. Brilliant man he is. I sat and watched during his acceptance speech how he borrowed about 300 Million KES from Mr. Muguku as Read more »

Image Courtesy, evanszablowski's Blog

Kenya has a new government that has promised laptops to the kids who are going to class one next year. This is part of the promised deliverables that H.E. President Uhuru’s, in his TNA party, made during presidential campaign rallies and it got so many people talking. After a brief research on the web, I got some good information on ‘laptops’ and unsupervised kids. Read it below:

Sometime early in 2012, some MIT Media Lab students embarked on a journey to a pair of remote, isolated and illiterate villages in Ethiopia. The two villages with about 20 first-grade-aged children each sat about 50 miles from Addis Read more »

Microsoft has remained a strong participant and contributor to Intellectual Property. The company has been a part of World Intellectual Property Organization efforts in actively recognizing the World Intellectual Property (IP) Day (celebrated on 26th April of every year) – An event that urges governments, industry and consumers to promote discussion about the significance of protecting IP rights. Respect for the rule of law is a strong contributor to the IP rights culture, which is in turn essential in spurring innovation in local economies. An increase in legitimate technology businesses can add revenue that supports a country’s government programs and other infrastructure goals, creates jobs, increases profits for the broader industry, and helps create a strong business ecosystem. Environments Read more »

Ten African innovators have developed practical solutions to some of the continent’s most intractable problems.  Chosen from more than 900 applications from 45 countries, the finalists for the Innovation Prize for Africa 2013 provide practical examples of Africa’s investment potential.

The winners of the IPA 2013 will be announced at a gala dinner on 7 May in Cape Town, South Africa hosted by the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business and the Sekunjalo Development Foundation. The winner will receive USD 100 000 for the best innovation based on marketability, originality, scalability, social impact and clear business potential.  A runner up will receive USD 25 000 for the best commercial potential and another finalist will receive USD 25 000 as a special prize for social inno Read more »

If you are an aspiring, practicing or city-based farmer, then you need to look out for iKilimo. iKilimo is the information mobile reference tool for all farmers that Avallain, the company behind it, says will be provide fresh and easy information to farmers on projects that they are working on and also allows them to share ideas, expertise from animal and crop husbandry, and information on how you can make the most of farm products as well as by-products.

If you want plans on a Green-House, you also need to check out these guys on Green House farming on Facebook. Read more »

Image Courtesy, IndiaTimes

Nokia now has a new Asha Device with a dedicated Whatsapp Button. Yes, you read right. A Whatsapp Button that will now help you access the App faster. What is more is that all Nokia Asha 210 devices will come with Whatsapp as a free App.

The Nokia Asha 210 Build and Specs – It has a 2MP camera that is easily accessible using a dedicated hard-key even when the keypad is locked and various editing and sharing options for images. It also features a few added extras like Self-Portrait which helps to center self-portraits without the front facing camera (Yaay! to all those women who’re always taking duck-face pics of themselves) and a built-in voice that guides the user to ensure they are in the frame, before taking the shot.

Another extra is the Slam Feature that works by enabling the transfer of content such as images or videos to another Bluetooth-enabled phone without the need to pair devices.  Read more »