INUKA-KENYA: What entrepreneurs in Kenya need

Given 54 hours to change your many business ideas into reality what can you do? Well that is what Startup Weekend Nairobi was all about. A 54 hour event that was organized by the Nailab an incubator and accelerator next to the Nairobi iHub, and Growth Africa. Taking lead was Linet Kwamboka, a tech event organizer.

Generally, startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if startup ideas are viable. Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts and also win prices for the overall best ideas.

Startup Weekend Nairobi started on the 24th February to 26th February at Nailab Nairobi Kenya. As an enthusiast of social enterprise and an aspiring entrepreneur, I had to leave my job on Thursday evening and travel about 380km over night from Kisumu to Nairobi with my friend in-order to be among the many participants who would pitch their ideas. Six participants and volunteers from Copenhagen, Denmark were also present and working together with the teams in Nairobi to see their ideas come to fruition. Among them was Alex Farcet of Startup Bootcamp who was the event facilitator.

The weekend began with open mic pitches on Friday evening where 56 participants who were mainly programmers, developers, marketers, designers, business mangers and startup enthusiasts pitched their ideas that evening. My friend Jayne Du whom we traveled with from Kisumu was the 11th participant and the first lady to pitch our idea of having a platform where people in informal settlement areas especially in Kisumu can interact with the NGO’s working in their areas through an online forum, both the community members and the NGO staff can interact giving feedback on the Impacts of the NGO’s activities in their area as well as the forum acting a hub where events happening in the area are communicated.

From these pitches 14 ideas were selected and teams were formed, unfortunately our ideas was number 15 only lacking 2 votes to make it to the top 14. These were the ideas the wannabe entrepreneurs worked on:

1. Cloud Matatu – A mobile application to rate matatu’s (public transport) and report bad drivers.
2. Inuka – Entrepreneurship platform to connect Kenyans entrepreneurs.
3. Pesa Rahisi – An online /mobile payment money transfer system that is cross platform and international.
4. Tusemezane – A two-way SMS platform for election communication by politicians and their electorate.
5. PayRent – A mobile system based on Mpesa to pay rent.
6. MVerify – A platform to verify documents that include certificates, references, land title deeds.
7. Christian Dating site with a difference - Dating site for Christians.
8. Masomo Moja - Making education affordable and available for teachers, students and parents.
9. Jiamulie – Traffic prevention solution with features of crime reporting and information sourcing.
10. Patahao – Easy way to build/buy/rent houses according to your needs.
11. Success solutions – Advertisement space on idle computer screens.
12. iMedic – Patient status data capture and sharing tool.
13. iBambe – Facebook/mobile web for sharing playlists.
14. Darasani – Tutor support system.

Our team Inuka Kenya being the largest team with about 22 participants immediately started working on our idea, dividing ourselves into smaller groups. The programmers creating the website, the marketers seeing on how they will promote the idea, the designers like I working on the logo and the rest of the business practitioners’ working on the site content. Over Saturday and Sunday, teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product.

On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and services receiving valuable feedback from a panel of experts/Juries that included Nancy Wong from Innovation for Africa, Mbugua Njihia, Kamal Budabhati CEO of Craft Silicon, Eddy Verbeek of Florensis Kenya and Johnni Kjelsgaard of Growth Africa.

Inuka Kenya ‘inuka’ meaning ‘arising’ in Swahili was the winning idea after a long vigorous search and thanks for everyone in our team for the tireless efforts that they all put into. According to judge Kamal Budabhati there is a big need in Kenya to connect entrepreneurs and share knowledge amongst them and that is exactly what Inuka wants to achieve. “We want to offer entrepreneurs a networking platform where they can find mentors. We want to see them grow and get out of poverty”, said Jayne Du from Inuka. “Also, most platforms are really tech-focussed, but for instance agriculture is a much bigger sector here in Kenya”, she said. Her colleague Geoffrey Gitonga Wanjoi said that they will use the €500 prize to expand their operations.

Is Kenya or Africa in Leadership Crisis?

Year 2012 still recycling the same leaders!! :(

Guys it's very interesting that right now in Kenya we are in an election year and looking at the possible people varying for leadership post in this years Kenyan election, its makes me wonder.. ARE WE OUT OF LEADERS? When are we young people going to be leaders? or the so called "leaders of tomorrow" doesn't exist, for the literal meaning their is no tomorrow...

For instance look at this interesting observation...Sounds like a joke, but... 45 years ago, Kibaki and Michuki were in the Kenyan Cabinet and J. F. Kennedy was running for President in the USA. Obama was only 1 year old.

45 years later, Kibaki and Michuki are still in cabinet, and Obama is PRESIDENT for the same seat Kennedy was running for. In 45 years, USA have had Johnson, Carter, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, Bush 1 and Bush 2 in between as presidents but in Kenya the same guys in their 70's and 80's are still trying to tell Kenyans they can make development models that work?

Makes me wonder, Is something seriously wrong with Kenyans? Or is something wrong with Africa? (looking at the likes of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the list is still growing)

May be something is wrong with me too! Am i the only one seeing this?

What’s your story for 2012?

Its another new year again, well to be precise its 2012. Yes, 2012 the so called END OF THE WORLD, according to the ancient Maya civilization prediction. It kind of make me wonder, suppose the world actually ends in 2012 and that we all have to meet with our creator, what will be the story of my life?

To start with, I used to think that my story was one of small town boy born in the slopes of the Ngong Hill on the outskirts of the hustle and bustle of Nairobi city life, the story of a boy who will make a name for himself in the big city. I was going to study hard, work smart and climb the corporate ladder and become the CEO of a large organization or the president of Kenya one day.

But…as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that my story is changing.

I no longer want anything to do with being employed by a large organization. I’d rather be a part of small group of people doing something fun and important in the society.

My story has evolved and I’m evolving with it. I’m no longer interested in the office politics that some people play. I’m more interested in finding that smart group of people who want to do something fun and challenging. Maybe wanting to be a part of (and perhaps starting) a social enterprise with people that see that things CAN be different.

My story includes me working hard and playing hard. It includes me spending more quality time with my friends and family, traveling around the world to see the wonders of nature, sitting in front a desk to ensure that over 400,000 rural community members in Kenya has access to safe water rather than wishing i could do all that.

My story isn’t the classic dream of a young African man trying to strike it rich in life, but I think it’s one that will become the neo-classical young African story of a man who improved or changed his surroundings.

That said, my story is my story and I’m living it as though I’m the lead character. My story is one of hundreds of millions around the world, but its an important one to me. I look out at the people I interact with on a regular basis and realize that, for the most part, I don’t really know their story. I have almost 380 friends that I have kept on Facebook, those that I know fairly well but there are still people who I don’t really know what well.

Of course, there’s no way for me to know everyone, but I do get curious about what drives people in life, what makes you? etc. So to start 2012 I’m interested in hearing your story or simply what’s your story? all of you my friends and followers of this blog?

At least i know how my story will continue...

Kisumu's Lake Victoria, a must place to visit in Kenya