Startup Kenya

I hope this battery lasts.... I've mentioned in previous posts that I went to more of a concentration camp than a high school. No really it was that bad. Can I hear a shout from all my Rongai Boys peeps. Apart from the usual high school "chores" all students in form 1&2 also had intensive farm duty. I'm talking about at least two hours every morning before breakfast, half day Saturdays, and at least 6 weeks over holidays! The work was not cosmetic either. We ate from the farm and the supervisors ensured it produced. The piggery for obvious reasons was considered the worst but personally I found cutting and chopping 160kg of Napier grass before breakfast for the cow unit far worse. Something far worse though was midwife duty. Apparently pigs need a lotof care when ... birthing... calving... pigling? So when a sow was in 'labour' form one's would take turn at night seeing that when the process began, it went smoothly. Thus, one very cold, very dark n...

Peer to peer sharing is the public enemy number one for anyone in the digital media industry. The ease at which someone can download movies, music, and software made significantly easier by high speed fibre-optic connections has eroded the earnings of producers and artists worldwide. I would love to say that I can throw the first stone, but sadly the lure of free stuff is too strong even for me. It is with this backdrop that I managed to watch a fairly good camera copy of the surprise early 2010 blockbuster Alice in Wonderland. I didn't expect too much, but once again Tim Burton pleasantly surprised me. Alice , based on Lewis Caroll's fabled children book has been updated for the modern audience and given extra pizazz by the always entertaining Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. Before this becomes a movie review, I'd just like to re-iterate one of Alice's quotes that deftly captures the topic of my post today: curiouser and curiouser. This is how I describe some of the t...

When we are young most of us dream of being rich and famous. I was no exception and I made sure I started working towards this early in my youth. I sold contraband, got three jobs, started a business, and did consultancy, trying to add up the shillings and cents to meet my goal. At some point though (especially after finishing college) I discovered that sometimes the goal was just getting by. The reason I'd wake up in the morning, get myself to the office, answer calls and emails, meet clients and suppliers, write reports and proposals, balance books, was just to make payroll and rent. And even when the money came, it didn't bring any satisfaction, after spending  16 hour days doing the same-old, same-old. When my business finally gained stem I really thought I had escaped the rat race, but by settling back into a routine just to 'survive' I realized that all I had done was change lanes. To further drive home the futility of it all someone told me that the worst thing...