Dead before take-off

I was reading an article by Aaron Schaap about why IT startups don’t need a programmer to make it.

A programmer is the most useless person a startup can have. If you are a programmer at a start-up, then you are as dispensable as a napkin.

This reminded me of a very candid talk I once had with an entreprenueress at iHub. I met this pulchritudinous lady who was full of zeal and zest.

She came to me with a very solid business idea. She had figured out how her solution will work, how it will help people, how it will charge and be sustainable, how it will create employment etc.

All she needed was me to refer her to a computer programmer who will work with her for a month or 3, to develop the solution.

She wanted someone she will pay. Preferably a very technically astute freelancer. Someone she will just hire to get the job done.

“How much percentage of the shareholding have you set aside for the programmer?”, I asked her. She was shocked. “None. I  just want someone I will pay to code, and they leave me with my system!”. How can a mere computer programmer dare to require shares in my GRAND plan. I am the thinker here. The creator. The Brains. All the programmer will do is just write code and my BRILLIANT idea will come to life. My awesomeness will manifest itself. Muhahahahah!

Well, I gave her props. She wanted to PAY a programmer. She is different from people I have met who think programmers just fart code. And will happily do it for free. She was different from the “I am going for a meeting, wewe andika tu hiyo code, doo inakam. Mob kama fudhi. Wewe relax” crew that I meet every day. But, I decided to educate her.

I am yet to hear of a single IT business that has succeeded because of the brilliance of a business person, albeit having a poor technical setup. or vice versa.

Businesses need BOTH. Not one. Not 2 of one. But at least ONE of BOTH the tech and biz skills. And good ones at that.

So, you have a combination of both. But still there are no success stories in Kenya to write about. All we hear about are the Seven Seas and the like, who are not innovators in any way. The only resell already developed software. Just like a software supermarket. Why are Kenyan start-ups dying? The major causes of start-ups closing shop, to me, are:

Inflated Egos: This starts when one individual becomes bigger than the team. Than the core business. Happens mostly after being mentioned on TV or on print. Or after attending a conference or 2 as a speaker about technology.

Then comes the lack of discipline required to keep ones head down and continue working as a team member. Then the techie or the business person is made to believe that they are indispensable and that the rest are just tools and toys to help them achieve their dream. This, my friends, is a dead start-up.

Greed: So, some little money starts trickling in. Suddenly, checks of amounts like 300k, 500k starts coming in. Yes, small amounts to big businesses, but to the start-ups, this is a DREAM! Tastes so sweet. Then the real faces of the business partners start manifesting.

It becomes a competition of how much more than the others one should earn. Who does more than the other. How little, if any, the others should be paid. With greed, one partner starts a side company and starts siphoning company revenues, projects and ideas created with the other partners input for years; there.

Financial mismanagement: In most setups, techies always leave the ‘business running’ to the business person. Sometimes, including finances and bank signatory roles. To the weak at heart, with absolute power, comes absolute corruption. Personal expenses become business expenses.

I always tell start-ups, “If one business partner pays a rent of KSHS 50, 000 and it is termed as a company expense, then the other should get a rent-allowance of EXACTLY KSHS 50, 000, even if they live in a KSHS 10, 000 shack.”. All expenses handled by the company MUST be spread equally. Lest, one feels more important; a bad thing, and the other one feels under-valued; a bad thing.

Hubris and Shortsightedness: A plaque. I have seen this happen alot of times and it makes me cry myself to sleep. Another promising start-up getting derailed. The founders suddenly get numbers and contacts of people who have made it in techbiz over the years.

Just because a millionaire was humble enough to have a beer with you while siphoning ideas from you, you see them as your peers. Your equals. Names start getting dropped. I was with Macharia at Que Pasa last week. Kamal has a nice dog. Sorry I could not attend the system testing session last weekend at Nailab, I was playing golf with Waibochi. Big talk. Still, no contracts for your start-up from these ‘friends’. Nothing to show. Contacts with no value.

Lost focus: “What is your MS Office?”, I always ask people. Are you a Web Design Company? Are you a Mobile Games company? Are you an SMS Messaging Company? Are you a payment gateway? Are you a hosting company? Are you professional motherboard dust-wipers? Or are you all that plus a bag of chips? Decide today.

Most start-ups that I know have been start-ups for so long, that they need to be called stalls. They have stalled. if the 5 vices I have listed are put to check, then we will have more than just mPesa to blurb about every time all these tourists come here to take amazing pictures of Africans using a computer.

The opposite of the argument above applies. In equal weight and measure. Techies also should not think that all they need to do is launch an app. It is a MUST to have a business/marketing co-founders. It is absolute lunacy and unforgivable idiocy to assume that all one needs is a great app.

Back to code.

Wazi.

Tandaa (n) A grant. Not a loan. Not HELB.

What a day it was!

What a crowd!

What engagement!

Punches, counter-punches. Questions, answers. Enter angry, come out happy, smiling and limp. Satisfied. Hehehe.

It was no secret that the Kenyans were Angry about how the Tandaa Grant process was done. Is was no secret that the ICT Board lead by Bwana @pkukubo [PK] was willing to sit in a forum and address all the issues.

I was no secret where the meeting was held. At Nailab. The directions, googleMaps, Matatu Numbers and Taxi fare was all made public. I even offered to pay for a cab for anyone who wanted to attend but has, as usual, no fare. So there was no reason for any blogger worth his/her weight in salt not to attend. None at all.

