[kictanet] Tech Spectator Syndrome ?

[Sam Gichuru]

Please allow me to post this as a new thread...

Added - My concern has been our reactions to the IEBC system failure, I
applaud the doers in this country, I applaud those who bid and lost and
those who won the contract to implement the system, I applaud them for
their failure which means we are still alive and crawling but we will soon
learn to talk and say baba and mama as the tech industry in Kenya, but my
major concern is the rest of us...

What I am seeing and I stand to be corrected is the spectator syndrome,
when everything is ok and the international press highlight Kenya as a tech
destination, Mpesa is praised, Ushahidi and startups with all our Mvitus,
we celebrate, claim our team (#teamtech/ICT) is winning and write long blog
posts and gazillion tweets etc

This only last as long as nothing goes wrong, but when it does, suddenly
the conversation changes from "we" to "them", they have failed, they dint
consult, they dint test, they... not us. This is what most football
fans/Spectators do, they love their football team only when its winning,
which basically makes one wonder are we players or are we fans of this game?

But to bring this home, we have a bigger problem, if this community started
asking about the procurement process, the system architect and the
companies that were selected to implement  the IEBC system only after it
failed, we are not engaging enough, are we saying that nobody in this list
bid for this system? nobody tried? ... doesn't that mean we are just
talking ..... and talk is cheap.

I would like to challenge the community to engage more with an aim to
problem solve, to tender and bid for local contracts, to build more open
source solutions, to fundraise with an aim to seed fund startups, if we
dont... we are going to be running around in circles and then move to
Rwanda and guess what we will all say ..... they dint do xyz...


Let ask Ourselves ... who is they?

PS: I will stick to shorter posts in the future :)


-- 
Warm Regards,
------------------------
Sam Gichuru


twitter: | @samgichuru <http://twitter.com/samgichuru>
Blog: |  www.samgichuru.com
Facebook: | Sam.gichuru <http://www.facebook.com/sam.gichuru>
Skype: Sam.gichuru
Cellphone: | +254-722-730565

Co-founder/ Director /Nailab Incubation
Location: | Nairobi
Website: | www.nailab.co.ke
twitter: | @thenailab
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