7 ms·

Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

174 points by JasonFruit 14y ago

Spoygg 14y ago
Beautiful :)
keithpeter 14y ago
Complete with what looks like a Kanban board on the wall. There is going to be plenty of competition in a decade or so! But then there are plenty of local problems to solve...
steeve 14y ago
Projects like this make me hopeful :)
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  Projects like this make me hopeful for the world, but fretful for America. Not because of the increased competition or outsourcing or anything like that, but because by and large we've created a political climate where large infrastructure developments are nearly impossible to implement. We eschew any sort of tax-funded large digital infrastructure projects while at the same time we do our best to keep regional ISP monopolies in place, killing any meaningful competition. The fact that Kenya now has hundreds of miles of fiber optic cable is awesome. The fact that most of the internet I use in the USA ends up last-mile-ing over coaxial lines laid in the 1970s is terrible and unlikely to change in the next 10 years. (Of course, our non-digital infrastructure is crumbling for largely the same reasons, so that's even more stuff to worry about).
  - lsc 14y ago
    Eh, Fiber is expensive. It's getting better, though; a big part of the expense is the skill required to splice fiber, and they are developing better and easier ways to splice all the time. I betcha the last mile is going to suck for most people for a long time. And you know? I don't think it matters as much as we think. If it does matter for you (It matters for me, certainly) you will move to the places where fiber is available. Yeah, google fiber gets all the press, but surewest has been doing fiber to the home in Sacramento for close to a decade now. (I mean, fiber matters a lot to me, but not enough for me to move to Kansas... or Sacramento, for that matter. Ugh.) Here in silicon valley, both the city of Palo Alto and the city of Santa Clara (see http://svpfiber.com http://svpfiber.com or email me if you want to get in on an in-progress project) have municipal fiber rings. It's aimed at businesses, and /only/ does the last mile (which is to say, once you get to the data centre you will still have to pay someone for transit to the internet. And you will have to pay to trench to your house, so you are probably looking at $500/month minimum and maybe $10K one time to trench in to your house. Still, worth it to not live in Sacramento. Ugh.) I mean, what I'm trying to say is that there are really good tubes, here in America. I, myself, have 12 gigabits of burst capacity (a 6.2 gigabit commit) Yes, our last mile for most people is shit. But the last mile for everyone, everywhere is shit. Just like in Africa, I personally predict that it's going to be wireless, for most of us. And for most of you? wireless is just fine. I mean, yeah, cheap fiber for everyone like they are said to have in Japan, or in Kansas or in Sacramento would be super great, but I don't think that only having that in a few places will cripple us. I mean, when it really matters, even here in America, if fiber matters to you, you can get it by paying a small (compared to developer salaries) fee, or by moving somewhere unpleasant.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    First, we have tons of fiber. Tons. Second, are coaxial lines really that bad? You do need literally bundles of fiber for backbone activity, but last-mile? DOCSIS 3.0 is 42Mbit/channel, with as many channels as the endpoints can support. Comcast has already offered 305Mbit. We will need fiber last-mile one day, but not nearly any time soon. I suspect the real limitation is a grab-bag of things like: - Increasing speeds highlights damaged coax, which would then require repair - Slowing the growth in speed means they can continue to charge a lot for service that is easy to provide - The true bottleneck is probably somewhere in the ISP, for example routing infrastructure, which would need to be upgraded
charleshaanel 14y ago
Man, the tenacity (on the part of both parties) demonstrated in this statement is amazing: "When he came home for the holidays, he would haul his entire workstation in the car back with him — the monitor, the CPU, the keyboard, the mouse — and set it up in Oguya's living room. Oguya was 15."
- quit 14y ago
  Bah, we routinely did this for our lan parties.
  - noonespecial 14y ago
    I'm guessing you didn't drive on dirt roads or carry all of the fuel for the trip with you in jugs, all while hoping you had enough bribe money for anyone who might turn up with a rusty AK-47 and a barricade to keep them from taking said computer from you along the way.
    - meric 14y ago
      Reading this article makes me think maybe Kenya isn't as backwards as I imagined.
      - charleshaanel 14y ago
        What was the source of your prior beliefs about the country? It might proof enlightening to question those sources of information henceforth....
        meric 14y ago
        Movies.
        neilk 14y ago
        African Men vs. Hollywood Stereotypes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSElmEmEjb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSElmEmEjb4
john626 14y ago
Stories like this can give you a lot of hope for the developing world.
ph0rque 14y ago
I so wish I could invest in some of these companies...
- GuiA 14y ago
  You probably can- the price of the plane ticket would be marginal compared to the investment.
- Choppen5 14y ago