So, the main issues were addressed:

1. Why are multi-million dollar companies like VirtualCity winning grants? – It was made clear that Tandaa Grants were not for Start-ups of small companies or anything of that sort. The grants were for the BEST IDEAS and best laid-out business plans. Simple as. if Safaricom or Barclays applied for the next Tandaa Grant, and their proposal was solid, they would win. Tandaa is not HELB. The ICT board is not the UN. Mpesa is here because Safaricom/Voda got a grant to develop it. And it is not even Kenyan. But it helps Kenya. Move on.
2. Why are foreign companies winning grants? This issue was not raised here on this blog. But some Xenophobic blogger will inferiority complex made this an issue and created an uproar from the idlers who read his half-baked content. Tandaa grants are for 2 kinds of applicants. Individuals who are Kenyans AND Companies that are registered in Kenya. Simple as. If Mr Popodupolous from Greece and Mr Stoichkov from Serbia come to Kenya and register a company that will have a GOOD idea, they will win the grant. So, measure up and COMPETE with the world’s best!
3. So, what about the start-ups? The grant has had the unfortunate and the undesirable side-effect of creating a dependency culture. Most start-ups now have a grant or winning an IT competition as part of the business plan. Right there next to a very weak revenue model. Well, shock on you. You will never win a grant.
4. Anything else? The Tandaa Grants give preference to ideas that can never get financing anywhere else. If you idea looks/feels like one that can get funding from a Bank or a any other loan avenues, then it will be second in preference to one whose survival depends on the grant only.

It was everyone’s wish, including PK, that some of these so-called big bloggers could man-up and attend these meetings. Come to the forum and ask questions to the REAL stakeholders. The report them in your blog AS-IS. Not to cook up facts and get all bitchy trying to solicit for readers.

Waibochi was there. In person. PK was there, plus about 8 of his staff. That is how seriously they took this. @Kaboro, @Kahenya, @roomthinker, @mbuguanjihia, @bankelele @watuwenginekama50. So, basically, ANYONE who mattered and had valid and genuine concerns was there.

All in all, it was a nice meetup.

All questions were asked and all were answered.

Back to code. Ama leo ni pool?

Wazi

Kutandaza Tandaa.

Well, as always, I was the first one to make noise when the grant winners were announced.

Soon afterwards, after it was declared safe for the rest of the public to blog, some other blogs and gutter-press started talking about it. Calling names ofcourse, unlike here where ONLY facts were reported.

Being the Man he is, @pkukubo lent us his ear and we DEMANDED a meeting to address a number of issues we are not happy about the entire grant process. He obliged.

The government meeting room at Teleposta towers was too small for the expected crowd. So we suggested the meeting be moved to an ICT location. Bishop Magua.

Of course, insignificant attention seekers led by the one and only person with the longest and hardest pubic hair on twirra, aka Mr BigWig with a swag, refused to attend the meeting, if held at iHub. Understandable. The last time one of them showed up here, we witnessed a filming of Scream 5, Kenyan Edition.

So, to be fair to the unfortunate,

@Samgichuru of Nailab offered free space. At Nailab, there is an open-door policy and anyone is invited. All that is required, as always, is respect for others and mature talk. No censorship. No persona non-gratas.

The meeting will be held at 2 PM at Nailab, Bishop Magua Building, Ngong road, 4th floor. This Friday.

Among the issues some of my peers want to raise are:

• Where the focus is. Is it new entrants or start-ups? Whydo  tyre-kickers like PaySure get funded to start doing an Internet payment gateway, something SIMILAR to what companies like PesaPal, JamboPay and iPay already do and were denied the funding. PesaPal has carved a niche in mobile payments. Why not fund someone who knows what they are doing? Why fund a chef to do modelling, and leave a model out to dry.

• Why are startups being ignored, while million-dollar companies get grants? A double-standard with the point number 1. Why do companies like VirtualCity, with NO NEED for funding whatsoever, get funded (albeit on matching-grant), whereas people with viable products don’t?

• Where is the follow-up or background check? Someone read my last blog post and boisterously talked about how his ‘friend’ got the grant and partied with the money. What are the benchmarks? Are the funding decisions just based on proposals? Is the ICT board that lazy? Whatever happened to due-diligence?

Ofcourse, I am sure you have more questions to ask.

Welcome all. Even gutter-press. If Nailab is too far from your ghetto, let us know and we will Mpesa you the fare. For once utumie cab. Si matt fulltime.

Come to Nailab and let us make this a fruitful meetup. No insults or getting personal. Just facts and mature vibe.

And ofcourse, I give the rest of you permission to blog about this. As sensationally as you want.

Back to code.

Wazi

Feeling arm-twisted? Utazoea.

No tech stuff to talk about today. Bored and chewing a code-lock at the Hub.

So let me share some tidbits with you. These are my personal thoughts. Not the thoughts and consensus of sijui my village in Meru or of all Arsenal fans or of all XP fanatics.

No. Just mine. Mimi. Salim. Alone. Solo.

Like I always warn, if you are the type that think the ICT board are Angels, that Safaricom is baba na mama and that females are over-rated, then don’t read on. This is one of those blunt blog-posts that will spoil your day. Moving along…

Tandaa

With every day, we become wiser.

With every snooker, you learn to masse.

With every ICT Awarding and granting process results, you realize one thing. This is Kenya, and some things will never change. 2 things remain constant:

• The primary focus of all applicants is always the money. Never the business. The win is the END, not the MEANS to a profitable business. 2 questions beg:
•  Name one winner of the Tandaa Grants last year who has a working product/business/sustainable entity from last year’s winnings. I can name a massive ZERO. But I can name a few people who have bought better watches, suits, shoez, females and cars.
• What has the ICT board done to ensure the winners are accountable and blacklisted if they fail the execution? Personally, I am not sure. I might be wrong, but seeing the same people short-listed every year, makes it clear that such benchmarks are as present and as transparent as the real purpose of Konza City.
•  Same winners will always be selected. So, why even bother? Nokia had to slice the Prize money for the African Code Challenge to batches of USD 50k from USD 1M because the last winner used the money ‘kwa njia nyingine zisizoeleweka’. Sadly, the same winner, just won USD 140, 000 on the Tandaa Matching Grant. Their latest innovation, a buggy Vaadin-based AppStore that has eBuddy, OperaMini, Shark or Die and the best Kenyan Mobile App called m-Atusi.

I am not going to claim to be an expert in the field of Kimenyano or to have access to any back-stage information, but like I said in a blog-post before, we are just a country of talkers. Planners. Strategists. But no doers. Too much talk. No wonder we are number 2 on twitter. Yadda, yadda.

