[kictanet] Digital migration and local manufacturing

[bitange at jambo.co.ke]

Off list a number of you have written to me asking that I clarify how we
can build the demand side of tourism.  Without getting myself into
trouble, our state of tourism industry is worrying.  If the number of
Kenyans who travelled to Dubai for Christmas is an indicator, then we all
must worry.  These are people who ordinariry holiday in Mombasa but
because we have not improved the tourism product in Mombasa, they look for
alternatives such as Dubai.  This is my primary basis of demand-side of
tourism.

The Coast tourim product is not developed.  If you are going to South
Coast, crossing the ferry is a nightmare.  The dirt in both shores is
shocking.  I am of the view that dirt and poverty are not the same and one
thing.  Growing up in rural Kenya we did not have modern housing (often
referred to permanent house) but the houses were cleaner and gabbage
managed well to create a friendly environment.  It cannot be that years
after we now equate poverty and uncleanliness.  We cannot have a huge
unemployed youth and uncollected gabbage at the same time.  Logic dictates
that the unemployed should be utilized in such jobs if the council
collects rates to pay them.  We do not need donors for this.

Getting to North Coast is not any simpler with unsightly environment which
we can clean and improve the product.  In such chaotic and unsightly
environment lurks insecurity.  This is why the numbers are declining and
would not improve to significant levels.

We are destroying the bread and butter (Wildlife) of Kenya's tourism
faster than we can build any hotel.  In the past few months we have lost
several Elephants and Rhinos.  Not many arrests have been made.  Here we
need a collaborative effort and building on rural incentives to protect
the animals.

If you have been to the airport lately, you realize that JKIA has become a
major transit airport for the increasing Africa trade with the East
whereas it was built as a terminal airport.  The entire West Africa uses
either Dubai or Nairobi as the transit point to Asia.  The difference
between Nairobi and Dubai is like day and night.  Whereas Dubai Airport is
large and spacious, Nairobi is crammed up; in Dubai there are hotels even
within the airport for transit passengers but at JKIA there is not even
showers for passengers; in Dubai there is plenty of food in several food
courts but in Nairobi you can hardly find decent food.

These are all opportunities for our economic expansion. The airport alone
can pull the demand for agricultural outputs and enable farmers get value
for their produce. Several people would be employed to ensure all other
value adding services at the airport are availed and make JKIA a
competitive hub.

Majority of East and Central Africans come to Nairobi for shopping but we
have never made it easy for them.  We needed to create duty free locations
for them to come and shop but it takes more than a month to clear and
transport any goods to Nairobi from Mombasa.  This is another opportunity
for more visitors into Kenya.

The trade imbalance between Kenya and China keeps on widening in favour of
the later.  It will be in order if we demanded for more tourists if we
need to continue bilateral trade arrangements. Imagine if 1% of China
visited Kenya.  This will translate to 13 million visitors (of course
there will be no hotel space hence the need to invest in more proper
hotels).

What I have said is all possible to build the demand-side of our tourism
but we must start from the positive end of thinking and liberalize our
thinking.  There was talk of the second liberation.  I suppose it is still
on and hopefully we shall deal more with the mind as we move our country
forward.


Ndemo.