  I agree - we need more oportunistas to invest in businesses in developing countries. I invested in this African company: http://unreasonableinstitute.org/profile/mwilkerson/ http://unreasonableinstitute.org/profile/mwilkerson/ It was a little easier as the founder was from the US and I met him here, and then he returned to Africa to continue running the operation. Wish more African founders had the opportunity to raise money here.
  - 1123581321 14y ago
    If your sentiment is common, then there is an opportunity for someone to arrange introductions and bring African entrepreneurs to the United States for fundraising.
    - aclimatt 14y ago
      I believe that instead, the opportunity is to guide US investors to invest in African companies. An organization to vouch for the reputability and asses the risks of these companies to allow for greater, less risky foreign investment. I personally would love to start such an organization.
      - 1123581321 14y ago
        I understand the difference. Either way, though, personal connections and legwork would have to be done both in the US and in Africa. It's been on my mind since I made the comment; if you've interest I wouldn't mind discussing it with you if you'd like to e-mail me at the address in my profile.
charleshaanel 14y ago
BTW, thanks for posting that OP
aclimatt 14y ago
I see huge opportunities here. There are people all over the world solving the same local problems, shared across disparate areas. Furthermore, there are resources, ideas, talent, and real solutions being developed in certain areas (even the US and Europe) which I feel should be collaborating with groups like this to better understand their needs and great a more global technology community. Likewise, there are no doubt some incredible, innovative solutions coming out of lesser-known technology centers with which the right localization could make a huge impact here in the Western World. I'd be very interested to see a group acting as a "liaison" between these communities to help solve problems more efficiently. Example: You're developing a sensor network to measure rain levels across cell phone towers? I have an algorithm that can measure this data effectively and correct for error so you don't have to. We already do this today with the overload of SaaS startups -- you're building some monitoring platform? Use Librato to capture the metrics. You need a disaster response application that can aggregate data and display the most severely affected areas? Use Parse for the backend and OpenStreetMaps for the geo -- no need to do it yourself. If you're solving a problem, there is a 70% chance that somebody either solved it already, is currently trying to, and/or has a good idea about how to solve it. Increase the collaboration to a more personal, local level, and you've got something big.
iso-8859-1 14y ago
What does M-Farm do?
- muriithi 14y ago
  http://mfarm.co.ke/ http://mfarm.co.ke/
- mogetutu 14y ago
  Help small scale farmer market and sell their produce at better prices than the brokers at farm-gate. And give them market information on their produce through sms.
lubujackson 14y ago
Kenya is a fascinating place - incredible hardships, but such a will to persevere. I love that they aren't satisfied getting jobs freelancing or anything like that, they are solving their people's issues where no one else will bother. Awesome to see.
nacker 14y ago
Let's get Alexander McCall Smith on this right away! Perhaps a whole new series of novels based on the concept of the "The No. 1 Ladies' Geek Startup" ?
jakek 14y ago
Fantastic story. I would love to hear some first-hand accounts / comments from any Kenyans on HN. Is there anyone here currently in Kenya and involved in startups?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- thebenedict 14y ago
  I'm not Kenyan, but I've been based in East Africa for the last two years and have been living in Nairobi and running a startup there since March. Happy to answer questions. (I'll be on and offline today because of the holdiay) It's fantastic to see Sue and M-Farm getting this kind of exposure.
- okal 14y ago
  I'm Kenyan. The scene mostly revolves around the incubators in Nairobi, the iHub, Nailabs and the 88mph Garage being the most vibrant. The iHub is closer to a typical hackerspace than the others, which are more concerned with startups actively seeking investment than meetups and such. I'd wager that half of all Kenyan startups are building mobile apps of some sort. The stack is quite varied. SMS is king here, but J2ME, Symbian and Android are also fairly popular. Some of the more interesting startups I've interacted with: http://wezatele.com http://wezatele.com - I interned there early this year. http://mfarm.co.ke http://mfarm.co.ke http://kopokopo.com http://kopokopo.com http://frontlinesms.com http://frontlinesms.com - I did some work there last year. http://ushahidi.com http://ushahidi.com - nonprofit, so I'm not sure it qualifies, but one of our better known exports. http://pesapal.com http://pesapal.com - I dislike the obvious play on PayPal, but they're an awesome team There are many more, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind. There's something of a running joke that every second startup is an M-something, presumably due to the runaway success of mpesa, a mobile money service by one of the telcos, Safaricom. Some more established players, not startups in any sense, are Craft Silicon and Seven Seas technologies.
  - marquis 14y ago
    I've seen Ushahidi in practise in a disaster area, extremely impressive.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