I got the list of the winners from @Techweez today and it is a general consensus that 90% of the winners were just tyre-kikers. Concepts. No real prototypes of working mimics of the app. And that is the the Kenyan story. Our winners are always the loudest-speaking and best-connected demagogues.

The only sensible thing I have ever heard Raila say was that we should not compare ourselves with or lie in bed in peace at night with the comfort that we are miles ahead of 5th-world countries like Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. We should better ourselves. Not  benchmark our goals and achievements against chronic mediocres and under-achievers.

 ConnectedKE

I am pro-meeting-of-great-minds. As long as the meetings are progressive.

A lot of my friends asked me why I did not attend the ConnectedKe 2012 conference. “What for?”, I asked. “Apart from having sweaty-balls, chilling at Shakatak and being masticated by mosquitoes bred from the 4-K Club, what more value will it add.”.

The theme and aim of ConnectedKe Conference for 2012 should have been to REVIEW what we had achieved since the last conference in 2011. Not make MORE blind plans. Not sit down all day in nipple-constricting AC temperatures and listen to plans. Oh, wait. This is Kenya. All we do is plan and talk. Sound brainy. Be told we are awesome. Then go back to work on Monday. And keep wondering why, while over 30, we are still employed.

Why should I pause from code and attend a conference where I will meet the top leeches and brain-slurpers Kenya has to offer? I might share a super-brilliant concept during a lazy afternoon at the Bustani swimming pool, then 3 months later, I see it on a bill-board, powered by BernSoft. Why?

Sustainability

Ok. clearly vitu mob zimenijamisha. So acha tumalize hii post na something less antagonistic.

I really pray that I get the focus and time required to build the @AngryKenyans game to completion. I really do. I want to showcase the potential of mobile coding in Kenya. A cash-camel that uses no Ads. Fuck Ads. And here is why I cringe when a mobile developer talks about Ads. 4 unique ways to make money everyday, per-user, without ads.

Tuvitu from Shimba got over 950, 000 combined downloads on the Ovi Store. Revenue generated? A massive Zero Billion Kenya Shillings.

Kuna dawa.

Back to code.

Wazi.

At least 16 people I know lost their ‘stuff’. Laptops, phones, wallets, hope in life, virginity… name them!

The question lingers. How can Salim, a total teetotaler, lose his laptop? His tool of trade. “Ulipigwa?”, some asked. “Ofcourse not!”, I responded. “The bulge on my trousers would have scared off any would-be female assailant. Not to mention my Jujutsu, which would render any-sized person defunct.”

Laptop

So, how did it happen?

I normally leave my daily backups in a disk at iHub. But I was not planning to go to iHub from Thursday to Tuesday. Working from home. 4 days straight would get alot done. So, at 9pm, I packed all my stuff in my HP bag.

• The souped-up HP p8440 laptop [8 GB Ram, 320 GB HDD, Over-clocked Corei5].
• Samsung 640 GB Backup disk with all my data.
• Laptop Charger.
• Samsung USB Cables.
• Boobs mouse-pad and Normal Mouse-pad.
• Small-small geek toys.

So, I went to Qz, then K1 for reggae. I have reserved parkings at these 2 places, so security is never an issue. All I have to do is call and “hiyo parking tutakuwekea mkubwa” is always the response. I left Qz and all was there. Nothing stolen.

Then I went to K1. Played pool like a viper. won 11 games won in a row. Oh! what a night. Then I lost to a female. Her short skirt and full boobs were too distracting for a thug like me to focus on mere balls. So, I booked another game and I went upstairs where I met Mr Mimano chilling and billing while sipping and tipping. With him was Alindi and SirLV and some very happy looking fellas who greeted me with a wry smile and a limp handshake. Na hiyo story ikaishia hapo.

Time-check! 2am. A coder gotta go sleep. So, as I was heading out, I met a friend who asked for a lift to Ngong road. I obliged. Laptop iko. Nothing stolen. Drove all the way to Ngong Road Total Petrol station. Decided to stop and buy some Ngwati-ken (kuku-porno). And this is where it happened.

Normally, I lock the car and go, do some munching, and then drive home happily. But since there was someone kwa ndai, I left the music on and the doors closed, but unlocked. Went to order and 5 mins later, walked out. I found the son of a busted condom asleep. Blacked out. with the door open. And no laptop. Total loss: Approx USD 2000 hardware.

The rest is history.

It is during times of calamities like these that the real friends manifest themselves. All someone needs sometimes is just an ancouraging tweet, SMS or phone call. Team Salim-ni-wetu sent me these. The DGAF could not care less. Unsurprising. They DonGiveAFck.

So, fuck it.

I spent the whole of Friday installing my working environment on Anastacia (my old, faithful laptop) and also calculating the loss. With all the DropBoxes and SVNs, I still lost 5 weeks worth of work. I had to make a few sad calls to a few clients and cancel projects, refund deposits etc. Sad. But necessary. Otherwise pressure ingenimada.

Ball

The writing was on the wall. Dortmund just needed to win their derby against Monchengladbach to win the Bundesliga title. They won 2-0. And won the title. Kudos!

Real Madrid just needed to avoid defeat against the Spanish soap opera of divers and referee-decisions FC. The Man Urinals of Spain. They won. They just need 1 win and 1 draw to win the La Liga. Kudos!

Back in England, Man-chesthairs Yawwwwwnited just needed to beat Everton at Sold Trafford and ASSURE them of the 2011/2012 title. They could not handle the pressure. Now all Man City needs to do is win all their games. And there is nothing the divers can do to stop them from taking the title.

iHub Match

Venue: Kilimani primary school. iHub Nairobi’s Code FC was to play their first game of the Kenyan Division 4 football league against the Red Catalans. A team full of brobdingnagian fellas. The smallest dude had a show of size 9. They made the ball look like a pool-white ball. They gave the ball boys a hard time fetching the ball from Kawangware and from Hurlingham.

