Today’s Business Daily (which is actually quite a good read, unlike it’s cousin the Nation which has become just as mediocre as the Standard) featured two well-written stories on local techies.
First story is on Mama Mikes (Seg, loving the shirt si you hook me up), a business that’s a great example of what we need more of in Africa.
Second story is on Skunkworks Kenya, another example of can-doism that warms my heart. You can vote for it on Muti here and Digg it here.
Still on local tech, Sasanet has launched a Coders Challenge – over kshs 300,000 in cash prizes. Entry closes on August 16. (Joe Mucheru, si you get Google to leta Summer of Code to East Africa)?
Finally, don’t say you didn’t get told – Digital Indaba 2007 is coming up in September, you can apply for scholarships here (meanwhile [cough cough] the “real African” blogging conference has yet to materialize). I’d like to see some women getting scholarships this year!
Ory,
Thanks for sharing such valuable information on local techies in Kenya. I believe this is very important strategy for increasing technical awareness and driving Kenyan startups towards the Silicon Valley type of IT infrastructure. I would like to get the contacts of Skunkworks or any of their points of contacts. I am an IT Security consultant working for EDS and doing consulting work with US Federal agency in Washington DC area. I think such groups need us to help where necessary. Cyber security is not well understood currently with most IT firms in Nairobi and that is something that needs to be emphasized. Its only technology that will get Kenyans out of this mess – India has successfully done that and people have been compelled to respect them.
Vincent Mutongi
That T-shirt is hot! Segeni – please make some baby doll ones?!
i noticed the picture BDA africa used in the top left for the story on skunkworks used is uhmm, exactly like the one Hash took on this post (http://whiteafrican.com/?p=592). They should have credited him
I like BDAfrica too, i dont mean to rain on their parade…but credit should be duly given if they lifted or borrowed the image from hash.
Thanks Ory
Vincent,
Our blog is at http://skunkworks-ke.blogspot.com and you can add yourself to the mailing list by following the link in the top right corner. Also, skype me if you want to be added to our chatroom – rbachani
Juliana,
Bob was actually very careful about the credits & they show up in the print version. Unfortunately not on the web version. We also forwarded the pictures to him ourselves …
great stories and it seems that they will have an innovation section as a regular feature in the paper.
Thanks Riyaz,
I have subscribed to your blog. How often do you guys meet in Nairobi? When things get better we can arrange to have video conference meetings so that us guys on the other side of the world can contribute. Microsoft Live Meeting is a good example of such an easy to set up and use technology. Someone can even present a demo sitting in his kitchen in Singapore… Just a thought.
thanks riyaz!
yeah segeni!
Thanks for publishing details about the Digital Citizen Indaba. The theme this year is the Emergence of the Digital Citizen. We hope to see you there! If you’re intersted in more info, see the website http://dci.ru.ac.za or contact me on a.taylor at ru.ac.za.