174 points by JasonFruit 14y ago

Beautiful :)

Complete with what looks like a Kanban board on the wall. There is going to be plenty of competition in a decade or so! But then there are plenty of local problems to solve...

steeve 14y ago

Projects like this make me hopeful :)

georgemcbay 14y ago
Projects like this make me hopeful for the world, but fretful for America. Not because of the increased competition or outsourcing or anything like that, but because by and large we've created a political climate where large infrastructure developments are nearly impossible to implement. We eschew any sort of tax-funded large digital infrastructure projects while at the same time we do our best to keep regional ISP monopolies in place, killing any meaningful competition. The fact that Kenya now has hundreds of miles of fiber optic cable is awesome. The fact that most of the internet I use in the USA ends up last-mile-ing over coaxial lines laid in the 1970s is terrible and unlikely to change in the next 10 years. (Of course, our non-digital infrastructure is crumbling for largely the same reasons, so that's even more stuff to worry about).
- lsc 14y ago
  Eh, Fiber is expensive. It's getting better, though; a big part of the expense is the skill required to splice fiber, and they are developing better and easier ways to splice all the time. I betcha the last mile is going to suck for most people for a long time. And you know? I don't think it matters as much as we think. If it does matter for you (It matters for me, certainly) you will move to the places where fiber is available. Yeah, google fiber gets all the press, but surewest has been doing fiber to the home in Sacramento for close to a decade now. (I mean, fiber matters a lot to me, but not enough for me to move to Kansas... or Sacramento, for that matter. Ugh.) Here in silicon valley, both the city of Palo Alto and the city of Santa Clara (see http://svpfiber.com http://svpfiber.com or email me if you want to get in on an in-progress project) have municipal fiber rings. It's aimed at businesses, and /only/ does the last mile (which is to say, once you get to the data centre you will still have to pay someone for transit to the internet. And you will have to pay to trench to your house, so you are probably looking at $500/month minimum and maybe $10K one time to trench in to your house. Still, worth it to not live in Sacramento. Ugh.) I mean, what I'm trying to say is that there are really good tubes, here in America. I, myself, have 12 gigabits of burst capacity (a 6.2 gigabit commit) Yes, our last mile for most people is shit. But the last mile for everyone, everywhere is shit. Just like in Africa, I personally predict that it's going to be wireless, for most of us. And for most of you? wireless is just fine. I mean, yeah, cheap fiber for everyone like they are said to have in Japan, or in Kansas or in Sacramento would be super great, but I don't think that only having that in a few places will cripple us. I mean, when it really matters, even here in America, if fiber matters to you, you can get it by paying a small (compared to developer salaries) fee, or by moving somewhere unpleasant.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  First, we have tons of fiber. Tons. Second, are coaxial lines really that bad? You do need literally bundles of fiber for backbone activity, but last-mile? DOCSIS 3.0 is 42Mbit/channel, with as many channels as the endpoints can support. Comcast has already offered 305Mbit. We will need fiber last-mile one day, but not nearly any time soon. I suspect the real limitation is a grab-bag of things like: - Increasing speeds highlights damaged coax, which would then require repair - Slowing the growth in speed means they can continue to charge a lot for service that is easy to provide - The true bottleneck is probably somewhere in the ISP, for example routing infrastructure, which would need to be upgraded

charleshaanel 14y ago

Man, the tenacity (on the part of both parties) demonstrated in this statement is amazing: "When he came home for the holidays, he would haul his entire workstation in the car back with him — the monitor, the CPU, the keyboard, the mouse — and set it up in Oguya's living room. Oguya was 15."

quit 14y ago
Bah, we routinely did this for our lan parties.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  I'm guessing you didn't drive on dirt roads or carry all of the fuel for the trip with you in jugs, all while hoping you had enough bribe money for anyone who might turn up with a rusty AK-47 and a barricade to keep them from taking said computer from you along the way.
  - meric 14y ago
    Reading this article makes me think maybe Kenya isn't as backwards as I imagined.
    - charleshaanel 14y ago
      What was the source of your prior beliefs about the country? It might proof enlightening to question those sources of information henceforth....
      - meric 14y ago
        Movies.
        neilk 14y ago
        African Men vs. Hollywood Stereotypes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSElmEmEjb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSElmEmEjb4

john626 14y ago

Stories like this can give you a lot of hope for the developing world.

ph0rque 14y ago

I so wish I could invest in some of these companies...