But iHub was unrelenting. Captained by Erik and rallied by Fender and Pires they cut through the catalans musculo-epithelial frame defenders like a hot-knife through butter. The Merciless attack of iTosh, Pires and William could be stopped. But only for a short time. iHud emerged victorious.

Back to code.

Wazi!

Humanious Pissofficus

Well.

Nothing techie-esque today. Acha tudiscuss wasee. Au vipi? Kwani kila saa ni hi-tech stuff?

Just blowing off some steam after a long, hard but deeply satisfying day at the office.

Don’t believe the blog.

Don’t believe the hype.

I am a simple jamaa. I focus on the simplicity and aim at attaining the ultimate sophistication, as Einstein perceives. In my line of work (which, of course, involves a lot of brain-work and innovation), I have had the unfortunate displeasure of meeting some ‘characters’.

Well, we know of a few, and have met one or 2 in our daily lives. Annoying f|_|ckers. Let us look at a few.

Multijuajious Kilakitucus

Before the ‘Salim-anajiringa-hati-yeye-tu-ndiye-anajua’ crew and the ‘ohh-my-3inch-dicq-is-the-longest-in-my-village’ gang start getting all defensive, I must make it clear that I ADORE and look up to anyone who knows something I don’t know. I never feel intimidated. I feel challenged. Challenged to make my teacher my role model, then my equal, then my student. Without vendetta. That’s what’s up.

That said, I completely abhor know-it-alls. Talk about computer parts, they have something to say. Discuss about PHP vs Ruby, they have something to say. Talk about the contribution of long pubic hair to global warming, they wrote the Wikipedia article on that.

The sad part of the story is that their contributions are always based on some half-researched article they read in 2001 and some beer-talk they over-heard last week at Black-D from some drunk faggot (As @__RamzZy__ would put it: ‘Oops! I said faggot. I’m sorry, i meant respectable male member of society who smiles at a penis in the butt.’). My God!

There is nothing worse and more annoying than getting into a fact-based argument with this lot. They will swear by their ‘facts’.

Playahatus Extremus

This is another infectious trait. The belief that everyone who has more than you is a thief, murderer, con-man, devil-worshiper of someone who likes Man-United habits (aka shoga).

Instead of styling up and becoming a better ‘them’, the members of this group will sit all day and look for items to tweet and blog in a senile attempt to smear their targets. Meanwhile, their target is making more money and screwing their chic. And life goes on.

Ngwatimobious PendaMticus

An annoying group. Lovers of porn and movies. Downloading content DAILY. There is no torrent-day for these annoying little pests. Everyday is Ngwaturday.

Come to iHub or on Safaricom Unlimited Internet, and these soul-less leeches, who account to about 1.2% of the population, will be consuming 80% of the Internet pipe.

Mess up your day with slow internet speeds, then go home and spoil their Rexona.

Pokohuntaz Jiitaplayarus

If you hang out around Westie and in some popular lounges in town, you will meet this crew. Pretenders and posers with no real loot but acting like ballers. The bill reaches KSHS 700 and it is mayhem for the club service personell. They will talk about all the biotches they plug-into daily, the models and the news achors to whose Drive C they have unlimited admin read-write rights. But you never see them with any females.

Ok, you do. But madem wa F1. Poko-Hunters.

Heh!

Acha niende doba K1 kiasi, tupunguze uzee.

Then morrow ni kama kawa.

Back to code! Wazi.

Power. Unprecedented Power.

Tongue twister. I know.

Unfathomable by many. I know.

Incomprehensible by most. I know.

Attainable by only a select few. Obviously.

Most folks never go beyond the first step. It always is about what needs to be done. Whereas nothing ACTUALLY gets done. [That is why I sabotaged the ConnectedKE conference. But that is a story for another day.] It is a Kenyan culture. It is infectious. Even foreigners are not immune.

Hang around Kenyans long enough, and you start being an expert on how things will NOT work. What we can NEVER be able to do as Africans.

How your idea to open a shop in town will fail because Kanjo will come for you. How you should not go to town because of traffic. How you should not talk to a gal in a club because she is too hot.

Speaking of gals, I met this hot chic last week and she had a big and juicy … [Naah, serious stuff only in this blog post. Sorry.]

We are a society of all these bright ideas. A culture inundated with egos that can never fail to take a chance to yap all day in forums. On twirra. In discussions. Oh, look how bright and intelligent and informed about everything I am. I am the best. All these ideas are mine. But what have you achieved so far in life? A big FOOKIN nothing.

A culture of predictors and speculators.

Full of ‘I-studied-in-the-US/UK-and-you-should-all-xuck-mi-deeq’ celebrities and ‘spokespersons’.

Full of ‘They-studied-in-the-US/UK-and-we-are-brainless-idiots-compared-to-them’ self-doubters and meek beings.

But then there is YOU. Yes, you are one of the 1200 people who read this blog daily. Because you know the content is informative. Because you know the content is contextual to your purpose. Because you know that, here, your ego will not me massaged. You will be hit hard with the bare and blunt facts of life.

YOU are fed-up by being Kenyans. Since being Kenyan means being satisfied by a paltry 6-digit salary at the end of the month and showing off to your friends. YOU are fed-up by being Kenyans. Since being Kenyan means you just need to grow a pot-belly to be seen as successful. YOU are fed-up by being Kenyans. Since being Kenyan means hating on those who have more/better/bigger/faster than yours and despising and labeling anyone as a loser and a fookin idiot who has less than you.

YOU want to do something big. Something tangible. Such that if you die TOMORROW, everyone will sing about you and how much you have touched your lives.

“Salim! Give us an example. Please!”, I hear your soul shout, despite some resistance from the Kenyan ego.

