Startup Kenya

“I was very anxious, and glad it was over quickly”  “Felt shy at first but once I got the hang of it, I loved it” “A really painful experience!”  “Super, freaking awesome!” These statements came from a group of teenagers as they all described their first time…                  ...to drive a car A  life time lived to its full results in a painted mosaic of memorable moments,  and for me none are more memorable than my first times with a car. I'm Learning “Stop!”, “Slow down...” “Left, left …. No left” arms flailing around giving directions to unseen places; it’s distracting I want to do it my own way. This is different from how I imagined it. I had planned the whole thing out in my mind – practiced it with the meticulous precision in front of the mirror. I was supposed to be in control, guiding the pace. Shifting the gears higher or lower as my passions dictated. Instead here I am, befuddled , anxious, immature. She doesn’t respond smoothly to my touch but jerks around as i

It's Friday again. Young ladies leaving work early to pass by the salon for a touch up. Young men going through their bank balance, MPESA balance and wallet to confirm their capacity for damage. Married men leaving their calculators tucked deeply under their work files in the office; and everybody in between getting ready to party. As you plan to paint tonight red, here's an A to Z guide of how to stay on the right side of the law - especially in light of the Alcoholic Drinks Control Act, 2010 a.k.a. Mututho Law. A - Alcohol So that we know what we're dealing with, take a look at how the Act defines alcohol. It includes a ny alcoholic drink with at least 0.5% alcoholic content except for methylated spirit or denatured alcohol (which kinda provides a loophole because Kenyan's have been known to take alcohol unfit for human consumption). The Act regulates production, sale and consumption of alcohol. UPDATE:Read recently that the law regarding proximity to scho

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

New colloquial words usually originate from a mutation or amalgamation of existing words. Take Waflash for example I know that most of you have probably never heard of this word but it carries deep significance for me. Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away (...just had to use that, it's for the lulz) I shared an office with an otherwise affable chap called Wafula. Now I say otherwise because Wafula had a serious weakness... read on. Based on my limited business knowledge at the time, I knew that there were only two ways in which a company could maintain a positive cashflow: 1) increase sales 2) cut costs. Wafula however only believed in number 2, while I was a rather strong proponent of number 1. I came to realize just how strong of a disciple Wafula was of the cost cutting dogma one sweltering February afternoon. You see in our office arrangement, Wafula would pay for electricity while I catered for the internet. Since we were sub-tenants, the main tenant would pay for the

This post is dedicated to @kenyangetter . It's always nice when your ramblings are appreciated. 10 years is a short time in technology. When I got my first Airtel line (it used to be called KenCell those days young ones) the provider did not even have SMS as a service. They did launch it a few months later by the (very clever) name YesMS (for those who don't know the slogan for Kencell was Yes!). However you could not send an SMS from Kencell to Safaricom for a long time after its launch but on the bright side an SMS only cost Kes. 5.00. This was way cheaper than the appx. Kes. 30 per minute (billed per minute!) call charges one would incur for calling at that time. With Kenyan's peculiar calling habits under attack, SMS became the preferred mobile communication means. Millions of text messages were transmitted across providers' networks and the providers milked this revenue source by keeping the rates virtually unchanged over the years. It was not long before

Amid the hullabaloo of Osama’s killing and the crippling fuel shortage that hit Nairobi, a shocking announcement sneaked its way into the paper yesterday without anyone making too much a fuss about it.  It was reported that the National Cohesion and Integration Commission has been monitoring text messages and internet-based communication for any clues of hate speech and incitement. Surprisingly though this news does not appear on the front pages of any of the main media houses websites this morning. As if to allay the obvious concerns on privacy, Commissioner Halakhe Waqo “assured phone users that adequate steps have been taken to safeguard individual privacy unless it breaches national security and peaceful co-existence “ Seems harmless enough so far. But then Commissioner Waqo went on to say: “We do recognise that privacy is very important for an individual but public security and safety is much more important. We want to pin down that breach in public safety and security,”

This morning I woke to a full page advert in the dailies announcing that Safaricom had launched a new data tariff for KSh.2 per minute billed per second. Instantly several questions popped up in my mind, many of which were gratifyingly answered by @kachwanya's and @mkaigwa's excellent posts. The concept of per minute browsing readily intrigued me because of my rural cyber cafe exploits as well as my general interest in Safaricom's data products . Before I could devise a strategy on how these new tariffs would impact my internet hungry businesses, I decided to give it a test trial. I figured a 10 minute session (presumably worth KSh. 20) should be sufficient to answer questions about speed and reliability. Below are the results of my test trial, which I should warn are not scientific and it would do well for you to carry out your own trials. 1. Deciding that a 3G modem would get the job done best, I first made sure that my bandwidth balance was expired. This was done

Tom ran the numbers again, furiously punching the enter key on his keyboard as if to determine a different outcome. There was a slight decrease of Ks. 22,000, hardly enough to make a dent on the Ks. 1.8m fiscal hole he was staring at. He had been at this for six hours now and no matter which way he tried to slash costs, it was painfully obvious that unless he made some drastic changes, his business was headed for bankruptcy. Leaning back in his leather chair his eyes glanced up from the monitor to look out through his glass partion to his personal assistant Maryanne. She had been very loyal to him these difficult past six months, but even from his desk he could see that she was spending her time on youtube, probaly looking at baby videos since she was a new mother. The volumnious work load that had inspired her recruitment and six others seemed to dry up the minute they set up their desks. Tom had figured it was just a bad month and things would change, but half a year later, the s

Please see some NGO jobs in Kenya below. I am only re-publishing this so please do not contact me for details on the various positions as I would not know. Job Title - ELRI Project Final Evaluation Consultant, Kenya Closing Date -  20 Mar 2011 Organisation  - Horn Relief URL Address  -  http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/res.nsf/db900SID/OCHA-8ERGZG Job Title - Chief of Party, Somalia/Kenya, Kenya (Based in Nairobi) Closing Date -  25 Mar 2011 Organisation  - International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. URL Address  -  http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/res.nsf/db900SID/OCHA-8EQR58 Job Title - Accounts Assistant, Kenya (Nairobi) Closing Date -  18 Mar 2011 Organisation  - International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs URL Address  -  http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/res.nsf/db900SID/OCHA-8EQ8B2 Job Title - Reproductive Health  Technical Advisor , Kenya (Nairobi) Closing Date -  03 May 2011 Organisation  - International Rescue Committee URL Address  -  http://www