The Maker Faire Africa 2010, second edition celebrating African ingenuity, innovation and invention, was held on the 27th and 28th of August. Here are afer highlights of the exciting exhibits on display at the show.

1. Pata Pata Art

PataPata Art 1

PataPata Art 2

PataPata Art 3

Pata Pata or rather Pati Pati is a swahili name for flip-flops/slippers. The artists exhibiting these collect lost slippers from the beaches at the coast and slum streams, then knife and glue them up into these beautiful sculptures.

2. BushPunk Glasses

BushPunk Stunners 1: Check out the detail on this pair

BushPunk Stunners 2: And these made from old speakers

BushPunk Stunners 3: Captain Crook

Couldn’t get enough of the creativity and resourcefulness Cyrus Kabiru, the maker, put into his designs…

3. Kitengela Glass Art

Awesome souvenir from Kitengela Glass Art!

More Glass Blown Art

4. Tea Maker

Electronic Tea Maker

Simon Mwaura’s brilliant Electronic Tea Maker is a system that integrates mobile technology to make a remotely activatable Tea Maker that can have your tea ready just when you get home.

5. FabLab UoN CNC Router

3-Axis CNC Router

Sample one of the CNC Router’s fabricated at the Fab Lab. This Machine is a replica of the machine used to make it… interesting!

6. Solar Chargeable Torches

Solar Chargeable Torches

Aren’t these just beautifully pieced? Pricey though… IMO.(KSh.3,500~USD45)

7. Crafting Peace Art

Crafting Peace Art 1

Crafting Peace Art 1

Now twitter should know they need to patent this lil’ birdie…! Cool crafts!

8. HBS1 Bag (Hawker/Back 2 School Bag)

HBS1 Bag on the back

HBS1 Bag on when hawking

Designed by Chika Okafor from Nigeria, can be worn/carried almost four different ways (I like to call them modes) since the diversity of use that it can be put to is just incredible… ie for hawking, hiking, books, sports, supplies etc.

9. The Masiro 2010

The Uber Boda Boda: Masiro 2010

Micheal and Absalom Onyango have design and custom built the “Masiro 2010″ that is said to be able to carry two and a half times (250Kg’s) the weight manageable by the average boda boda. Must say, the ride a ride on this baby is super smooth. They have double suspension on the rear as well as the front wheels.

10. The Electronic Well

The Electronic Well

Students from the UoN FabLab hacked up this contraption only three days before the Maker Faire. The electronic well can fill up water for use/storage from a borehole unattended. Well, I’m not too sure why a pump would not be more effecient, but the clever mechanics employed were quite a spectacle.

There goes… Which was your pick?

5. Juliana Rotich – Ushahidi Co-Founder and Program director.

Juliana: #IKidYouNot Those are 1GB USB earrings*

What hardware do you use in the office?
Confessing that it is not a Thinkpad running Ubuntu like all of you I just have my MacBook pro, a brother printer, though just got a Canon network printer+scanner combo that uses wifi. For internet I have a 10 Mbps line from Comcast + Cisco N-series router.

What hardware do you use at home?
Same as above.

What software do you use?
“Mac OS X, Thunderbird for email (allows for encryption though haven’t gotten around to it.) + Lightning for calendar. Firefox browser (always!!) cant live without the Ubiquity addon. Tweetie for twitter (multiple account support)
- Typical MSFT suite of apps for mac
- iwork 09, particularly Keynote
- Mindjet Mindmanager for mindmapping (I wish it could do mind reading too
- Flickr uploadr
-Marsedit for blog posts
-Transmit (FTP)
-Textmate
- Vuze for bittorrenting. ”

What would be your dream set up?
“ooh man.
FTTH first. Huge monitor with a machine that has >8GB ram, superfast processor awesome graphics and sleek lines. None of that bulky stuff. So like a 27 inch imac i guess.
For travel, i just want a 13 inch Macbook pro. Not feeling the Macbook AIR. Or a netbook with touch capabilities, sorta like the modbook http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook”

6. Linda Kamau – Lead Developer, Ushahidi – Kenya

Who you are and what you do?
Linda is a 24 year old web and mobile applications developer with a passion for software development. She is a PHP freak with a degree in Business Information Technology. She is the lead developer for Ushahidi here in Kenya. Ushahidi is a non-profit tech company that specializes in developing free and open source software for information collection,visualization and interactive mapping.

