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  • Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

    Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge

  • The open calendar – KPI for public servants

    The Jubilee government rode the digital wave, promising sweeping changes in service delivery that would make good use of technology.  The “top tier”  of public servants publicly accepted and signed their performance contracts by which they will be measured at the end of their tenure. This gesture had me rethink two components for this performance contacting business; the first is why we want to do the grading, like a school exam that comes at the end of every year, as opposed to continuous assessment tests that would reveal the need for remedial action before it is too late and the second is what other data can we use to enrich the indicators used to arrive at the final score. (more…)

  • What are dreams made of?

    mbugua njihia_dreams

    After a crazy week at DemoAfrica 2013, while getting some much need rest and me time, I stumble on my little red book from 2001 and I smile. I will be sharing actual pages and memories here, under Misfiring Neurons.It has been quite the journey and as I turn 31 in late November, little of what I had penned down as a 10 year plan on 28th Sept 2002, remains undone. My 20’s have served to prove to me that ANYTHING I apply myself to will come to pass. Hebrews 11 – Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

    “ Any piece of knowledge I acquire today has a value at this moment exactly proportional to my skill to deal with it. Tomorrow, when I know more, I recall that piece of knowledge and use it better. ”

     – Mark Van Doren

    So. whether you are 21  or 31, write it down…start today and make it count. At 41, I will look back again and smile…bigger, better, bolder…DONE

  • Dave Goldberg of SurveyMonkey on Building a Billion-Dollar Business

    SurveyMonkey is an atypical technology company. They’ve been profitable from almost day one. They’ve grown at an astonishing rate and even with well over 100 million in revenue, refuse to go public. SurveyMonkey has done all of this while creating a culture that enables the company’s CEO, Dave Goldberg, to leave the office by 5:30 PM. In this First Round CEO Summit talk, Dave Goldberg shares the unconventional ways he’s transformed SurveyMonkey from a 12-person startup into a SaaS powerhouse.

  • Entrepreneurship Gives Life Meaning


    David Friedberg, CEO of The Climate Corporation (formerly WeatherBill), discusses the startup process and the challenges faced during the development of his innovative technology company that is changing the insurance sector. Friedberg explores essential components in the entrepreneurial experience, including the need to solve real problems, making meaningful impact, and the value of embracing the grind required in reaching success.

    Prior to founding The Climate Corporation (formerly WeatherBill), Friedberg was with Google, where he joined as one of the founding members of the company’s Corporate Development team. He managed a number of strategic projects for Google, including identifying and leading several of Google’s largest acquisitions. Friedberg also served as a Business Product Manager for AdWords?Google’s primary revenue source.

    Before Google, Friedberg spent several years working in private equity and investment banking. He has invested in and advised dozens of companies in the technology industry. Earlier, he worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he led several projects as a mathematical programmer. He has a degree in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley.

  • Future thinking, a break from the present

    Dreams stoke the fires of innovation and propel forward the harbingers that offer differentiated thought  that on many occasions usher in the future. Shifting focus on the activity and the potential of  now, I want to imagine the future and a number of ways in which two generations will experience life and their very existence differently.

    On a base of the internet of things – with all manner of elements, devices and ecosystems connected in real or near real-time, increased computing power, the re-emergence of the cloud and the community of hardware builders, the future reads like a script from a science fiction movie. (more…)

  • Promotion of local hardware manufacturing an imperative

    Innovated and inspired in Africa, made in China; may be the label that will get to see on a number of innovations by local entrepreneurs who have chosen to take the road less traveled to build businesses and offer services based on hardware. The push to diversify from what has been pure software play for the Silicon Savannah has been met with teething problems that should be easy to navigate around, if we are to truly empower our entrepreneurs to have the full development ecosystem domiciled in Kenya, with the key benefits being growth of local competence and job creation, as often times the business bits of the innovations have already been well thought through.

    We are not yet at the level where we can build the smaller components that form the baseline of our innovations and as such must bring these parts in and add value to them creating an end product that is more than the sum of its parts. (more…)

  • Irfan Verjee, Senior Manager Cisco Consulting Services for Middle East and Africa

    “Mobile operators need to embrace Wi-Fi to complement and reduce the load on the high-speed packet access (HSPA) and long-term evolution (LTE) spectrum.  Our studies prove that ‘Mobile data offload’ will enable mobile operators to maximize the benefits of Wi-Fi resulting in cost savings. From a revenue perspective, operators are poised to gain revenue from connectivity, churn reduction and most importantly data analytics and value added services based on the unique capabilities (e.g. Location Based Services) of Cisco’s Wi-Fi technology. Overall, mobile operator CXOs must consider Wi-Fi technology as a new business model to return value to their shareholders.”

  • Chad Hurley,founder of AVOS on life after YouTube and his latest ambition

    In this episode of Foundation, Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, and founder of AVOS talks about life after YouTube, hints at his latest ambition in the video collaboration space and recalls one very important breakfast meeting at Denny’

  • Silos – the achilles’ heel of healthcare innovation in Kenya

    Access to quality and affordable healthcare, I believe is a universal right and the achieving of highest possible service penetration should be high on the agenda of government and other complimentary agencies. The government has started on its part with the implementation of the KNH ICT masterplan, but one that will in my opinion take more than two political terms to get implemented in totality. This means that the task of transitioning to smarter health care lies in the hands of the private sector and other ecosystem players in the short to medium term while still aligned to the masterplan vision, whose implementation I hope will be based on open standards to allow third parties play well.

    While parts of the world are already exited about wearable technology and the opportunity presented, we in Africa are still left dealing with the rudimentary, that even in its “low-tech “factor state will still deliver immense benefit across the entire ecosystem. Having invested myself in the healthcare vertical, it has become apparent that the problem, is not a technology one, as web and mobile are now ubiquitous channels, used by millions of consumers across the continent. (more…)