GuiA 14y ago
You probably can- the price of the plane ticket would be marginal compared to the investment.
Choppen5 14y ago
I agree - we need more oportunistas to invest in businesses in developing countries. I invested in this African company: http://unreasonableinstitute.org/profile/mwilkerson/ http://unreasonableinstitute.org/profile/mwilkerson/ It was a little easier as the founder was from the US and I met him here, and then he returned to Africa to continue running the operation. Wish more African founders had the opportunity to raise money here.
- 1123581321 14y ago
  If your sentiment is common, then there is an opportunity for someone to arrange introductions and bring African entrepreneurs to the United States for fundraising.
  - aclimatt 14y ago
    I believe that instead, the opportunity is to guide US investors to invest in African companies. An organization to vouch for the reputability and asses the risks of these companies to allow for greater, less risky foreign investment. I personally would love to start such an organization.
    - 1123581321 14y ago
      I understand the difference. Either way, though, personal connections and legwork would have to be done both in the US and in Africa. It's been on my mind since I made the comment; if you've interest I wouldn't mind discussing it with you if you'd like to e-mail me at the address in my profile.

charleshaanel 14y ago

BTW, thanks for posting that OP

aclimatt 14y ago

I see huge opportunities here. There are people all over the world solving the same local problems, shared across disparate areas. Furthermore, there are resources, ideas, talent, and real solutions being developed in certain areas (even the US and Europe) which I feel should be collaborating with groups like this to better understand their needs and great a more global technology community. Likewise, there are no doubt some incredible, innovative solutions coming out of lesser-known technology centers with which the right localization could make a huge impact here in the Western World. I'd be very interested to see a group acting as a "liaison" between these communities to help solve problems more efficiently. Example: You're developing a sensor network to measure rain levels across cell phone towers? I have an algorithm that can measure this data effectively and correct for error so you don't have to. We already do this today with the overload of SaaS startups -- you're building some monitoring platform? Use Librato to capture the metrics. You need a disaster response application that can aggregate data and display the most severely affected areas? Use Parse for the backend and OpenStreetMaps for the geo -- no need to do it yourself. If you're solving a problem, there is a 70% chance that somebody either solved it already, is currently trying to, and/or has a good idea about how to solve it. Increase the collaboration to a more personal, local level, and you've got something big.

iso-8859-1 14y ago

What does M-Farm do?

muriithi 14y ago
http://mfarm.co.ke/ http://mfarm.co.ke/
mogetutu 14y ago
Help small scale farmer market and sell their produce at better prices than the brokers at farm-gate. And give them market information on their produce through sms.

lubujackson 14y ago

Kenya is a fascinating place - incredible hardships, but such a will to persevere. I love that they aren't satisfied getting jobs freelancing or anything like that, they are solving their people's issues where no one else will bother. Awesome to see.

nacker 14y ago

Let's get Alexander McCall Smith on this right away! Perhaps a whole new series of novels based on the concept of the "The No. 1 Ladies' Geek Startup" ?

jakek 14y ago

Fantastic story. I would love to hear some first-hand accounts / comments from any Kenyans on HN. Is there anyone here currently in Kenya and involved in startups?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
thebenedict 14y ago
I'm not Kenyan, but I've been based in East Africa for the last two years and have been living in Nairobi and running a startup there since March. Happy to answer questions. (I'll be on and offline today because of the holdiay) It's fantastic to see Sue and M-Farm getting this kind of exposure.
okal 14y ago
I'm Kenyan. The scene mostly revolves around the incubators in Nairobi, the iHub, Nailabs and the 88mph Garage being the most vibrant. The iHub is closer to a typical hackerspace than the others, which are more concerned with startups actively seeking investment than meetups and such. I'd wager that half of all Kenyan startups are building mobile apps of some sort. The stack is quite varied. SMS is king here, but J2ME, Symbian and Android are also fairly popular. Some of the more interesting startups I've interacted with: http://wezatele.com http://wezatele.com - I interned there early this year. http://mfarm.co.ke http://mfarm.co.ke http://kopokopo.com http://kopokopo.com http://frontlinesms.com http://frontlinesms.com - I did some work there last year. http://ushahidi.com http://ushahidi.com - nonprofit, so I'm not sure it qualifies, but one of our better known exports. http://pesapal.com http://pesapal.com - I dislike the obvious play on PayPal, but they're an awesome team There are many more, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind. There's something of a running joke that every second startup is an M-something, presumably due to the runaway success of mpesa, a mobile money service by one of the telcos, Safaricom. Some more established players, not startups in any sense, are Craft Silicon and Seven Seas technologies.
- marquis 14y ago
  I've seen Ushahidi in practise in a disaster area, extremely impressive.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]