So, let me talk about the ISIOLO cluster. Finally commissioned. USD 50k signed off. 70% of the required bleeding-edge hardware not available in Kenya. Some technical details first:

• A 16 Node monster.
• 1 NVidia GTX 680 GPU per node [Each with 1, 536 cores].
• 1 Intel® Core™ i7-3820 Processor – (10M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) per node [each with 4 cores and 8 threads]
• 1 64 GB Samsung SSD for scratch-disk per node.
• Combined power of 48 Tera Flops. [2 TeraFlops short of the 500th fastest super computer on earth.]
• InfiniBand for I/O throughput [Network I/O] – No Ethernet.
• Power will be direct from UPS to Monitor. No power unit. Less power usage.
• The setup will need a minimum dedicated 9.3 KW of power as input.

So. Yes. Kenya will finally be in the map. The most POWERFUL computer in Africa will be completed in the next 60 days. So what? How does it help you as YOU. So hii ISIOLO cluster itanilipia rent? You ask.

For the cooks, watchmen, shoe-shiners, website designers and computer-monitor dust wipers, all this is greek na Salim anajifanya mnoma. Hit the door. Bye. Thank you.

For those still reading, the use of such a computer monster is only limited to your imagination. We have spoken about this alot. I won’t bore you with repetition.

But, ohh no! We will not keep the spoils and knowledge to ourselves. We are not THAT Kenyan. Everything will be documented. 5 people EVERY month will be exposed to this awesomeness. Tick… tock…!

And for the next 2 months, this is what I am going to do. What about you? Do something bana. Don’t see life just waste by.

Back to HPC.

Wazi.

Big is big

It all started as an Idea.

A ‘what if’. An ‘I wish someone is reading this and can buy into the dream’ kind of a whimper. An ‘If ONLY I had the funding’ tyre-kick. A gut feeling that a group of Kenyans can actually do this.

A need to show that we never have to depend on the American or the savior from Europe to do this for us.

A pain arising from the hunger for an African success story. The quest to showcase that in Kenya, we are not just USERS of technologies. We are creators and pioneers.

The Journey has been long and tiresome. Eric Hersman told me to do a proposal. I did it. Bob of Google asked me to refine it further. I did. I was asked some technical questions about clusters. I answered them as if asked what my name was. [And still, I cannot get a job, for kicks ofcourse, because I do not have a University degree].

Finally, the funding has been release. USD 50, 000 allocated for the *iCluster_. Codenamed the ISIOLO HyperComputer Project. The initial project will be designed by a core team of 2-3 people.

My experience in servers, SysAdminery and security means I will have the honor to do the setup and Configs. Kernel hacks, optimization, installation of the Parallel programming environment. Setup of tools like pyCuda and Cula. @AfroWave will do the Networks, the power and cabling, the rack specs, the monitoring system and the cooling. We still need 2 people.

One person to do the documentation of the whole setup. Videos, photographic and technical. We might need to create a documentary for this. You need to have your own camera and be available to come to the iHub at least 3 times a week.

Secondly, also, we might need an individual or panel of thinkers. We have over 7 uses for the iCluster that will be published as we go on, if not yet listed in my last blog posts, but we will welcome ideas and challenges.

The project is FUNDED by google, and happily IMPLEMENTED by local hard-core talents from Kenya, based at the iHub. And that’s whats up.

Now, this is the ZeroDay on how we are going to play it:

•  We will be welcoming applications from 2 types of people.
• Techies who want to learn how to create the cluster. With them, we will dismantle and delete EVERYTHING from a learning replica of the cluster, and then do it from scratch. This will be done with 5 people every 30 days. So, 5 people per month will get to learn something new and cool. Nice huh?
• Business-minds who want to know how the blazing speeds of the cluster can be harnessed for their organization. It is really a no-brainer. Ogopa and HomeBoyz. Universities. NSE. NSSF. Kenya Police. CID. NSIS. Telcos. KNEC. Kenya Army. Tens of uses for the cluster for each.

More on this will be on the *iCluster_ blog that we will open soon dedicated to the cluster. Videos, Daily updates etc.

Let us celebrate Kenyan. Let us celebrate technology. Real solution to real problems, using technology.

Back to code.

Wazi.

Ignited. Forever burning

And so it happened. Salim finally decided to participate in local developers’ contest. A Hackathon. As I warm up for Pivot East.

He decided to attend the Ignite Hackathon.

Over the last two years, he has seen awards being taken by pretenders and wannabes, as well as deserving and seasoned masters of the code-game.

So, seated and psyched by @zacckOS, the code was designed, visualized and aligned to the theme of the Nokia/Emobilis/Capital FM Sponsored theme: “An application for the Masses”.

The challenge was to design a mobile application, from scratch, in less than 30 Hours [Saturday 8am to Sunday noon] or showcase a done, but un-published app and align it to that theme.

Ofcourse, as anyone who knows anything about me apart from my seconds name and that I hate VB and Man Urinals, I dislike JUNK food with a passion. But, Sacrifices had to me made. My peeps were texting asking where we are playing pool that night. Not tonight. Sacrifices had to be made.

The venue, above BrewBistro, was humbling. Twice the size of @iHub and @thenailab combined. Fitted with modern equipment and cushioned coding seats. Big enough to host over 500 people. And here we were, thinking Magua was all that. Talk of the Chinese Peenus. Just 2 minute drive from my crib. What more could a coder ask for? I was tempted to shifting there from next month. Next week. Maybe.

I decided to develop a mobile platform. A mobile app was too easy. I called it mGenie.

mGenie is your personal Mobile Genie. A know-it-all platform. It allows a user chat with WebServices running as Bots using a very simple Key-words register, provided by the Bot. It is an N-tier platform consisting of:

• A mobile application supporting XMPP in J2ME.
• A MySQL Database that holds a register of services.
• A PHP web-service that feeds the Mobile App with the services from the DB.
• An ubiquitous Bots register that allows developers develop their own services and plug them to the service inventory. These Bots support a simple

User - All a user needs to do is download the app on their phone.

Service Providers – Service providers would register with Xema Labs and have their services registered and approved to appear on the mGenie Mobile Application.

