Innovation, Ingenuity and Opportunity under Conditions of Scarcity (Download PDF)
In July 2009, I was inspired by working in the Research wing of the Aalto University’s Design Factory in Espoo, Finland, to launch a group blog called REculture: Exploring the post-consumption economy of repair, reuse, repurpose and recycle by informal businesses at the Base of the Pyramid*. Within a year, this research interest evolved into […]
Signs of Interdependency between the Formal and the Informal Economy
There is a lot to be unpacked here – I made a mindmap of the urban African entrepreneur who is the backbone of the visible emergence of a consumer class. I’m drawing from my experience of the Kenyan context. I started this in response to Michael Kimani’s Storify recently on the mythical “middle class” and […]
Bridging East Africa’ formal – informal financial services divide
Kenya’s formal inclusion looks pretty, the financial inclusion industry has been has been great at talking up its achievements over the past 10 years. Here, 75.3% of Kenyans are now formally included, a 50.3% increase from 19 years ago. Official statistics on mobile phone penetration is up to 80.5% of the population and there is general […]
Detailed breakdown of Uber’s business model in Kenya puts spotlight on weaknesses
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 […]
The East African Community is a hidden gem
Even as headlines shriek about “Africa”s economy undergoing some form of turmoil or the other, increasingly, indepth focused reports point out that the East African Community is performing exceedingly well. “Africa”, it turns out, is a vast and diverse continent made up of more than 50 countries. The IMF said: …the multi-speed growth in the […]
5 examples of the breadth of African led human-centered design and thinking and planning
The other day I was searching for news on design from the African continent and noted on Twitter that it seemed as though only the South Africans were consistently talking about their various creative outputs. Having long been part of the crowd that believed in the indigenous creativity and innovation in the less visible parts […]
African Youth find Opportunities in Informal Sector Biashara
Biashara in Africa’s emerging economies – Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe- are at loggerheads with the state. An ever bulging young demographic and a failure to absorb them into the formal economy has resulted in increased biashara. The informal sector’s low barrier to entry, appeals to the young Africans’ aspirations, like Simon Danda from Zimbabwe. Rather than […]
Bedrock of trade
A general merchant in Karatina market, Kenya. Photo credit: Niti Bhan
Design of Digital Financial Services for Inclusion Needs More Respect and Humility to Succeed
In the past week alone, I’ve seen three glaring cases of unquestioned assumptions around the design and implementation of Digital Financial Service (DFS) particularly for financial inclusion, but also otherwise. This gives rise to the question whether the industry is prepared to undertake the mission they have set for themselves. The first is that their […]
Will Cross Border Mobile Money Boost intra African Trade and Regional Integration?
Over the past 18 months, since I started tracking the spread of cross border mobile money payments across the African continent, there has been visible progress in leaps and bounds, as documented by the GSMA. In fact, back then, I’d written: Top down reportage on banking and interoperability seems to focus only on the customer’s […]
