Kenyan Pundit

It’s still VERY much in beta and a work in progress,but I think it’s time to reveal one of the things that I and one Thinker have been working on in the last couple of months. Mzalendo. You’ve all read my rants about the lack of access to information about Kenyan parliamentarians, and this is our attempt to try and do something about it (that came to life over Sunday breakfast at Java with M).

There is still a lot of information that has to be updated on the site (and yes a number of typos to be corrected). We are running this project on our free time and are battling to get up to speed. This is pretty much a demo version. Over the next few months we hope to start the processing of uploading whatever Hansard copies we are able to access, start providing data e.g. on questions asked and answered, and start updating the MPs pages. If you are interested in giving us information about your MP please drop either of us a line…our eventual goal is to build a portal that derives it strength from reader and community participation (including constituency blogs) much like Congresspedia…we should all be keeping an eye on Parliament.

Would love to get your feedback on the site so far so please drop a comment or send either of us an email (especially if you have a hidden stash of Hansards!).

P.S. M, THANK YOU for putting up with my taskmastering tendencies.

From Radio Open Source folks. I know there are many of you out there who have something to add to this discussion (note show is this Thursday so get on it). If you are interested in participating in the show, please email Brendan: brendan-at-radioopensource.org You can also leave your comments at this link .

“Radio Open Source will be doing a show on migrant remittances this Thursday. We’re trying to address the topic in a broad sense, situating ourselves in the personal stories and politics and statistics that describe this global phenomenon. From there, we’re hoping to ask questions about whether remittances can help societies emerge from poverty on a large scale (without making the assumption that they can be equated with ‘foreign aid,’ as some suggest). The link to the show-in-progress post is: http://www.radioopensource.org/harnessing-remittances/

We are trying to bring people to our blog who can share their experiences with us. We are especially interested to hear from people who participate in remittances (both sending and receiving), but we are eager to talk to non-profit workers, employers, and any blogger who has something to add. Of course, it would also be great to get your feedback on people we should talk to, articles we should read, or anything that you think might contribute to the show.”

AOB: Audio interview with Kenyan hip-hop artistes.

Click here for the full interview.

- Hash get’s his manifesto published (Yeah!).

- For those people who are thinking about doing projects in Africa and Kenya in particular, please read this report by MIT students who were recently working on several projects. Why? First, it shows that you can have your cake AND eat it (M’s post notwithstanding). Being overseas is not necessarily mutually exclusive with trying to make a difference at home in a non-remittance manner. Second, helping is not that easy…some of the challenges that the students faced are a classic case of us shooting ourselves in the foot as Kenyans et. al., from administrators who act like they are doing you a favor to ten thousand procedures before you can get anything done.

- Zookada an email tool for bloggers just launched, looks really neat and is especially useful for bloggers whose readers don’t have regular net access.

- Why I hate drug companies.

- Who says there’s no money in Kenya? Wonder what it would take to spur similar interest in V-C type funding.

- For the geeks: Share your OPML (share outlines, feeds, taxonomy) and Valleyschwag (just click on the link dammit).

- Now why didn’t this ever occur to me when I was searching for a paper topic in law school?

Some governEgyptments think they can trampEgyptle the rights of those that oppEgyptose them and noEgyptone will notEgyptice. Well, that fact is changEgypting and we are changEgypting it.

All bloggers are encouraged to support this campaign. Today it’s Alaa, tomorrow it could be you.

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