Wrapping up the Village Telco project in Kenya
Since September 2011, I’ve been wholly immersed in the cyber cafe industry in Sub Saharan Africa, specifically peri urban and rural Kenya in East Africa. We were tasked to assess the market and value the opportunity space for our client Village Telco, a social enterprise start up whose mission is to enable affordable access to […]
Is Africa a multinational’s opportunity or one better served by SMEs?
It is not just about the risks in Africa, since in many cases African risk may be overpriced, which creates additional opportunities for investors who know what they are doing. It is more about the challenges of doing business in a continent in which more than 70% of the population lives on less than two […]
Observed market forces acting on the changing mobile landscape in East Africa
About two years ago I remember making an observation that I couldn’t seem to see any coherent patterns anymore the way I’d been able to by surfing the net for information. Flux I called it. Everything felt like it was in transition and nothing seemed to stay steady enough to grasp, much less describe. This […]
Breaking the silence
I have not blogged in my own personal space where I can ponder over things in writing in such a long time that I feared I’d lost my ability to write. These fingers have been unable to let the words flow as freely and as smoothly as they used to, in all those years of […]
May 2011 – In transition
Greetings, If you have come here from Dirk’s Digital Life page, welcome! My links to my article and about page still work but I’m in transition right now between Finland and my next location. You can see some of our work here and reach me via Semacraft. I will update as soon as things are […]
On Line and Off: an evolution of private versus public spaces
I don’t think I need to link to any of the hundreds of stories in the media almost daily on the concept of privacy online and on the net to set the scene for my little screed. A particular thought struck me today as I was attempting to explain the chasm between the online world […]
The changing flavour of the internet: the next billion come online
Yesterday Vanderbeeken posted a link to an article on the changing culture of the internet as the next billion come online. It reminded me of some thoughts I had on this aspect a few years ago when I contemplated what would happen when the next billion came online. Here’s a snippet of my thoughts from December 2007: They are […]
The maturing of the African mobile phone market Feb 2008 to Nov 2010
This post has been percolating through my mind for the last couple of days, its time to attempt setting it out in words for a stab in the dark at some clarity. The trigger was the recent hue and cry over Nokia’s percieved downfall as the calculated global market share for the device manufacturer dropped […]
Pondering the original concept of Emerging Futures
This tag cloud was my first attempt some two and a half years ago at patterning the dots that I saw dancing in front my eyes whenever I looked up from my laptop screen to squint into the distance. Perhaps it is true as many would say that I’ve left out the entire mainstream consumer […]
Indian Banking Widens Reach
Yesterday’s Times of India pointed to a development by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to extend its services. It has yet to be seen how this initiative will be taken up by BoP users both rurally and in urban neighbourhoods not currently not served by banks.