> Dr. Ndemo,
>
> Amen!!!  Amen!!!
>
> I wish this can be an Op Ed in our daily papers.
>
> Education of the mind, and I mean the mindset is what we in Kenya are
> starving of.
>
> Kenyans need to be educated on how to think bigger, appreciate the small
> gains but not be obscured by them.  We must be able to think in abstract
> terms.  That's how inventions are made, apps are written, content is
> generated etc.  This is one the most precious assets the developed world
> has passed on from generation over and over.
>
> Happy and Safe Holidays everyone!
>
> Mwaniki Njoroge, PMP
> CEO, EDF
> Mwaniki at edf.co.ke
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Dec 25, 2012, at 3:27 AM, bitange at jambo.co.ke wrote:
>
>> Kivuva,
>> This time let us not stop here.  Somehow let us make this a campaign
>> issue.  We need someone to start talking about educational reforms.  I
>> do
>> not mean changing the system but trying inclusiveness and find a
>> solution
>> to the majority who do not get admission to college.
>>
>> For a start, we must have a polytechnic in every county to offer hands
>> on
>> training in many thematic areas.  It is absurd that we have unemployed
>> Kenyans when we hire technicians to repair an X-ray machine.  We have
>> only
>> four trained per-fusionists in a country of 40 million.  Even in nursing
>> we only focus in very few areas.  In Engineering the situation is
>> pathetic
>> forty nine years after independence.  Numerical Machining Complex lies
>> virtually idle as we keep on importing every item the machine can make.
>>
>> Our greatest dilemma is in dealing with the supply-side of labour,
>> without
>> thinking about the the demand-side of it.  This is the only thing we
>> want
>> our politicians to remember to avoid past mistakes.  Let me elaborate.
>> After Independence Kenya had the best educational system which absorbed
>> many high school graduates into middle level colleges such as the Kenya
>> Science Teachers College, Egerton and all other agricultural institutes,
>> Medical training institutions, water engineering in South C, Utalii
>> College etc.  We never had issues to do with food security as
>> agricultural
>> extension officers dotted the country.  The surplus of our labour went
>> to
>> neighbouring countries.
>>
>> Botswana's beef industry was built by Kenyans.  The road networks in
>> Swaziland was done by Kenyans.  Our Utalii college graduates are in
>> every
>> hotel in Dubai today.  All these countries have done well.  Take for
>> example, Dubai.  By comparison, Dubai receives seven million visitors a
>> month.  Why? because they have balanced demand and supply for labour by
>> building a world class transport hub, building world class hotels and
>> ensured security.  To do this they had to free their mind from a
>> minimalist approach to broad thinking.  In Kenya we build a four lane
>> Highway we call it a super highway and almost want to take a break to
>> admire it.  There is no drive replicate the same throughout the country.
>>
>> In Tourism we failed and that is why our labour is glob trotting in
>> search
>> of greener pastures and maintain a competitive advantage for their
>> adopted
>> countries.  Kenya needs more than 200 new hotels and superior airports
>> in
>> order to scale up our tourism to levels where we can become a major
>> player.  I mean like receiving 2 million visitors a month.  We cannot
>> attain this with our selfish approach to development.  Where individuals
>> build hopeless structures they call hotels instead of aggregating
>> resources with others to build proper and aesthetically built hotels
>> that
>> can attract better returns (in other words we have the resources but
>> because we have not been schooled to embrace aesthetics, we keep on
>> wasting our resources and getting poorer even those who should not be).
>> If you want to know more visit our peri urban centers like (Ngong,
>> Kiserian, Kiambu, Kitengela, Ruiru, Thika) and see the amount waste that
>> has gone into these structures.  We have done the same since
>> independence
>> building shops in market center that are never put into any economic
>> use.
>> In my earlier studies, we have put in excess of $15 billion into such
>> waste and people ask why Africans get poorer as they get older.
>>
>> In the proposed education reforms we must cover such courses such as
>> investments formats, resource mobilization, entrepreneurship, patriotism
>> etc.  This is what Kivuva referred to in Mahatma Gandhi.  Indians did
>> not
>> revere Gandhi for his non violence call but because he successfully
>> managed to decolonize the minds of Indians by asking them to burn any
>> imported clothes and embracing their own; in leaning his people to salt
>> mines to make their own salt.  In Kenya only Ngugi wa Thiongo tried but
>> failed because he was too academic in approach.  We needed simpler
>> methods
>> of decolonizing the mind.  To date we continue to create a rift among
>> our
>> people by allowing two educational systems, that is, the Kenyan and the
>> British.  When shall we begin to build a harmonious Nation?  Tell your
>> preferred candidate to make this a priority.
>>
>>
>> Ndemo.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Thank you Dr. Ndemo for spotting the elephant in the room.
>>>
>>> Mahatma Gandhi did his country good for preaching self sustainability.
>>> With proper implementation of brand Kenya initiative, we might use
>>> more local products and follow India's footsteps. Just remember, "the
>>> cowards never started, the weak died in the way, only the strong
>>> arrived. They were the pioneers."
>>>
>>> Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire Said, "No problem can withstand the
>>> assault of sustained thinking." I think Daktari you are thinking in
>>> the right direction.
>>>
>>> On 24/12/2012, bitange at jambo.co.ke <bitange at jambo.co.ke> wrote:
>>>> Kivuva,
>>>> I am really having a terrible time with internet connectivity here in
>>>> India.  It cost more than Ksh. 2,000 per an hour for a 512K link.  By
>>>> the
>>>> time I read a two page attachment, the time is over with no warning.
