Why Kenya, and why now?

Some have asked “Why Kenya?” and “Why now?”

My excitement for Kenya surrounds the opportunities for early stage businesses who have a reasonably stable economic base from which to launch, myriad new tools at their disposal, and a massive, and growing population with increasing purchasing power - not all of these points are true of all developing economies!

So: Why Kenya, and Why Now?

1) Kenya has a robust non-extractive based economy. With Kenyan GDP comprising 40% of the region’s GDP, Nairobi is the economic capital of east Africa, with a stock exchange, and many corporates’ regional (or continental) headquarters. Most importantly, however is the stability - Kenya’s economy is not based on extractive industries such as mining or fossil fuel extraction - it's based on agriculture and services. I believe this makes Nairobi a bit more robust to external inputs as compared with neighbors. (Note the 25% overnight growth of GDP due to rebasing.)

Nairobi skyline (source)

2) New technology adoption has been very rapid in Kenya. This will likely continue to enable quick, massive improvements in lifestyle, healthcare, agriculture output, financial inclusion / services, communication. As landmark examples, please see success of M-Pesa (mobile money), and the numerous, successful on and off-grid solar/distributed power generation products.

M-Pesa and Bitcoin (to a much lesser extent) are in use in Kenya (source)

Off-grid solar is massive business in east Africa, including Kenya;
some key players are M-Kopa, d.light, Greenlight Planet, SunnyMoney, Off-Grid Electric, and Azuri (source)

3) Kenya has (debatably) the fastest, cheapest, and deepest penetration of internet on the continent. Wow, what an advantage in a continent where infrastructure seems to be always lacking. In Nairobi, new business incubators are all around, with the iHub proving an invaluable epicenter of activity for software-based startups, and the upcoming Gearbox promising similar excitement and opportunities for hardware startups. Prevalent and affordable internet is enabling collaboration like never before.

Internet penetration in Kenya is high relative to continent neighbors (source)

Multiple undersea cables now connect Kenya to other countries (source)

Due to the robust economy, the rapid technology adoption of Kenyans, and the prevalent and affordable internet, I’m excited about Kenya!

Further reading:

I should note that the above are *my* reasons for being excited about Kenya; plenty of other groups have published their own reasons:

• The Brookings Institute writes about “Africa’s Powerhouse” (hint: Kenya!)

• WorldBank has an article

• African Development Bank article

• Recent STELLAR article about social enterprise in Nairobi, at BusinessWeek

• Kenya Economic Report 2013, by Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis

• CIA World Factbook, Kenya

Of course there are other reasons to love Kenya; so come visit!

I've taken the plunge into MOOCs

I've taken the plunge into 21st century education - online learning!  A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course where thousands (tens and hundreds of thousands) of pupils can view course content at their own pace, or choose to synchronize learning and help each other in tutorial sessions or via forums or other online tools.  Here's a Wikipedia article.

An important distinction is that online learning can return us to the one-to-one model that formal education started with (I'm thinking about individual tutors, about 500 years ago).  With online courses, there's plenty of overview material accessible via Wikipedia and other credible websites.  Then, when I need a deeper dive, I can easily, instantly find an expert who will look me in the eye (via a prerecorded video) and explain the subject.  When I don't understand, I can re-watch the video, play it slower, or take alternate videos.  When I enter a course with information I already understand, I can play the video at 1.5 or more speed.

Here's my preliminary list of online education.  Please give me any feedback / pointers / additional resources in the comments!

Khan Academy - Learn almost anything for free 

https://www.khanacademy.org/

The first online course that I heard about, probably through at TED talk.  I like Khan's presentation style, and the idea that you can take successive courses that build on each other, from the same professor (ie. Arithmetic all the way through Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, and Differential Equations, and chart your progress through problem sets and final tests.  Amazingly transformative.  Not all agree.

Coursera - Take the World's Best Courses, Online, For Free

 https://www.coursera.org/

I'm currently 4 weeks into my 8 week microeconomics course, and loving it!  This happened to have the subject and timeline that fit my needs.  I'm also signed up for a macroeconomics course.  I accompany the course with a generic economics textbook, borrowed from a friend.  The course has videos, separate video tutorial (different instructor), a wiki for sharing class notes, forums for discussion, weekly goals/objectives, timeline, key phrases/concepts, and guiding questions.  I'm currently spending a bit less than the suggested 8 hours per week, total.

Udacity - Learn.  Think.  Do.

https://www.udacity.com/

edX - The Future of Online Education

https://www.edx.org/

Udemy - Start Learning from the Worlds Top Instructors

https://www.udemy.com/

This one sounds like an awesome course: Energy Economics and the Environment: Environmental issues require trade-offs, primarily in how we use energy. A former White House economist offers answers.  Free.

iTunes U - Learn Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.

http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/

MIT OpenCourseware - Free MIT courses

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

The Great Courses 

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/

As far as I know, the only non-free resource on here.  Bill Gates is a huge proponent and takes classes all the time apparently.  And he's super smart.  I want to believe that these are much better than the free resources, but haven't had the opportunity to test yet.  Courses range from $50 to $300, much less than in the university setting!

Open Yale

http://oyc.yale.edu/

TED - Ideas Worth Spreading

http://www.ted.com/
Not particularly academic, but excellent online stimulation tool for all sorts of subjects!

Reviews

Finally, I think we need more resources like CourseTalk, where online courses, professors, and features can be rated, for their own feedback, and for the benefit of students who want to find the BEST course in a certain subject area.  I think this type of resource will be really helpful in a couple of years once the data is in place, and I can only hope there's some semblance of uniformity between ratings, etc.

http://coursetalk.org/

Get out from behind that keyboard! "goStretch!"

Okay, so my home office isn't *that* inspiring, but I promise, the lawn that's hidden in the above picture is a beautiful spot. Between the palm and oak (?) tree, the lawn is great for people watching, eating meals, reading books, and stretching / yoga type stuff.

But sometimes I forget to take time out for my body and do some stretching...

Enter the "goStretch!" bookmark!

This is simply a little internet bookmark that I've positioned at the end of my bookmarks toolbar, to remind me, when I'm just surfing my favorite sites and gathering news, that I should go Stretch!

(The link can point anywhere, but how about a "yoga pose-a-day" type website? In my case, the link goes nowhere, I don't even click it, I just rise from my seat and have at it!)




So when you're done reading this article -- how about going for a stretch!

Your body will thank you!