What hardware do you use in the office?
A Mac book Pro laptop, Ipad and 1Mbps Zuku connection.

What hardware do you use at home?
same as above plus a desktop computer, Mobile phones, Digital Camera, Portable DVD Writer.

What software do you use?
Operating system – For the laptop – Mac OS X Version 10.6.3. For the desktop Linux – Fedora 8.
Social Media Tools – Use skype, gtalk, twitter, facebook.
Web Tools – Dropbox, google docs, YousendIt, Pastie, bit.ly
VIM editor to write code

What would be your dream set up?
Having a 42″ inch LED monitor where I can code from my phone and using bluetooth, I’m able to view the results of my code or be able to SSH(Secure Shell connection) from my phone to my desktop(this is the one connected to the big monitor).

7. Jessica Colaco – *iHub_ Manager

Pic: Courtesy, Africa Knows

What hardware do you use in the office
“I sometimes alternate with my Mac Book Pro and my Dell notebook. I dislike using Desktops and Monitors. Occasionally, i use my iPad, Nexus 1 (Voice Recorder, Camera, MP3 Player) and NOKIA N81 (Voice Recorder, Camera, MP3 Player).
I use a 20MB internet connection FROM ZUKU at the office ”

What hardware do you use at home?
I sometimes alternate with my Mac Book Pro and my Dell notebook most of the time. I dislike using Desktops and Monitors and may occasionally use the home Toshiba Laptop. Occasionally, i use my iPad, Nexus 1 and NOKIA N81. I use a Safaricom modem at home and Zain on my mobile phone.

What software do you use?
“Operating System is Windows XP with a twist of VMware running MEPIS. Social Media tools like Twitter via Web, Seesmic, Twidroid, Snaptu. Browsers: FireFox, Chrome, Safari (iPad), Opera Mini(Nokia) and Dolphin (Nexus 1). Snaptu for Blogs.
JCreator LE – for quick debugging of Java Apps.Sun Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5 to test and run JME apps. Notepad to write simple scripts. Alternate between Open Office and Office 2007. Picasa to upload photos to Facebook, Flickr, Picasa. Audacity… There is more…”

What would be your dream set up?
Haha. Controlling everything via the mobile phone charged and powered using solar panels. Connect the mobile phone to a portable projector charged and powered using solar panels, bluetooth keyboard, mouse and speakers, running most of the apps above. Yeah in other words instead of a super computer, we are looking at a super mobile phone. Well you said to go wild

There goes… Seems the ‘nerdettes’ are giving the dudes a run for their money! I also noticed that all the above are in some way involved with ‘benevolent’ initiatives i.e. Akirachix, Ushahidi, Mobile Boot Camp… What does that say about the guys?
Will be posting a Mega-Pack of How Nerds Get It Done in Africa! Already getting responses from Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt. PS: You can nominate who you’d like to feature in the next series in the comment area below…

What you need for a basic implementation is a *nix machine, a gsm modem/phone (prefeably Huawei modem) and the following FOSS Tools.

1. X/W/LAMP Environment. For Windowers the XAMPP Framework takes care of all of this. For *nix users apt-get should sort each one out. Remember not all of these are really necessary, however, further development of your SMS Application may require all.

2. Gnokii – Gnokii is a free and open source Application Programming Interface that provides tools and a user space driver for use with GSM mobile phones and/or GSM modems under various operating systems.
Gnokii provides source code written in C and employs the use of AT Commands. Once installed and configured, Gnokii is used to set up polling between the computer and the GSM modem. The computer is said to ‘listen’ for requests from the modem and send requests via the AT Command Set.

Gnokii can be used to send, receive and store SMS messages automagically using a MySQL database with little to no coding experience required.
To install the full suite of libraries required go to terminal and type in the command

apt-get install gnokii gnokii-smsd gnokii-smsd-mysql

Create a file called .gnokiirc in your home directory with the following:

[global]
model = AT
# connection = bluetooth
# port = xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
connection = serial
port = /dev/ttyUSB0

To check whether the modem has been recognized you can run “gnokii –identify” in terminal and it should output the modem specification.

