A section of Kibera. Image source: flickr user kyhm54

I hear these questions frequently enough from visitors from the West. Very valid questions which even middle class Africans ask of their lower-on-the-BoP ‘brethren’. I especially hear these questions asked by many involved in social enterprises with products that have obvious benefits to users rural, poor or both.

There exists a disconnect between these organizations’ aspirations (for instance: eliminate the use of kerosene) and their customer’s aspirations (for instance: be connected to electricity) introducing some interesting challenges for vendors. The focus by the vendor on building a product that eliminates harm and improves well being leads the business into a cul-de-sac where great products go to die. The same cul-de-sac where healthfood for the masses is to be found together with last year’s new year resolutions. The benefits of the product are undeniable and yet uptake remains poor. Sometimes the message behind the marketing communications destroys any chance a product has in the market. Especially when it asks customers to acknowledge, by purchasing the item, that they are financially unable to cope with the rising cost of living. An admission of defeat. The product does not provide a roadmap for advancement and by being an end in itself rather than a milestone on the journey to success catalyzes little hope for the future. No one wants to be hopeless, no matter how affordable it is.

Putting a great deal of thought into the design of a product comes easy for social entrepreneurs (at least it should) because they put impact before financial reward. However, the always very noble motivation of the service or product informs its positioning in the market. A market that also includes purely commercial players playing by a different rule book. This positioning sometimes aludes, through the products marketing message, to the hardship, poverty or level in society the user is most likely to be in. The poor (generally speaking) don’t wear the title with honor and pride. Reminding them that they are poor and disadvantaged at the point of purchase may only work as long as a competing product that tells them they can be superstars doesn’t exist. Here are two thoughts that are stirred in me whenever I travel to rural areas:

The customer social enterprises seek to convert may be in a disadvantaged situation or season in their life. If your messaging speaks to them as such, there will be a problem. Rural customers, especially those towards the bottom of the economic pyramid, don’t necessarily view themselves as poor. They make sophisticated financial planning decisions all the time trading-off performance against running cost and cost of acquisition against status quo. Speak to the job they are trying to get done and the aspirations they carry or your business will be on the wrong end of the trade-off.

Price isn’t everything in Africa. Ask Airtel, they have found out the hard way. Features you think matter to users may be of little consequence when held up against alternatives. Equity Bank grew rapidly as word of mouth spread about their easy-to-access credit and easy-to-open bank accounts resulting in acquisition of customers previously classified as ‘unbankable’; long queues in banking halls and at the ATMs notwithstanding. Spending a little time (at the very least) with customers and listening to their story may provide you with clues on what they need to get done and how pressing the need for a solution is. The intensity of your customer’s pain dictates the value trade-offs they are willing to make.

A customer only experiences pain because they are trying to get something done without the level of success they consider acceptable. Innovations that have succeeded in Africa have empowered customers not disempowered them. Our next posts will delve a little deeper into this.

Participants at our workshop at Strathmore University

This past week the Semacraft team was at Strathmore University holding a workshop for the MSc Telecommunications Innovation (Safaricom Academy) students on designing apps for the mass market in Africa. We are grateful to iLabAfrica for making the event possible.

It’s always great being at Strathmore University, the campus has a great sense of And the students have great energy. Our workshop was based on Semacraft’s basic innovation model called p5 which starts with people and keeps the user at the center of the innovation process throughout the service design lifecycle. A key part of the model requires the innovator to identify personas in their market who they would plan to address. It was impressive the number of personas the participants were able to come up with, some who are well represented throughout the planet’s growth markets. The potential for new disruptive ideas does lie among our young innovators. At Semacraft we look forward to being part of the process that brings to the surface the next generation of ideas that change the way people live and work in Africa.

This workshop was the first in a series designed to equip developers with better skills in business design and improve the quality of ideas launched by young tech innovators in East Africa. The workshop series will culminate in the launch of a handbook later in the year. The next workshop will also be at a Kenyan university later this month. Follow us on Twitter to stay updated.

