Local Innovation… Peupe!

Yes! Another installment in the ongoing ‘Local Innovation’ series. So far i did a post on the new application for analyzing the stock market, StocksPartner. This time around however the focus is on a Web 2.0 initiative!!!

A couple of years back blogging and the ‘social’ web amongst other technologies and frameworks of collaboration and communication on the WWW literally breathed new life into the WWW experience. Blogs sprung up everywhere fast! Tons of new, dynamic content found their way into the lime-light; evolving into what is now quite famously known as the Blogosphere. This was further compounded by the invention of Syndication; RSS 1.0/2.0, Atom… You can get bits and pieces of information from across the www-scape simply and easily without going to look for it. Fast forward…. zoom to the present and what do you find in the future that is today… a new ‘architecture’ of sorts in building web experiences… Mash-ups, RIA…!!! And the technology has definitely been keeping up, which both supports current innovation, creating a form of launch-pad to make use of what we have to make even newer innovations…. is your head spinning yet? And that is not even the half of it!!!

And corporates were not left behind, some daring and innovative companies saw the potential in the new wave and began exploring how make use of the new shape of the web. And today what do you find? ‘Hmmm, so you want to get a feel of what some big-shot executive is up to?’, simple, just check out his blog!

It is within this ‘ecosystem’ that a local company, Multiple Choices is building Peupe!

And what exactly is Peupe? Glad you asked! But first who is Multiple Choices. Well, Multiple Choices is a local company that is probably the first within Africa to come out and proclaim itself to be specifically targeted at Web 2.0!

For a description of what peupe is, I will borrow from the text on the peupe home page:

Peupe is a blog that is specially developed for business leaders and experts. Its features allow the blogger to share information,photos,
documents, and much more

Communities build brands. Build your community and let them build your brand as they talk,listen and share with you and each other.

This from alkags:

Finally, I am making the first post on our very own creation, Peupe. Peupe is Africa’s first corporate blog application that has been designed and built by Multiple Choices, specifically for business leaders and experts. Why?…

This is clearly exciting news! However apart from the hype of Web 2.0 and the hype of the ‘first Web 2.0 company in Africa’ or the ‘first blogging platform/social networking’ built in Africa… there is something that just speaks to me louder… and that’s the what do i call it… ‘the philosophy’ behind Multiple Choices and Peupe. Clearly this is something that I dare call extremely unique, a technology start-up, a dream, a vision of changing the mind-set of Africa/Kenya from what John, one of the personalities behind peupe refers to as a revolution in the way we think about technology.

What’s more exciting, and I think it could possibly come at a better time, is that they are planning an event dubbed TIDE (Technology, Innovation, Design and Everything). If the first thing that pops into your mind is MIX 07… then we are on the same wavelength. Of course MIX 07 is probably being a bit ambitious! But the general idea is to get the designer/developer community in Kenya to congregate and mentor them. This is potentially a big (And I cannot over-emphasize the Big!) event. With all the research and general curiosity that has led me to learn about things such as Silverlight, Surface, LINQ, devs in Orcas, WPF/E, Entity Framework, Volta (I just downloaded the interviews with Meijer C9!!! Good viewing for tonight!)… it is usually a bit discouraging to pop up one of the topics in a conversation and I see people’s expressions changing to unknowingess. I mean there is so much innovation out there and sorry to say, so much apathy within the local tech community. And so typically my blood starts rising and I end up giving a passionate account of what’s happening and begging with the other party to try and become a little curious about what’s going on!

So, back to TIDE. What I am trying to say , and hopefully the organizers will take this to mind, is that a serious wake-up call to innovate and invent is seriously needed in the community, in fact, the community needs to come together and take things up (cos I am not sure the community knows it exists as such). And this would be a great event to sow the seed and watch ‘the revolution’ come to life!

Read more about Peupe here!

Here are some of the first blogs built on peupe:

Blog.oriakdigital.com

Sitati.peupe.net

Wesonga.peupe.net

Alkags.peupe.net

Apologies if my passion just came off too strong!

Watch out for another installment soon to come int ‘Local Innovation’, this time we will be talking Google Earth!

