Startup Kenya

I remember the first day my mom took me to the bank, it was back in the day - mid 90s and we lived in the country (euphemism for ushago ). The only bank that was available was Post Bank. Now I can't remember too much about how it all used to work, but I remember this: once you opened an account you were given a small booklet, I think it was called a passbook. The booklet was a journal that contained a handwritten list of all the transactions made to your account. Now those were the days before things like branchless banking, local area networks,  desktop banking modules, computers, or even queues existed in Kenyan banks, less so a rural based bank like post bank. Instead to withdraw money over the counter the procedure was something like this: After filling out on a form or the passbook (can't remember which) the amount you wanted to withdraw you would need to hand it over to the cashier.  To get to the cashier you would muscle your way through the multitude of other custo

First of all, I would like to thank all those who I meet on the street, in the office, on the road, who are readers and followers of my blog. You give me the motivation to keep at this. Now, some of you have mentioned that I seem to have deviated from writing "startup" posts, like the rural cyber chronicles in my recent postings. Heck, I guess that's true somewhat, but the mind of an entrepreneur is fickle and unrestrained. Whatever catches my fancy at that time is what I would blog about, so today I am putting on a critique's hat and aim my sights at what I feel is woefully bad journalism. My target of vitriol is the headline story on the Business Daily of October 7, 2008, titled "Internet theft hits a new high" Naturally I was attracted to this story because I am an avid Internet user and a promoter of its potential as a business tool. Considering the very serious nature of the paper's allegation, I expected a fact-laden article with detailed testimo