Kenyans woke up to a pleasant surprise one March morning. Graffiti with a political message sprayed on walls in Nairobi’s central business district. And not the terrible kind that is an eye-sore with good intentions. This was “stop-and-stare”  graffiti that not only made news in Kenya but overseas as well.

Image: The Guardian (click to read more)

Jyri Engestrom uses the term ‘object-centered sociality‘ to describe an approach that takes into account the objects that connect people to each other. Specific people to specific others.  It also, in my opinion, explains why campaigns designed to improve citizen engagement in democracy or governance fail. They give people no reason to participate. At least not a compelling reason from the citizens perspective. Participating in democracy (other than casting your vote) or in community policing for many means stepping out of their comfort zone. Without a reason to, people generally won’t do it no matter how passionate or emotional the appeal made by their favorite celebrity is.

As someone so eloquently put it on Twitter, what Boniface Mwangi and his crew of amazing artists are doing’…is voter education 101 in public spaces‘. The graffiti was a great social object. It created a reason for strangers to have conversations share experiences on the street and online as the images did the rounds on social networks.

Graffiti, posters, billboards provide a high impact canvas for visualizing ‘boring’ data and sparking conversations. Whether things progress from conversations to intent and then to action is largely determined by the platforms used to allow sharing, self-expression and curation. Kenyans have, in my opinion, two great sources of data for visualization; Kenya Open Data and Mzalendo a citizen portal whose mission is to “keep an eye on the Kenyan parliament”.

Will I wake up one morning in April to another pleasant surprise? A platform that offers social objects  in public spaces and gives the ‘canvas’ grassroots scale and sparks conversations? That would be a great place to start.

See a slideshow of the graffiti on BBC’s website here (In Pictures: Kenya’s mystery murals)

Kenya's open data portal at opendata.go.ke

In the early days of the Obama administration, the idea of open data was transitioned from lofty ideal to a reality pushing huge amounts of government-held data onto public portals. What started in the US, however, became a global process. Many governments have since committed themselves to provide data to their citizens through similar portals and to abide by the principles of open government.

This coming June, Kenya will celebrate one year of open data and a portal that has grown to over 220 datasets and a total of 500 data elements (datasets, documents, charts etc). A number of interesting mobile and web apps have been created that utilize the data such as MedAfrica. Although there have been signs of some cool apps, the number of apps I expected one year on haven’t quite materialized. However, 12 months is a short time and the next couple of years could very well see the rise of novel applications and highly innovative ways of communicating public data to citizens or using it to add value to commercial apps.

Now that the government is publishing data online and will continue to do so as legislation is enacted to further reinforce this, what’s next? I say MORE DATA. Not just government data. It’s time for corporate big data to join the party. The private sector has a wealth of data gathered everyday from citizens around the country. The level of intelligence contained in corporate data is so vast, fresh and detailed I’m certain the staff at the national bureau of statistics salivate at the thought of getting their hands on it. So do local small businesses and start-ups. Although the data held by a single corporate entity on its customers may be detailed and extremely valuable, it becomes even more valuable when taken together with data from other corporate entities. Taken together with public open data, this data is priceless.

Corporate open data could have immense impact on consumer/citizen facing organizations in both for-profit and non-profit sectors. Here are some possibilities that come to mind

1. Banking data e.g. insights into average deposit size by county, number of business accounts, penetration of banking services by geographic location and population (percentage of population with bank accounts).
2. Consumer goods sales e.g data on consumption of goods by location, trends, average price of most popular product type.
3. Telecommunications e.g. Airtime sales by location, average size of airtime purchase, average call length by location, average number of text messages per person by location, number of subscribers accessing the internet via mobile or via other devices etc
4. Disease prevalence e.g. data from private healthcare facilities could provide additional information on number of cases diagnosed by disease, location and trends beyond the diseases that are most commonly observed at public facilities.

In an age where information is king, helping communities empower themselves and turn their fortunes around requires access to the right information. Information that allows them to understand why their counties attract low investment, or whether they have the infrastructure to leverage for economic development, or what their political leaders can do to improve their quality of life. The answers to these and many other questions lie not just in government data but in corporate data as well.