Note: These are the settings I used to connect using my cracked Safaricom Huawei E220. These should mostly work with all huawei modems. I will get to the my preference for a cracked one later in the post

3. Before starting smsd for the first time, we should create the database needed for smsd. The beauty of this solution is that it creates for you a whole database with the correct tables and commands for initiating SMS Tasks e.g. polling. Using phpmyadmin (or whichever dBase Manager you prefer), go to privileges, add a new user, and on the same page, choose the option to create a database with the same name as the user. Next, use the import tab to import the file “/usr/share/doc/gnokii-smsd-mysql/sms.tables.mysql.sql”.

Also before starting smsd, please note that all SMS messages in the inbox of your phone are automatically transferred to the database and deleted from your phone, so you should take precautions if you want to keep messages on your phone.

Start smsd like this:

smsd –module mysql -u user -p password -d databasename

smsd is basically a daemon to begin polling of SMS’s and there are quite afew extensions to the above command for more functionality. If youd prefer to run single commands for each actions, a few gnokii commands to get you started are listed below. For a complete listing simply type in gnokii at the command prompt with no options.

gnokii –getnetworkinfo
gnokii –identify
gnokii –getdisplaystatus
gnokii –sendsms destination [--smsc message_center_number |
--smscno message_center_index] [-r] [-C n] [-v n][--long n] [-i]
gnokii –netmonitor {reset|off|field|devel|next|nr}

Once you’re up and running can check out Gnokii’s Documentation pages for more commands and there’s also a GUI X-Gnokii may be simpler.

There are quite a few interesting implementations I have tried and they’d be great to implement for practise;
-M-Pesa Transaction Logging and Shopping Cart i.e. using Gnokii and phpWebcommerce
-Posting to Twitter from Command Line NB: You’ll have to set up smsd and then automat posting the SMS to twitter using a tool such as Crontab or MySQL Triggers.
-[SMS] - [PHP] – [GMAIL] – Send email using PHP with Gmail from SMS. NB: Same as above

PSSSST: I almost forgot. The reason I prefered a cracked modem was so that you can use the Mobile Network you prefer. I used a YU Simcard on a Safaricom Modem since YU are not serious about data although they have great SMS Bundles. There should still be the 75/- for 750 SMS’s offer. This is ofcourse assuming you are sending an SMS from your YU phone to your YU modem connected to your webserver. Terms and Conditions apply(in Kenya).

Date: 12th 1nd 13th September
Venue: iHub, Bishop Magua Centre, Ngong Road.
Opposite Uchumi Ngong Road

As promised, we have two more Nairobi Nerds, spilling the beans on how they get their mambo done…
‘How Nerds Get It Done’ is a series of posts inspired by this one and tries to find out exactly how our local elite (as in ‘tech-elite’) get to pull some awesome fetes, such as the ones below… PS: and I thought IT wasn’t capital intensive??

3. Kahenya Kamunyu – Virn Instruments

Pic: Courtesy Africa Knows

Who he is and what he does?
Kahenya is CEO at ViRN Instruments, a ‘small’ web application company that specializes in simple applications and web services. Through this, he has developed Wallapa – Simple Travel, Ukurasa – Simple Reading, Clip49 – Simple Media as well as the very popular Nation Media feature magazine, Zuqka – Be Famous! Offline, ViRN Instruments currently has interests in a new project called Yoghurt v3.0 – Simple Delights which is funded through their Micro Finance arm.

The latest product from his outfit is WebC. WebC is a platform that allows for anyone to monetize their content or access new services for their websites or companies. It comprises of many tools amon them, Metro, which is the one riding the most anticipation… [Afrinnovator]
A self trained Software Developer, Kahenya has 15 years experience is software development in Open Source Fields.

What Hardware do you use in the Office?
Workwise I have 2 HP Compaq 8510p machines. One is a custom machine with the new i7 processors. Runs openSuSE 11.2 the other is a stock machine running Windows 7. Its a test machine and backup machine. I have a HP Desktop with a 21 inch monitor. At work we have 3 10MB Fibre optic cables.

What Hardware do you use at Home?
I have a small Acer netbook running openSuSE 11.2 plus a Zain Modem.