Example:

Let us say Nairobi Stocks Exchange developed a Bot that does the following:

• Listens to connections.
• Responds to keywords:
• Mobile user types ‘Help’ – It responds with ‘Help: To see price of a stock, type the name e.g. For Safaricom, type Saf. Type stocks for a list of all stocks’
• Mobile user types ‘stocks’ – It responds with ‘Stocks: Saf (Safaricom), eqty (equity), Acck (Access Kenya)’ etc…
• Mobile user types : ‘Saf’ – It responds with ‘Safaricom is trading at KSHS 3.1′
• Mobile User types : ‘saf history 3′ – It responds with ‘Safaricom stock for the last 3 days: 24th March [Lowest: KSHS 3.0, Highest: KSHS 3.3], 25th March [Lowest: KSHS 3.1, Highest: KSHS 3.4], 26th March [Lowest: KSHS 3.2, Highest: KSHS 3.4]‘
• Etc…
• The responses and the data are FULLY controlled by the third-party developers. No need to update the Mobile App. It is just a shell.

The mGenie platform is able to run ANY type of service. Insurance Quotes? HIV Counselling? Medical Symptoms Queries? Music Downloads? Name them!

So, Luckily, I was part of the 15 people who made it to the Shortlist to demo their apps. I was 4th to demo my App. I demonstrated a Simple dictionary bot that takes a word from the user and gives the dictionary definition. Then added that the platform is open and ANY developer could develop their Bot to serve their personalized content to interested users.

Talk of an intelligent Mobile-based real-time and personalized user-preference-tracking s40 Meta-directory. I could see the judges impressed my the amazing simplicity presented to the Mobile user, despite the complexity of the setup, all done in less than 30 hours. My presentation was done. So I went back to my seat amidst claps.

Immediately I was done, Chris Kirubi stood up and took the Mic. He was the sponsor, so we gave him all ears. He started by expressing disappointment that the App was ‘doing too much’. I did not get a chance to answer back and explain that this was a PLATFORM and the ‘too much’ being done was by the third-party service providers. He talked and talked and I could see, with every word and scorn, the judges begin to vacillate. The 7 our of 10′s that I might have got quickly turned to 4s.

Why would a sponsor take the Mic, in the middle of a presentation and put down a contestant? Presentation 4 of 15. Couldn’t he be professional and wait for the event to end, then talk to me personally? Or to the crowd, like he did, but after the judges had finished their job?

One part of me told me to get into my car and go home. Another more sensible part told me to be strong. So did a few tweets from some of my peeps. Had I come first, I am sure he would have rescinded the prize.

In my life, I have seen shoe-shiners advise masons on how to lay the bricks in the best way. I have been to lectures where chicken-feet-washers talked about IT security. So, Kenyans talking about something they know NOTHING about, and with authority, was nothing new.

Despite the stones thrown to me and the castigations, I came 3rd. I went home completely disappointed, and utterly flabbergasted.

The Ignite Hackathon was HUGE success, to me. Despite what happened. I came third, overall. And I was happy. Not for the money, but for ‘Validation’. That was 120 coders and 6 judges looking at me and saying, “Msee uko poa code!”. And that is all a thug like me wants.

Back to code.

Wazi.

Enough. Let's get paid!

Heh! Ni kunasty. Feelings nazo. Emotions nazo.

Last week I tweeted that I had finally managed to get time off my busy schedule and get me a driving license, and MY GOD!! It proved to be a thorn in a lot of people’s flesh.

“People have been driving for ages! Don’t boast to us”, one male retorted in a comment on my blog post. ‘Boast’? I wondered.

But this was just an estate dog barking.

So I went on with my biz.

I had a hard-on for a German machine, but, as advised by @Kaboro , @afrowave and my other close peeps and well-wishers, I decided to get a small, cheap car to spruce my driving skills first. Small enough, but beastly enough to make the Vitz, ISTs and other Kindergarten cars cry as I pass them. So I tweeted this. “Just got me a 5-Speed 1989 Starlet GT Turbo. Happy days”, My Gawd!! Enter the trolls, the eHaters and TwHaters. “Gari ya watoto wa Campus.”, “Hahahah!! Hauna doo”, etc.

Such bitter sons of biatchez. I wanted to confess to the probably-matt-using, sad, little goat-fucker that my 2 weeks’ pay is enough to  pay him and his family for a year to just sit at home and play with their nipples all day. But nitaambiwa najiringa. They will say Salim is full of pride and is a show-off. So I let them be.

So, I wake up at 8:13am today, and felt like tweeting : “I am awake and well, Praise be to Allah!”. But immediately, I knew THAT would offend someone. TeamFickle. “What do you mean waking up? So what? People have been waking up all their lives. And do you think you are the first one to praise Allah!”, was my premonition. So I stopped tweeting the thought.

Can’t we just share our little successes? Can’t we all just be happy for each other? Can’t we all just get along? We cant? Well go phuck a tree. You are the reason you are bitter with yourself. Not me, loser!

Wow! Explosive start of this blogpost, huh? I know. I am GOOD at foreplay. Twende kazi.

In March 18 2010, I blogged about 10 opportunities that were there, agape, for people who wanted to make alot of money in code. 75%-80% of the potential was locked on MobileMoney and PRSP interactions. So, I went all bonkers when Safaricom classified me, my blog, my left nut and my cat as “IT Security risks”. Salim and any associated people were blocked for over 18 months from using ANY Safaricom services.

Luckily, In came Bob and a team of more receptive people. The embargoes were lifted. History. We finally have the connections that were required to enable the Kenyan techies develop and INSTANTLY-on-upload, earn from the 10 systems.

This drive and need to see people succeed and EARN from code was part of the 8 reasons that the Head of Innovation job at Safaricom was so strategic for me. To act as the door-opener to all the coders I see with super systems but no way to monetize, because Safaricom are, despite all the efforts from NW and BC, still Safaricom. The biggest, roundest and hardest nipples in town. Inundated in hubris. But I did not have a University degree. Down the drain, it all went. Sad.