Empowering citizens to become more active in their own governance is a key principle of open government and one which open data reinforces well. Empowered citizens make empowered customers and (I’m pretty certain) makes for good business somehow. It is possible that corporate social responsibility on this side of the industrial age may include providing data to the public that could help them change their world. Isn’t that a possibility East African businesses should consider investing in just as their governments are doing?

A Pasha center in rural Kenya.

Mbumbuni is a rural market town in Kenya’s Mbooni East District approximately 120km from Nairobi. Within the market is one of the Kenya ICT Board supported Pasha Centers and probably one of the best equiped cybercafes I have seen. When I visited the area in August of 2011, the 3G signal was poor and the center was using a GSM router connecting via EDGE to provide access to clients. The resulting experience was of course poor. For the residents in the area, the next cybercafe with a good connection is in Masii 8km away or in Wote town 50km away. For anyone wishing to register with the tax authority (a prerequisite to opening a bank account), a working cybercafe is the primary mode of accessing the authority’s online portal. There is no way of obtaining the registration at a KRA office. Cybercafes and Pasha centers charge an average of Ksh150 and as high as KSh250 to help clients complete the process and only a per minute charge for those savvy enough to login and do it themselves. For the residents of Mbumbuni, the Pasha center is their first option. Other options are guaranteed to be more expensive.

In the last four months I have travelled to parts of Kenya I only read about. Some of them almost 600 km away from Nairobi and others just an hours drive away. I have seen places where cybercafés are doing great and others where they are struggling to stay open.  The landscape is varied but inspiring. Our estimates put the number of cybercafes in Kenya at approximately 2,500 most of them concentrated in the more densely populated parts of the country. Although statistics show a growing number of Internet users (35% of the population at last count), the vast number appear to be using their mobile phone as their primary gateway. Although feature phones can now provide 3G Internet access, play music and take pictures they still can’t print, scan or edit documents. With very low PC penetration in the country the rational decision is to therefore default to cybercafes for these tasks and others not yet available on mobile. Such as eGovernment.

A sign at a cyber in rural Kenya

The move by government departments and agencies such as the Kenya Revenue Authority to port services onto online spaces and then discontinue offline provision can be seen as a sign of progress. However, in using eGovernment to scale services fast across large areas at low cost, new barriers to access emerge. Digital barriers and cost barriers. These barriers have created new opportunities for cybercafé owners and Pasha center entrepreneurs allowing them to charge for a service that didn’t exist only a couple of years ago. The cyber café has now acquired a new role as an intermediary to government services introducing with it new costs of intermediation.

Whereas eGovernment presents a new opportunity for private enterprise in the form of new intermediation services, the government still needs to find ways of encouraging telcos to deploy better last mile connectivity (3G, LTE) to rural places where the financial investment may not achieve ROI in the short term. If poor connectivity remains a problem, the services may not be any closer to the people than they were before when the residents of Mbumbuni and Masii had to travel to Machakos, Wote or even Nairobi to get government services. In my opinion, there are three areas the Directorate of eGovernment and other actors in the space may consider giving priority as Kenya marches on into a fully digital future.

Better connectivity. Better 3G or LTE connectivity for the last mile to the cybercafes located in rural areas is a good place to start. Providing better connectivity could trigger consumption of data as people find utility for it. In places such as Maai Mahiu and Isinya we heard from a couple of people how frustrating spotty connections are. In Isinya, 40km from the city of Nairobi, residents opt to travel to Kajiado town or Kitengela rather than endure the local cybercafe’s unreliable connections.

Pricing Interventions / Guidelines. When intermediation services become high enough to become a bona fide barrier to access, there’s a problem. Ksh250 is enough to feed a family of four for a day or two. In areas where government services are only available online, this could mean that some families opt out of crucial government services they shouldn’t be having to do without. The initial premise is to bring services closer to the people. High financial costs neuter that objective. Introduction of price caps that keep it financially interesting for enterpreneurs to provide access to these services while remaining accessible to the majority of the people maybe an option worthy of some consideration.

Design for mGovernment. 24 million mobile devices are hard to ignore. Policy guidelines that allows government departments to design and deploy services on the mobile platform should be a priority in the short term. If bringing services closer to citizens is a priority, the mobile handset is as close as it can get.

