Kenyan Pundit

A sneak preview into what’s shaping up to be an amazing line-up (including yours truly…hehehe).

Popularity: 12% [?]

The Take Back the Tech Campaign has been launched in conjunction with the global 16 Days Against Violence Campaign. The Campaign is being used to highlight ways in which technology can be used to either perpetuate or prevent violence against women. For details on how to participate, click here.

A friend of mine had to change her phone number, email addresses and eventually her physical address after being stalked by an ex so the issue is real to me. I’m also concerned about the fact that KBW is not a strong haven for female bloggers like it was in the early days…though natural attrition may account for some of that, I wonder whether self-censorship has played a role in the aftermath of the cyber-stalking accusations that dominated KBW some months ago and the marked discomfort among some readers with women expressing their sexuality.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Via FibreAfrica mailing list:

- The expression of interest to package local funding closed on November 8th. The financing for 40% of the project is expected to come from the stock market. To read the advertised tender (and other upcoming tenders) click here.
- Shares are expected to be cross-listed in the 3 East African stock markets.
- Expression of interest to build 4,300 km of rural fibre (last mile-ish) closes on December 15th

Projections for Kenya’s fibre capacity of the next 20 months:
- 2 submarine fibres
- 3000 km national backbone fibre
- 4300 km rural fibre
- 500 km metropolitan rings

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My good friend Seg has had an “interesting” time navigating the challenges of being a young entrepreneur in Kenya. It makes me very proud to see that he’s managed to avoid getting beat down (no easy task) and continues to stay innovative. Please check out the Mama Mike’s ad on YouTube and give them your support.

An aside: Had an interesting conversation this weekend about the sky-rocketing property prices in Nairobi and the booming stock market. Clearly, there’s a shortage of investment options in Kenya, but we couldn’t for the life of us figure out how to channel the excess capital to start-ups for instance (I’m thinking of the beyond micro-finance but smaller than big private equity investments) - beyond the risk factor, any ideas on other obstacles and how to work around these obstacles?

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- Looks like Bitange Ndemo is answering questions regarding EASSY on Mashada. Wow! A must read. Even had diaspora folk flummoxed

- The governor of Cross River State in Nigeria has a blog. It’s quite informative. Hat tip Banks!

- For techies (and if you’re interested in a nifty mobile instant messaging app that allows chat in real time at the fraction of the cost of sms coming out of South Africa), how to run Mxit from your PC. Thanks for the clarification Rafiq.

- How about a Make Africa Wealthy Campaign?

Popularity: 6% [?]