What Software do you use?
OS primarily openSuSE.Google Reader. PHP, MySQL, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail + Enterprise Gmail, Firefox plus a billion addons, Gimp, Barry, Mplayer, XMMS, FFMpeg, Gist. Too many things here… May I add that I spotted this ‘gizmodo’ with a BlackBerry Storm

What would be your dream setup?
Just a new powerful laptop does it for me. But then again, if you can’t buy me a cray machine this would be it:

4 Duo Core HP Processed Machines
8 Monitors (2 X Machines)
More RAM than is legit.
50MBPS FTTE

4. Erik Hersman – Ushahidi and Afrigadget

Who he is and he does?
Founder and Director of Operations at Ushahidi, Erik is an international technology influencer with a keen eye on the impact of web and mobile advancements and technology innovation across Africa. Raised in Sudan and Kenya, Erik brings unique energy and insight to the world of technology and innovation – bridging the gap between Africa and Silicon Valley. \

An avid blogger, Erik writes two different technology-related blogs – AfriGadget and WhiteAfrican, and , a wiki aggregationg information on Web Connectivity around Africa. He is frequently a speaker at meetings and conferences dealing with technology in Africa, mapping, blogging and web application development, including; TED Global, DEMO, Picnic, PopTech, SXSW, Where 2.0 and Web 2.0.

*Ushahidi is a free and open source project with developers hailing from Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Malawi, Netherlands and the USA working on it. There are some significant technological challenges and they are always looking for help.

What Hardware do you use in the Office?
I use a 15″ MacBook Pro as my workhorse. When in my blogging, travel or conference modes I also carry a Nikon D50 and a Xacti video camera. A lot of work is done on my phone while on the move, so traditionally I’ve used an iPhone, but am currently testing out and using the Google Nexus One.
My office is wherever I am, so if at the iHub it’s a fast connection, but everywhere else it’s just the local WiFi or Orange’s 3G+ modem in Nairobi. Finally, I also always carry a moleskin notebook for interviews and note taking.

What Hardware do you use at Home?
At home I run a home made desktop PC as well. I enjoy gaming, not that I have time for it anymore, thus I have a big 26″ screen as well. I run a 1Mb connection at home from Access Kenya that’s served me fairly well.

What Software do you use?
MacOSX primarily, but I run Windows XP on my PC.
As my feedreader I use NewsFire, which is a Mac client-based app.
For Twitter, I use Tweetie on my Mac and Seesmic on my Nexus One.
For email I’ve recently switched to PostBox on the Mac, as it allows for nesting of email threads and has some other cool features that make it worthwhile to use.
I end up doing a moderate amount of graphics work, for this I use either Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. Both are big fat hogs, but they are useful.
I’m in and out of web sites a lot, so I use Transmit at my main FTP client.
Skype is a really big communications tool for me and the Ushahidi team, so I’m also a big user, and fan, of that.
Since I do a lot of talks, I refuse to use PowerPoint and stick with Keynote for my presentations.

What would be your dream setup?
Hmm. It would be a bigger/badder home rig. Maybe done with 3 of the largest Apple wide-screens and with enough video card power to have some fun. I’ve also envisioned a complete tech room that features a “MInority Report” like interface, but that’ll have to wait a couple years I think…

Now, ain’t that kewl! Next up we’ll have a chat with the girls, Juliana and a relatively new surprise entrant…
Keep Reading!

Romour has it that the show was due to begin in April but has been pushed forward indefinitely with unclear reasons.

Yes, the show really is prime time. Half an hour of nothing but technology on prime time TV, thats what it is!

said Larry Madowo, when contacted about the show.

Honestly, I was relieved to find out he’d be anchoring the show, since very few other journalists keep in touch with the sector well as he does.

The show will be focusing on all things tech, on a macro and micro scale. Something I like about this is that it is set bring together players in the field who have a big picture view of the scene and also those with smaller stake (eg devs) and finally tech consumers. Very few other forums are capable of doing this as effectively, I would think.

While the show will be sponsored, fortunately, it will not be like The Class (which is sort of an advertorial for DALC). For such a show to be successful, it is important that the show maintain complete editorial independence. That includes the right to feature the sponsors’ competitors on the show, as does the business magazine show KTN Business Weekly which is sponsored by KCB but routinely interviews and criticizes other banks (including KCB).

Reviews are one part of the show I will be looking forward to. Hopefully, we should be looking very much at having locally available and/or manufactured gadgets/software/hardware reviewed (a la Afrigadget) and even local DIY tips/tricks/hacks, as yours faithfully does…

Another thing that would be ‘uber kewl’, if done well, is viewer participation beyond email. Going on further, interactive segments such as the ones done on Global Voices Online (ie VideoMail) AlJazeera and Twitter Feedback etc etc should make this one an unmissable! I really don’t get why it has taken so long to do a ‘Big Question’ on Prime Time News and get feedback via Twitter et. al. where scores/replies would be fairly moderated…? Anywho, that’s a story for another day. Kenya is definitely ready for a tech show. and we cannot wait for KTN to give it to us!