>>>>
>>>> I want to thank you for reviving the local manufacturing issue.  As
>>>> Mwale
>>>> states, this where I started anticipating migration by 2012.  We could
>>>> not
>>>> get support in spite of Dr. Gachigi's effort to develop a prototype.
>>>> I
>>>> personally went round talking to our industrialists.  They wanted
>>>> numbers.
>>>> I could not provide attractive numbers since this is a stop gap
>>>> measure.
>>>> Instead I went round talking how we can leverage 3D printing to start
>>>> elevating Jua Kali Industries into local manufacturing without
>>>> necessarily
>>>> getting into the economies of scale trap.
>>>>
>>>> The good news is that Dr. Gachigi is still determined.  Just recently
>>>> I
>>>> wrote that he needed Ksh. 15 million to start local manufacturing of
>>>> hand
>>>> sets.  I went further and talked to two chip makers who have
>>>> gracefully
>>>> accepted to give us their mobile handset platform.  We have no
>>>> investors
>>>> (risk takers) yet but it is going to work and we propel our country
>>>> into
>>>> light electronic manufacturing.  It needs the commitment of Kenyans to
>>>> buy
>>>> local.  Every 10 vehicles I count here in India, seven are local.
>>>> Actually even the foreign brands are manufactured locally.  This not a
>>>> government problem but a serious cultural dilemma.
>>>>
>>>> Ndemo.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Dr. Ndemo, wishing you a safe flight back home, and a quick
>>>>> recovery to your loved one.
>>>>>
>>>>> Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you too
>>>>>
>>>>> On 21/12/2012, bitange at jambo.co.ke <bitange at jambo.co.ke> wrote:
>>>>>> Stephen,
>>>>>> I wanted to stay out of this till the ruling in court but I cannot
>>>>>> keep
>>>>>> quiet when you tell the whole world lies on mobile penetration in
>>>>>> Kenya.
>>>>>> Virtually every adult Kenyan has access to mobile in 2G.  The
>>>>>> fastest
>>>>>> growing market is broadband because of the growing needs by the poor
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> get their produce to market or get the best pricing.  This is what
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> many applications that are being developed in Kenya will do.  Rural
>>>>>> schools need the broadband most since education too is going e.
>>>>>> While
>>>>>> mobile coverage in Kenya is at 90% (mostly 2G coverage), land mass
>>>>>> coverage stands at 40% with 80% mobile penetration.  Mpesa is not
>>>>>> for
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> rich like Mutoro but the poor and is accessible to 90% of the poor.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The need to migrate to 4G is critical in planning our broadband
>>>>>> needs
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> the next one year.  For us to meet the projected demand we must get
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> last mile.  This means that getting to the poor since mot of the
>>>>>> rich
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> fibre connevtivity to their homes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I take great exception with your statements.  My Key Performance
>>>>>> Index
>>>>>> (KPI)is how many people in Kenya rich and poor have access to
>>>>>> internet.
>>>>>> This is significantly different from your KPI of counting how many
>>>>>> cases
>>>>>> you have taken to court over the perceived infringement of consumer
>>>>>> rights. While you can criticise me as a public servant, I am not
>>>>>> able
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> even know your funding sources and the motives for funding.  I do
>>>>>> not
>>>>>> question but this is what Kenyans are talking in low tones.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What we can do for now is to rephrase John F. Kennedy's quote to
>>>>>> read
>>>>>> "ask
>>>>>> not what the poor may be wanting; ask what you have done to remove
>>>>>> poverty".  Going to court purpoting to represent the poor is a
>>>>>> bouguasie
>>>>>> cover up.  Let us stand up for the poor and help eliminate poverty
>>>>>> by
>>>>>> teaching them to navigate the high seas of technology and fish for
>>>>>> their
>>>>>> sustainable living.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am in India for some family medical case but I must report that
>>>>>> Delhi
>>>>>> whose per capita income is lower than Nairobi, has fully migrated to
>>>>>> Digital.  The poor are now enjoying watching TV in the languages
>>>>>> they
>>>>>> understand (this is a requirement in our constitution).  Three
>>>>>> hundred
>>>>>> new
>>>>>> channels have come up including one helping consumers understand
>>>>>> what
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> in the market and how it compares with other competitors.  Perhaps
>>>>>> you
>>>>>> need to upgrade your approach to consumerism.  Only technology will
>>>>>> help
>>>>>> be more effective.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year my brother.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ndemo.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> ______________________
>>>>> Mwendwa Kivuva
>>>>> For
>>>>> Business Development
>>>>> Transworld Computer Channels
>>>>> Cel: 0722402248
>>>>> twitter.com/lordmwesh
>>>>> transworldAfrica.com | Fluent in computing
>>>>> kenya.or.ke | The Kenya we know
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ______________________
>>> Mwendwa Kivuva
>>> For
>>> Business Development
>>> Transworld Computer Channels
>>> Cel: 0722402248
>>> twitter.com/lordmwesh
>>> transworldAfrica.com | Fluent in computing
>>> kenya.or.ke | The Kenya we know
>>
>>
>>
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>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
>> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
>> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and
>> development.
>>
>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and
>> bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect
>> privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>