As new formal intermediaries to government services begin to emerge with the rollout of new infrastructure and services, governments need to keep everyone in the ecosystem on the same page. Cybercafe owners need to remain motivated to provide the services, government departments need to create and train technical and customer care teams and citizens need to be educated on how to access and utilize these services.

An M-Pesa shop in Masii, Kenya.

During the Internet Governance Forum conference held in Nairobi last September, Kenya’s head for e-Government Dr. Catherine Getao made an observation that probably holds very true in many places worldwide. Private sector innovations can happen in the absence of government policy but in many instances government can’t implement innovation in service delivery until legislation and policy is in place. This was in response to a comment I had made on the disparity between the rate of innovation adoption by government when compared to the private sector and the citizens.

Mobile money in Kenya provides a fairly good example of this. M-Pesa is not directly regulated under a full banking license but operates under a special dispensation from industry regulators. At public roll-out,  the MPesa service allowed urban Kenyans, for instance, to send money easily and more safely to their rural folk. Service providers then implemented utility payments via mobile money and integration of mobile money with conventional banking services. Within 3 years, firms like PesaPal and iPay had emerged  providing a bridge between mobile money and e-commerce.  Services  in this space are continuing to evolve every year.

Although I can send money, pay utility bills, buy goods and check my bank balance through my mobile phone, I still can’t pay government fees, taxes or levies on it. I still have to go to a bank like I did 5 years ago. Hence Dr Gitau’s comment alluding to the delay caused by the (usually long) wait for development of legislation to guide government adoption of new technology for service delivery.

So whereas mobile money was launched and has continued to evolve in an environment where regulation and policy was yet to be fully developed, the government was unable to leverage this technological gains for its own good. Mobile money in Kenya is a good example of how innovation preceding regulation can be good for the country. Although governments can create an environment for phenomenal progress (like Kenya’s has done), their inability to keep up with the momentum triggered by the private sector for service delivery (due to bureaucracy) is an example of how innovation preceding regulation can slow progress in eGovernance.

This is where the challenge lies for those designing the next generation of eGov services as well as the agencies/departments seeking to improve service delivery through ICT. A highly collaborative multi-stakeholder approach is, in my opinion, necessary to not only accelerate the rate of innovation but the speed at which governance frameworks evolve to cater for the emerging ‘new normal’.

“The thing to remember is, Human beings do not socialize in a completely random way. There’s a tangible reason for us being together, that ties us together. Again, that reason is called the Social Object.” Hugh MacLeod

The Open Government Partnership declaration commits members to support civic participation in addition to making data on government activities open to the public.  In Africa, Kenya made history as the first country in sub-Sahara Africa to implement an open data initiative giving citizens unprecedented access to valuable datasets. 40 countries, 5 of them African countries, have since signed up to the OGP and I believe they are at different levels of following through on the spirit of the declaration.

A sign at Fort Jesus in Mombasa, Kenya.

The value of open data to citizens is unquestionable. This year, Kenyan software developers have launched mobile apps that leverage open data to provide services to citizens. They have mostly been in the healthcare and agriculture verticals but services in education and entertainment have begun to emerge. These are very encouraging signals coming out of a country that only a decade or two ago made it almost impossible for citizens to know what the government was doing. These apps may not have been possible without access to the huge amount of data the government holds and is now making available to software developers.

However, we shouldn’t think of only mobile and the web when we talk about leveraging open data. “To turn raw data into ‘edible’ content that citizens can consume and make decisions with” should be the overarching objective for anyone looking to improve citizen participation in governance through open data. This edible bits of content should be easily consumed on the now ubiquitous mobile devices in Africa as well as on old fashioned news print and billboards. Jyri Engestrom refers to social networks as “object-centered sociality” meaning people connect because they have a reason to and that reason is usually an object (in the loose sense of the word). Moving from mere intentions to action may start with little more than an object (physical or otherwise).

