Navigating the African Informal Retail Sector
Nigeria’s consumer market has captured global attention. A significant proportion of this emerging market opportunity is in the FMCG category. Due to historical reasons, 87% of this retail trade happens in the “unorganized” or “informal sector”. The market is highly fragmented and inefficient. Yet due to the nature of the informal economy, most of this […]
Business and Design in Stasis?
I came across this post from the archives of a now deleted blog, originally hosted on the Design Factory’s website, and realized that more than 4 years have passed yet most of these words could still hold true today, given the recent conversations on design’s future. So I’m reproducing it as food for thought and […]
The true size of opportunity in Africa
The Africapitalist Foundation’s most recent issue of their Africapitalist Magazine has a cover story on the true size of opportunity in Africa. Readers familiar with my exploratory user research and insights from the prepaid economy and the informal sector will recognize the key point being made – that we must look beyond the obvious when […]
Perspective: Pondering cultures of design and design’s cultural fit
LukeW’s post on design left me in a thoughtful mood after I read it. He’d linked to an article about Samsung’s design culture and the clashes between Bay Area rockstar designers and the inhouse product development teams. It wasn’t the content of the article that struck me, as it was rather balanced, quoting former Samsung […]
Labour saving African kitchen appliances: Market opportunity for product design and social innovation
After watching their Mamas spending hours over an open fire, sweating over the daily dish of ugali or nsima or fufu – the African kitchen’s favourite carbohydrate – inventors and innovators across the continent are taking the initiative to ease her burden with nifty, new kitchen appliances. While culinary details differ from region to region […]
Design policies for a sustainable future
This is an old piece I wrote for the Torino World Design Capital site. It may feel a tad outdated and/or may need refinement, but the gist of it still holds true, imho, we still need to collectively address the challenges of our emerging future and no single country, company or organization can address it […]
Importance and value of Africa’s informal food markets
There’s a new book released by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners — Food Safety and Informal Markets: Animal Products in Sub-Saharan Africa—that probes the complicated world of traditional or ‘informal’ markets in livestock products. Here are some unexpectedly juicy findings: Research by ILRI and partners shows that in most developing countries, more […]
How e-commerce leadership is driving innovative business in Nigeria
While it’s still under construction, there’s an unusual mall coming up in Nigeria. Reports say its aim is to combine the virtual and real shopping experience – retail outlets and shopping alongside with a bonded warehouse and ecommerce facilities. Nigeria’s retail opportunity has been garnering international attention; its economy surpassed South Africa’s last year to […]
Loyalty cards to incentivitize vaccinations – service innovation from Kenya
We most commonly tend to associate loyalty cards with grocery shopping at our local supermarket chain – swiping the card for the occasional discount on milk or eggs. Now this same concept is being used in an entirely different context in order to lower the barriers for rural Kenyan mums to invest in the time […]
RIP Google BebaPay – Requiem for a cashless payment system
Less than a year after going live, Google is closing down the BebaPay smart card which was introduced as an NFC based cashless payment mechanism for Nairobi’s public transport. Last year, I’d analyzed the context and the operating environment in which they’d launched their service, on hearing the news that they’d been struggling to gain […]