Filed under: interview, kenya, research, technology

Local Innovation for the Stock Market

A friend of mine has a start-up and they just launched a product to assist stock traders at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE). It’s a tool you can use to get analytics on the different companies listed on the NSE to avoid speculative investment in stocks. Here is a word from Tony, part of the team that created StocksPartner!

Do you invest at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) and have problems keeping track of share price movement?

I am pleased to announce the availability of a new stocks analytics tool for the NSE that will be of enormous help at www.stockspartner.com!

Its called Stocks Partner 2007 and I think you should use it too. It’s software for tracking price movement on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Instead of having to go to a website or your email to download daily price lists, just run it. It keeps track of the same information graphically.

The software has these features
. Easy to use
. Easily Analyze Trends
. Easy comparisons
. Get information fast and easy
. Quick Automatic Updates
. Graphing facilities
. Auto verify to ensure graphs are correct
. Update from anywhere

Download a FREE copy from www.stockspartner.com today. You’ll love it.

Cheers
Anthony Shikali

Filed under: cool, kenya, software

Global Competitiveness: Implications for Kenya

Very (June 25th) recently Professor Michael Porter of the Institute of Strategy and Competitiveness at the Harvard Business School, gave a presentation about global competitiveness and it’s implications on Kenya and the Kenyan economy at the Strathmore Business School. Though I did not attend the presentations I went through the PPT from his talk and I must say, it is quite a good read, full of insights and (should be) a challenging one, at least, for most Kenyans.

If you want to go through the presentation, here is a download link

Filed under: kenya, Michael Porter

The long version

Hi there. Do you guys remember me telling you about wearing a skirt? Well, here is the whole story.

This past saturday a bunch of friends n i went for an excursion to the fourteen falls. We were well above 20 of ud all fitting somehow in an 18 seater mini-bus! And squeezed we did and squeezed we were! So we met at church and left nairobi around 9 a.m. along the way we had to pick up a few other people adding to the agony in terms of sitting arrangement!

The trip was pretty nice, I told jokes (which people laughed at!) and guys generally had fun on the ride (in between muscle cramps and the like due to the dire sitting arrangement). We got to the fourteen falls around 1 pm and people got right down to eating. By the way, the falls are located in the Thika region. You can read this other adventure which I had in Thika last year!

Anyways, before eating a number of us were playing football on the really soggy ground on the picnic spot we spotted next to the river. The falls are quite a site, I mean tons of streamming water falling over rocks n stuff and the rapids which formed immediately after leading to calmer waters a little further down, where there was the bank where we set up camp.

Back to the main story. You see, its been a while since I played football and you guys know I am a little playful so I kinda got carried away (need I add, naturally?) Anyways, I was chasing after the ball with this pal of mine and all of a sudden we found ourselves on like REALLY soggy, wet, muddy ground and i stupidly tried to stop which only lsent me sliding, and skidding on the ground and I ended up landing FLAT ON MY BUTT! And it is not a joke!!! I was utterly shocked, confused, dis-oriented (do you kinda get the picture???) My pal had managed to stabilize himself so all that happened to him was some mud splashed over his clad.

So here I was sitting on th ground and guys all around are laughing their guts out. To add insult to the injury the mud was stinking and consequently so was I. After coming to (and a number of photos taken by my very amused pals), I was advised to wash my trouser in the river and someone lent me a kanga/kikoi to wrap around my waist!

I went off to a hidden location to remove my trouser and shock on me! While pulling down my pants, some girls are walking in my direction, I quickly wrap the kanga around my waist, the girls (who i guess were also visiting the site) turned around and went back, probably wondering what madness had gotten into this guy!

So I got my pants washed and hang them to dry on the bushes around! Luckily it was a very sunny day. I had to spend the rest of the day in my kikoi!!!! Waaaaaaaaa! But it was cool! I had fun! And it was a moment to remember! My pants dried later and if anyone saw me they would not have guessed what had happened, they were actually cleaner than they were before the ah, ‘fatal insident’

So now you know the story, and since I am such a nice fella I will actually post the (discriminating) photos here.

One Warrior!

Filed under: adventure, friends, fun, kenya, thika