The opportunities have withered. Some adulterated and killed due to poor execution by copy-cats. What we call the IT-journeymen. The  tire-kickers. The nina-system-kali-inatwa-HelloWorld crew. Massive, colorful, expensive and well-covered media launches for mediocre products. Spoils the name of the Kenyan IT potential. People with money and capacity but not the focus or knowledge or patience to execute the master-plan. People who think code ni mkate. You know worramtaokinabout!

1 – Harnessing XMPP – Human-to-computer communication. No one in Kenya seems interested in this. How humans can ask a computer bot, via chat, about real-time data. Takes you beyond search. You don’t look for information. Information finds you. Behavioral analysis algorithms make sure only relevant information comes to you. Dollar rate? NSE Share price. Sale and buy Order to a stockbroker server with order confirmation support? Symptoms for a disease? Closest clubs and bars? I am going to showcase this in the IgniteHackathon this weekend. We have smartphones. We have a local loop. You have No excuses.

2 – MPG – Mention Ma3Racer. Then shut up. Because that is all there is available as far as games from Kenya are concerned. Multi-Player Games are there for the taking. Human vs human over the KIXP local loop? Over WaziWiFi? Over iHub Wifi? 5 bob per week per player. Bragging rights and monthly prizes per winner. What’s there to stop at least 20, 000 of the 200k+ Kenyans with Smart phones playing your game and paying you daily? Wait. It is you, dummy!! You have not developed/finished the game.

3 – UGC – Last week when I met NW of Safaricom, he was super-excited about the KulaHappy service. How much traffic it was pulling and the traction it was getting. My lectures and blog posts about the potential of local User-Generated Content sasa zimekuwa kama wimbo. If Ogopa DJ and/or homeboyz were serious and stopped depending on the foreign and un-monetizable youtube, they have enough content to make a killing off data, ads and subscriptions.

4 – Kenyan Social Network – Well, again. Figures. at least 38% of Safaricom Subscribers are Data-enabled. That is at least 7.6 M. Again, Facebook has only 1.7M users. 6M Kenyans CAN use facebook if they wanted, but choose not to. Less than 50k users on twitter (give or take). What do you have to offer these Kenyans that the foreign social networks cannot? Think. The Kenyans are waiting. Sembuse had 246, 031 people before we closed it due to the embargoes above. Then, Facebook had just over 580, 000 users. Tulikuwa bumper. Potential iko.

5 – Hacking and Security – *looks left, right, re-checks firewall*. Now, I will not speak about the story I heard about these hackers who used to go to The Mug in prestige and steal digital Airtime Vouchers from that bookstore there, on the ground-floor over their insecure Wi-Fi. I will not. I will not speak about the NgongRoad Hackers who listen to VOIP calls doe to poor Voip security.

I will, also, not speak about these guys who once came to see me at iHub claiming they know people high up in Safaricom and that they could make me millions if I showed them the Mpesa Exploits I had spoken about in 2010, in the old version of Mpesa (decommissioned and replaced with a robust and more secure one).

The potential is there. having an inquisitive mind, Forming a legal entity, getting certification from CEH and the like and then being true to the client’s interest are the only requirements.

Heh! Acha nimalizie hapo.

Back to code.

Wazi.

Garbage + garbage

This is one of those ‘perspective’ blog posts. And when I write such, I always advice the average ‘fragile ego’ I-am-a-celeb-in-a-certain-village-somewhere-so-dont-play-with-me Kenyans to ward off. Go to TechnoVillage and read about an outsider’s view of iHub.

Or go to xvideos.com. They are hiring people to classify their porn collection.

Oh, you are still reading this. So let’s get down. Or in.

Deep.

Kenya is number 2 in Africa in the number of tweets. Only 2nd from South Africa. YAAAAAY!! We are the best in the third world country. Yess!! We are so intelligent and engaging! Yaaaay!! We are the BEST among the mediocres!! Kenya!! The BBBEEEEST!! Yessss!!

Yeah. Compared to small 5th-world countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia. The big Chinese Peenus comes to mind once again.

When I was learning how to program in the Assembly language (before I paused it to be continued later mfuko ikifura), one of the most memorable sentences was : “People who know very little sound like geniuses to people who know less or nothing; but sound like complete fools to people who know alot.”

So, why is Salim complaining now? Can’t we just be happy that Kenya is finally in the map?

We have fibre. And what have we accomplished since? 1.7 Million facebook users from 700k before the Fibre. Number 2 on twitter from obscurity. What else, let me see, not a fuckin thing.

I would be happy to be number 19 in Africa, with positive tweets about life and money and spiritualism, than number 2 with dementia-inducing tweets by chronic cranial rectitis mindsets. Relax. usijam yet. bado hata sijaanza.

What are the most discussed items in the Kenyan Tweetosphere?

• Whole days contributing to and re-tweeting useless Trending Topics and HashTags [#ujingaNi #alaiScream #ChieftKariukiTweets]

• Retweets of innuendo and please-join-me tweets from faggots by people who pretend to be straight. *just for laughs*. Seems if you just put ‘Oi’, ‘LQTM’, ‘LOL’, ‘SMH’ or ‘ROR’ in any retweets, you validate the garbage it carries. Alot of #KOTS are just Kindergarten faggots. They have just not graduated yet. All the signs are there.

• Sex-sells – That shy girl you see in the office in accounts or IT is the biggest slut in twitter. Talking about her nipples and getting 4000 followers. “I am horny today” – 4,000 retweets and 1000 responses. The dude called ‘DopestChiqa’ from Zimmerman uploads a new naked female photo – 6000 followers! pap!

• TweefWhores – Back to the Fragile egos. Anything and everything is a personal insult. At the slightest provocation, a tweef is born. And guess what the team-retweet comes to life. Especially of it is a man vs a woman or a faggot.

• Ball – Nothing wrong here. Ball lazima. For some people, football is their only solace and source of joy. Man Urinals ikishinda, shida zina-SHUKA.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

But then again, what can we do? It is a culture. We top in corruption. Crime. Just negativity..

Once again, we are the best in the world. In irrelevant stuff.

Back to code.

Wazi

Hard working. Going nowhere fast!!