Ever since I read this post on AllKaw, I began wondering how nerds actually get it done… in Nairobi. As I found out, there really wasn’t as big of a difference between ‘them’ and your everyday nerd in Nairobi. Well, not really your everyday nerds, these are. Infact, they are, in my opinion, future icons of our industry. But I digress.
So I basically asked the same questions from AllKaw and they were happy to share In the next couple of posts I will sample them.

1. Wilfred Mworia – Founder African Pixel and Afrinnovator.

Who You Are and What You Do…?

Wilfred Mworia (Will) has been active in the Kenyan development scene for the last 5 years. He has worked for several software companies locally. Before venturing into the start-up world he last worked as a technical evangelist (academic) at Microsoft East Africa.
Today, he runs a mobile applications development startup called African Pixel (http://www.africanpixel.com) that focuses on Smartphone applications development. He has also been involved in low end/SMS (mobile apps for social change) type of applications.
Will has also been a speaker at several local technology events and has been involved with the MIT-AITI program amongst other initiatives locally.
He has to his name several other successful other ventures including the latest Afrinnovator.
Will blogs at http://wmworia.wordpress.com

What Hardware do you use in the Office?
I use a 13″ MacBook. I have a combo printer-scanner-fax-copier machine. For internet I mostly rely on dongles from Orange or Safaricom. I’m thinking of switching to a better solution though…

What Hardware do you use at Home?
Mostly same as above. I use an iPhone 3GS which is also what I use to take photos and video so I don’t have separate gagdets for these, it’s like my one gadget to rule them all though I’m thinking of getting a good camera.

What Software do you use?
I use Mac OS X Leopard, for writing code mostly Xcode. I’m not very good at maintaining an RSS reader but I use NewsFire. Browser – I have come to love Google Chrome and Firefox comes a close second. I use Tweetie for Twitter (love it). I use Audacity for podcasts. Photoshop for basic image editing.

What would be your dream setup?
MacBook pro on the go (I’m more of a mobile worker). An iMac at home (… and maybe a PC)

2. Gichingiri Kuria – Graphic Designer.

Who You Are and What You Do?
I have only met Gichingiri once but he’s arguably one of the best web-devs I’ve come to recognize in terms of both his sites’ form and function.

If you need something that involves visual communication, I can do that for you in exchange for money (or alternatively, you can pay his rent and feed me).

says Gichingiri, on his site.
He runs his own outfit Sokoletu which has a portfolio that speaks for itself. From his Webfolio one thing that strikes me ’bout this cool kat, he does not hide that the does CMS and is actually proud of doing it so well!To the many-a-Joomla haters, don’t h8 cre8!
Other than being a web designer during the week he’s a biker on weekends – when he gets ‘permission’ away from family.

What Hardware do you use in the Office?
MacBook, clone desktop, Epson printer, Wacom tablet, Netgear router, Zuku internet connection, Nokia E series phone and I-Pod – 5th generation.

What Hardware do you use at Home?
Same as above (house office).

What Software do you use?
Mac OS Snow Leopard, Ubuntu 9.10, Adobe CS3, iWork, Open Office.

What would be your dream setup?
27 inch imac, MacBook 15 inch, iphone, BMW F800GS (bike), 10mbps net connection (though I’m not sure why).

Many more Nairobi Nerds have shared, watch this space for Kahenya, Erik and more…

Every FOSS allied geek has his/her cryptonite. Mine caught up with me a week ago when I had to indulge in the forbidden drink, ‘wine-doors’. Since I went *nix about five years ago, I’ve managed to do almost anything under the sun comfortably under Linux except, yeah right, design. Gimp is the only software that has not really filled that void. So when my graphics designer went AWOL on me last week, I had to get down and dirty with old faithful, Adobe CS3.

Soon after successful presentation of my web templates, Rahim of Elite Degital Solutions invites me to the Adobe CS5 Launch. I coulda sworn they colluding to ring me back into the fold! Hmmm, let’s see.

