[kictanet] Standing on the shoulders of giants

[Dorcas Muthoni]

Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer,
alchemist, inventor and natural philosopher. He is often regarded as the
most influential scientist in history and is most famous for discovering the
Laws of Gravity.

He is quoted as having said “*If I have seen further it is only by standing
on the shoulders of giants.*”

I have heard many enterprising developers say that they have interest
working with Safaricom and other industry leaders to expand their
innovations to a wider market. One huge setback facing such developers is
when the giant attempts to step on the poor developers by slaming them with
“big-boy” revenue-share agreements.

Why is revenue share is so inhibitive in our market? Currently if you
partner with Safaricom, they will take about 60% of revenues (i stand to be
corrected as i have not signed up with them yet).

Elsewhere in the world, like in Japan, 70% goes to the developer. Nokia is
also helping local developers market their apps globally, Nokia takes 30%
and pays out 70% to the developer.

I would be happy to hear more from Safaricom on this.

How can Safaricom encourage us to test our innovations in this market as you
have done so well with M-PESA before exporting it to other countries?

Muthoni

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 1:11 PM, Matunda Nyanchama <
mnyanchama at aganoconsulting.com> wrote:

>
> Congratulations are in order for these young girls in the above story<http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Girls%20who%20created%20social%20network%20for%20farmers%20/-/1056/1085706/-/6c0qcjz/-/index.html>;
> kudos.
>
> My reading is that there are many such stories and potential successes that
> could happen. This was reinforced when I saw presentations at the most
> recent AITEC event in Nairobi. We just need the right environment and our
> tech sector will take off to even higher heights than the present trend
> suggests.
>
> Couple of things that could help:
>
>    - Protection of Intellectual Property: I marveled at the ease with
>    which those at the conference shared their creations and even creations that
>    were on the drawing board! Question: how do they know who the prying eyes
>    are in the public event? And prying eyes with deeper pockets and better
>    knowledge of the business of IT?
>    - Risk Capital: Silicon Valley wouldn't have been without risk capital?
>    RIM (that produces the blackberry), one of the most successful Canadian tech
>    creations, would not have happened without risk capital. For the longest
>    time, the latter depended on government grants, which allowed them to go
>    thru' teething stages! In Kenya, we may not have the kind money Canada has
>    thrown into R&D in form of grants. However, we can have a variation of this.
>    One possibility I have shared with friends relates to incentives, i.e. tax
>    credits, R&D Levy Fund from which companies can get back some of the money
>    invested in R&D, and even some form of "insurance" where risk capital would
>    be compensated at a given % should a venture not materialize!
>    - Active scouting of ideas for development in science fairs, tech
>    conferences, etc and investing in those that offer promise.
>
>  Ukiona vyalea vimeundua or words to that effect from the wisdom of the
> old.Development cannot be left to chance. It reminds of a science project we
> did in high school: powering a radio using stored energy in a wind up
> spring! We got good marks; and off we went later to university, forgot about
> it and lo! years later, someone was selling wind up radios in rural Africa!
>
> Shukrani.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Matunda Nyanchama, mnyanchama at aganoconsulting.com
> Agano Consulting Inc.;  www.aganoconsulting.com
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *
> “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then
> you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have
> an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”
> * - George Bernard Shaw
>
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-- 
Muthoni

My Blog: http://rugongo.blogspot.com/
--------------------------------------------
Mahatma Gandhi once said:-

First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
AND THEN YOU WIN!!!
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