String[] woman = {“Human Female”,”RedTube”,”Vaseline”,”Rexona”};

while (stillStupidAndAsleep){

WakeUpUnwillingly(at630am);

MorningGloryWith(woman);

DoTheUsual(“Shower”, “Breako”, “Jam”, “OfficeDesk”, “BragOnTwitterAboutOfficeCoffee”, “DMSomeMammaWhoThinksYoAllThat”, “Lunch”, “BitchOnTweeterWaitingForTweef”);

}

2 stories come to mind.

Read them with an open mind kwanza.

Once upon a time, a chinese man was born. The doctors were astonished at how HUGE his peenus was. So big was it, that his dad named him Ding Dong So. A whole 1.2 Inches while kamelala. A humongous 1.8 Inches while fully erect.

Alla dem biatches wanted a piece of it. He was nick-named the de-virginator. No style was impossible for him. No woman was too big for him. (*acha nisitukanane*). Ahem!

So, one day he was called to Kenya to mend a pot-hole on Thika road. And then he understood why the road was named to sounds like Thicker road. After a day of hard work, he decided to get laid and was lucky to find himself a Kenyan Virgin.

To prevent potential war between Kenya and China, he warned her that she might not have enough Dick-space in her drive C for his weapon. Dame akakubali 2k. Akavua. Ding Dong So akaingia. Akakuta borehole. Dame akadhani Dong So ameingiza kichwa. Kumbe mzee ashazamisha yote. The tightest and smallest Drive C in Kenya was BIGGER than any he had mercilessly formatted in China.

Akabatiza akaitwa Dong Pyenga.

Hold that thought.

Story 2: Kwendeni! Story 2 ni morrow. It will make the blog post soo long.

Mistakes, Mistakes, Mistakes

Well, a week of mixed results, reactions and feelings.

Finally, I managed to ‘get time’ and go do my B/C/E driving. Passed like Salim only does. Ofcourse. Obvious. Pass. I am Salim. Meaning I can finally drive my personal 5-speed GT Turbo Monster [Henrietta] or Symbiotic’s e240 [MsGerman], anytime I feel like. No more cabs. This is a MASSIVE load taken off my back. Finally legal. I used to spend over KSHS 24, 000 per month on cabs. Not anymore. Code has suffered, ofcourse. But the end will justify the means on this one.

Then came ball. Mabao za Bilbaooo. Then the Arsenal game. 1-0 down to NukeArsehole Yawwnited at the Emirates. But Arsenal, like me on your siz, finished on top. 2-1. 3rd spot now assured. Simple things.

Then came the news from Safaricom.

“Dear Applicant,

REF: APPLICATION FOR THE ROLE OF HEAD OF INNOVATION.

Thank you for your interest in the above position and for taking time to place your application for consideration as a HEAD OF INNOVATION.

We regret to inform you that you were not short listed in this instance for the position and will therefore not be taking your application further on this occasion. The minimum requirements for the role were;

Bachelors Degree in Commerce or a Technical field – Engineering or Information Technology from a recognized university;
“

No degree. No work here. Biatch.

Like 2Pac said, “Some things will never change.” All the best to all the suit-wearing, degrees-touting applicants who will get the job. Good luck working with Kenyan techies.

This does not mean that I will start hating on Safaricom and their people. No. I am not Kenyan like that. Hii ime-fail. Move on. Next one haitafail. Au vipi?

So, enough foreplay. Tuanze maneno sasa. Startup mistakes.

1 – Giving too much control

I have heard it said before. Give someone too much freedom and control over something, and they will start thinking they own it. You will soon be seen as irrelevant. Especially in a start-up, where resources are meager.

The usual human vices of greed and selfishness creep in. Long time ago, I was doing exactly this. Assuming that the other parties will handle the ‘business and the money’ and you will handle ‘technology’. Ohh, how stupid I was.

The lessons I got, especially after lectures and kuzomewa by Too, Liko, Sam and Wanjiku were: As a techie, you must :

•  Ofcourse, focus on your deliverables and not only deliver, but deliver IN time.
• Make sure all expenses are signed off by you. You MUST be a signatory to ALL accounts.
• If you are 2/3/4/5/x people, all loot MUST be shared in equal or pre-agreed ratios, after company expenses have been deducted.
• Question all financial issues. How was this money spent? How were bills A, B and C paid without my signature?
• Differentiate between company expenses and personal expenses.

Or, soon you will start developing mistrust and paranoia. We are humans. You will realize that you are walking while your partners are driving. Morale will die. Systems will get delayed. We are humans. You will start searching for side deals. We are humans.

Once coder amemua ‘fuck-it’.. ni ‘fuck-it’. Hata ukaita polisi. Coders work on psyche. Not pressure.

2 – Too much trust

This is business. Trust no one. Goes the saying. Ofcourse, some ventures are started on good-will and trust. And they thrive, as long as the trust candle keeps burning. But trust has a way of getting exploited when too much of it is applied. Things that you would normally get asked about get replaced by the ‘ni obvious atakubali’ assumption. People start thinking for you. Deciding for you. Wewe ni msoft. Until it is too late.

Also, as human nature depicts, only one’s problems are priorities. Other people’s problems are ‘shida zao’. So, in a business relationship based on trust, plus giving control, you will always find yourself getting a share of what is LEFT after all the other urgent needs have been taken care of.

3 – Procrastination

Once you reach a certain level of unoma, or just because of sheer hubris, maybe loss of professional decorum or loss of psyche, you start doing Monday’s work on Wednesday. Wednesday’s work next week. And work piles up.

I have been a victim of this. Total loss of psyche. Mpaka unasahau kuwasha laptop. Unafinya USB port badala ya power button. Waking up and wondering, “what’s the point?”. Switching off the phones and locking the doors. Movie. Fuck everyone. this is ‘me time’. Because, trust me, no body cares. 80% of the time, as a techie, you are just a vessel other people use to get to their destination.

Lesson: Maliza ya leo, leo. Acha jokes.

But sitaongea mob. Nitaambiwa nimetukanana.

Back to code.

Wazi.