Tag Archives: East Africa

Will Africans lead innovation in resilience tech for sustainable lifestyles on a shoestring?

By Niti Bhan | Published: May 14, 2021

A Tanzanian startup offering a smart hydroponics kit for urban farming in limited spaces that costs around $500. Reading about the system yesterday – invented by founders Praygod Japhet and Dickson Mallya – I was moved to create a hashtag #resiliencetech on Twitter. Something about the topic made me feel that I should be keeping […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, East African Community, Emerging Futures, Emerging Markets, Innovation Planning, Mobile platform, Perspective, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Tanzania, Technology | Also tagged remoteresilienceproject, resiliencetech, smart hydroponics, urban food systems | Leave a comment

Introduction to rural household energy consumption behaviour in East Africa (1 of 3 parts)

By Niti Bhan | Published: January 27, 2018

The following is extracted from a six month study during 2012 on household energy consumption behaviour in rural Kenya and Rwanda among the lower income demographic, that led to an understanding of some of barriers hampering the sales of client’s solar products in this market. This first part is an overview of household financial management […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Analysis, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Consumer Behaviour, Culture, Design, East African Community, Frugality, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, jua kali, Kenya, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Projects and Reports, Research, Retail in Africa, rural, Rural Economy, Scarcity, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology, UCSD, User research | Also tagged consumer insights, consumer research, energy consumption, fuel consumption, household consumer research, kenya, pay as you go solar, prepaid solar, renewable energy, rural africa, rwanda, solar | 1 Response

Cognitive dissonance and smartphones in East Africa

By Niti Bhan | Published: June 14, 2017

Its jarring to see high level INGO messaging still talking about “ICT4D” not doing it’s part to bring about technology driven transformation in rural or informal sector Africa when every other sign from the continent points to a mainstreaming of ICT that goes beyond the individual’s capacity to tweet. The kanga is a traditional item […]

Posted in Africa, Assumption filter, Culture, Design, East African Community, Emerging Markets, Indigenous & Traditional, Mobile platform, Perspective, Technology | Also tagged design, kanga, smartphones, textile | 1 Response

How the African movable assets bill can unleash innovation opportunities for the rural economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: May 13, 2017

As Kenya joins Zambia and Zimbabwe in ratifying a Movable Property Security Rights Act, there’s a sense that the floodgates to innovation in access to finance might be taking place in rural Africa, south of the Sahara and north of South Africa. Kenya’s law also goes beyond the cows and goats and allows a borrower […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Alternative currency, Biashara Economics, Business, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Cattle, Consumer Behaviour, Design, East African Community, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, FMCG, Income, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Livestock, Loans, Mama Biashara, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Risk, Rural Economy, Scarcity, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Tanzania, Technology, UCSD, Uganda, User research, Value | Also tagged access to finance, africa, biashara economics, complex, design, design for complex adaptive systems, design planning, disruption, economic ecosystems, informal economy, innovation, kenya, movable assets, opportunity, rural economy, systems approach, systems thinking | Leave a comment

Detailed breakdown of Uber’s business model in Kenya puts spotlight on weaknesses

By Niti Bhan | Published: October 25, 2016

Latiff Cherono has just published an indepth analysis of what exactly it takes for an Uber driver in Nairobi to cover the cost of doing business. Here’s a snippet, In this post, I try to understand the root cause of the disconnect between how the customer (who defines the value), Uber (the service that controls […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Analysis, Business Models, Consumer Behaviour, Design, East African Community, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Income, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Technology, Uganda, urban | Also tagged africa, analysis, biashara economics, business model, costs, data, operating environment, uber | Leave a comment

Borderland Biashara: Mapping the Cross Border, National and Regional Trade in the East African Informal Economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: June 10, 2016

And, we’re back! With apologies for the long delay in posting on the blog, we’d been busy wrapping up our groundbreaking design research for development programming project for Trade Mark East Africa this past month or so. As you can imagine, the last few weeks of any project suck all the bandwidth out and leave […]

Posted in Africa, Analysis, Base of the Pyramid, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Design, Economy, Ecosystem, Frameworks, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Literature review, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Process, Projects and Reports, Research, Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, User research | Also tagged biashara, biashara economics, border, Borderland Biashara, cross border trade, design ethnography, design research for development, Emerging Futures Lab, final report, human centered design, icbt, informal cross border trade, informal trade, kenya, literature review, Trade Mark East Africa, uganda, user research | Leave a comment

Trade in East Africa – A very short introduction to a very long history

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 4, 2015

Who were the pioneers who opened up the trade routes that criss cross the seas and deep into the interior from the ancient ports of Zanzibar and Mombasa? We don’t know who these intrepid sailors must have been, making their profit from rich Roman’s wives seeking Indian silks and spices, but the African continent’s eastern […]

Posted in Africa, China, Economy, global, India, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Kenya, Mama Biashara, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Sub Saharan Africa | Also tagged dhows, gujarat, history, indian ocean, trade | Leave a comment

Reflecting on the mobile internet in Kenya

By Niti Bhan | Published: October 23, 2011

After the past three weeks of focusing on cyber cafes and internet access in urban and rural Kenya, we’ve been questioning the value of the “mobile internet” statistics provided by operators to the CCK. Muchiri pointed out that since most of our feedback seemed to revolve more around SIM operated routers installed by cybers, or […]

Posted in Analysis, Cyber cafe series, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Kenya, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Projects and Reports, Strategy, Technology, User research | Also tagged Africa, apps, bop, brands, broadband, emerging markets, facebook, informal economy, kenya, media, mobile internet, village telco | Leave a comment

Insights from the South African low income market (BoP) opportunity

By Niti Bhan | Published: September 4, 2011

I came across this article from South Africa titled “Why companies should care about the low-income market” which has some excellent insights about this demographic and opportunity space. Also called the ‘BoP or Bottom of the Pyramid’, it is the mass majority segment in the emerging middle class in Sub Sahara today (per recent reports.) […]

Posted in Base of the Pyramid, Emerging Markets, Innovation Planning, Marketing, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Strategy | Also tagged Africa, bop, customer, customer centric, design, emerging markets, emerging middle class, innovation, low income, marketing, strategy, user research | Leave a comment

Semacraft Announces Africa Innovation Tour June 2011

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 13, 2011

As Africa gets connected to the world wide web, there is an increasing hunger for relevant content and services in local languages. This has led to the rise of developer communities congregating in openly shared community spaces where new applications, software and technology can be nurtured and incubated. The mobile phone is the platform of […]

Posted in Emerging Markets, Innovation Planning, Mobile platform, Technology | Also tagged Africa, emerging markets, innovation, mobile | Leave a comment