Highlights of CS5
(you’ll forgive me if some ain’t new, actually the last I was 100% familiar to was Adobe PS6, 0_0 )

Background Content Fill
CS5 Extended takes a big step into the world of 3D, and adds some extra video features, but from a designers point of view I’m focusing on the standard Photoshop CS5 and the most outstanding feature is Content Aware Fill. If you thought the Clone tool was good, and were later impressed with the more advanced Heal tool you’re likely to be blown away by the Content fill options.
This Content feature allows you to paint over any content you don’t want and fill the chosen area with matching pixels automatically sampled from multiple areas around to give an intelligent seamless heal.

Intelligent Edge Selection
The next awesome tool is the refined edge selection options that assists making complex selections. This is just the next best thing since they invented the magic wand. Edge Detection with smart radius does a better job of working out what you’re actually trying to select and with stuff like hair, so it makes the job much easier. Now one thing that’s never worked fo me well, especially in GIMP is getting the magic wand tolerance right. With CS5 it seems so much easier.

Puppet Warp
Next, Puppet Warp a kind of spider web grid thingy, provides an advanced warp on localised element. You can bend and shape pixels as much as you like with this tool using anchor points to fix or move areas. It’s probably more for graphic designers and image compositors, but it may come in useful for photographic projects where some shape shifting is required. Now this got a-bit of a comical reaction from the crowd. I just thought this feature would lend itself very well to Stop-Motion animation.

Indesign, Flash, Web
Now for all-o-yall-CMS-code-o-phobic web designers out there, the seamless intergration of InDesign, Flash and Dreamweaver in InDesign CS5 is to die for, they say. I’ll have to try this out to beleive it! Much as I love quick-and-dirty CMS jobs, the ability to dis-assemble the mash-up completely is key to providing so-called ‘low-level’ customization.
Other nifty products to look out for are the Business Catalyst, Adobe Omniture

and for lots more watch Adobe TV.

Now for the Zillion-Zim-Dollar question. How much will it cost me to get it locally? According to Rahim, they are discussing a much friendlier cost for this region than the 2000USD that would buy me 4 net-books/i-pads. We’ll just have to wait and see. Until then…

PS: Other than GIMP, Flash4Linux is also one buggy disappointment in *nix design tools. WINE portability will be one thing to look for in CS5 though.

[sneaking back copy of Wine-doors into virtual reality...]

Any sci-fi enthusiast who loves the intricate blend science and conspiracy theories, must be familiar with Dan Brown. He’s authored five Best-Sellers to date, the last of which is ‘The Lost Symbol‘. But do I say, I’ve heard the chance to listen to all of them in Audio, which are all the more thrilling IMHO. ‘The Lost Symbol’ in which lead character, Robert Langdon is (literally) reborn was to me the most “unputdownable”. Y’all geeks would also have fun googling and wiki’ing unbelievable facts that Brown always almost out-does himself. If you’ve read Arthur C. Clarke, then you’re in the zone!

If at all your life revolves around tech -and you should be very worried if it doesn’t- The World is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman is a must read. Thomas begins his story with a visit to India in 2004 at which point he comes to this conclusion upon realising that Indians, in India, literally ran the American economy through their vast and robust telecom network. This puts them right next to the US in a way that even Mexico cannot compete with! These among many other examples are illustrated with the socio-economic factors that support and/or impede the “flattening” process.

Thomas Friedman’s examination of the influences shaping business and competition in a technology-fueled global environment is a call to action for governments, businesses and individuals who must stay ahead of these trends in order to remain competitive.

Thanks, @wmworia for this recommendation!

Lastly, I’d like to share with you a recently discovered project, ukurasa.com, to buy, sell and share books online done by Virn Instruments. There’s not so much loaded on there, but you could give it a try. Looks to be very interesting.

Apparently, according to the self confessed geeky boy band, they are in no way affilliated to the websites that have spawned as a result of his popularity. These, as we have learnt, caught the outfit totally off-guard as they did not anticipate the monster he’s become. Pun intended. The band have moved swiftly to trademark the ‘Makmende’ brand and the results have seen changes made to the websites although the domains are yet to be settled upon.

Makmende T-Shirts on Sale

I think this is a lesson well learnt for the outfit and for the Intellectual Property agenda in Kenya. The band are set to do their own branding of the character but are not too quick to disclose their preferred channel. I’d assume true Makmende fans would wait for the band to officially launch their brand since they should be the real beneficiaries of the hype. I will.

Check out other interesting links for analyses on the Makmende phenomena.

Ethan Zuckerman on Makmende’s Wiki Page

Afrinnovator analysis on Viral pattern.