Citizen participation starts with ignition; the spark that gets the fire going. Sparks are generated when conversations happen. Human beings having conversations about an issue can be inspired to transform intent into action, finding within their conversations the things that tie them together. Social objects are the reason sparks start. They provide the license/excuse for conversations between people (sometimes total strangers) to start. If we use open data to create social objects offline as well as online, we can mobilize citizens for social and political change and a better quality of life. However, these social objects need to be relevant to the audience, tapping into their concerns and aspirations as individuals and as a community.

Developing more effective programs/initiatives around democracy and governance therefore needs better intelligence about the citizens and their communities as well as better alignment of organizational goals with the people’s needs. It’s about taking a user-centered approach to project design which can fundamentally change how eGovernment and civil society work. It also means taking a multi-platform approach so that insights gleaned from open data are not relegated to digital silos accessible only by the privileged few.

Social Objects in Open Governance

It is not uncommon to see small groups of men hurdled around a newspaper at a news stand on weekday mornings sometimes in animated debate. The newspaper’s content is already a social object our society is familiar with and one that can be leveraged to transition citizens from intent to action. Here are four ideas that can help us on the road to better initiatives that find relevance among people.

1. Find the issues your people actually care about. Not everyone is likely to be moved to action by the same message. Figuring out which segments or archetypes in the community resonate with your cause makes it possible to design highly effective initiatives. Furthermore, the issues citizens care about can be fundamentally different to those NGOs and civil society organizations think people should care about. If we take the time to listen, we will hear them.
2. Build appropriate local social objects. Mobile apps in a region with low mobile phone penetration is a recipe for an endless pilot program. Billboards, FM radio talk shows and print ads or posters would be more effective. For instance, using traditional media to highlight statistics on misappropriation of local government funds would probably spur those in that community to action if done using appropriate channels. It is also likely that this same information would be completely irrelevant to citizens in a different locality, hence the need to think local as well.
3. Include feedback and amplification. The conversations sparked by the social object need to be captured. Including a mechanism to capture these conversations and amplify them allows people to hear related conversations happening across the ‘room’. Additional or even opposing points of view are introduced creating richer dialogue and better outcomes (in my opinion). These conversations can be captured via call-in shows, text messages or even social media.
4. Update objects with a conversations layer. Once open data has been published, social objects created and conversations are happening around the piece of data that was published, its time to publish an update to the existing dataset with a layer of the people’s opinions. Sometimes people think they are the only ones with an idea or pain around an issue. Updating the social objects with this layer of feedback creates awareness about the scale of public sentiment and could inspire action.

Open data requires not only that the veracity of data be maintained but its freshness as well. This means social objects need to be updated, new conversations captured, objects updated and the cycle repeated. It also calls for a multi-channel approach to civic participation programs that take into account the role ICT is playing in the community and the level of comfort citizens have using new or existing channels to speak out.

A sign advertising online tax registration in Kenya

Approximately one in every four Kenyans has access to the Internet (Julisha ICT Market Survey, CCK sector statistics ) and half of them get this access at the cyber café. Cybercafe’s therefore play a big role in how Kenyans get online despite the large numbers of mobile internet subscriptions in the country. The vast majority of these Kenyans live in large urban centers or in close proximity to them. These are important facts to keep in mind as the Government and private sector actors push towards the Internet as a channel for service delivery for all.

Government (the democratic sort) is by definition inclusive therefore services offered by democratic governments are predicated on the simple premise that government CAN deliver services to ALL. This is why bridging the digital divide and e-government are joined at the hip. This premise of inclusiveness is a great place to start any conversation about e-governance but also provides a long term challenge to governments in emerging economies/democracies that are implementing e-government strategies for their people. African governments are making progress towards implementation of e-government with countries like Kenya taking transparency online through open data. The Kenyan government also created in 2004 a government department that coordinates e-governance and reports to the Cabinet. Its view on e-government’s role and one of the predetermined goals is articulated on its website as;

“encourage participation of citizens in Government and empower all Kenyans in line with development priorities…” www.e-government.co.ke

The government of Rwanda has won a Technology in Government in Africa Award three times since their launch in 2007 because of its focused implementation of e-government strategy especially in the area of public service delivery.

So what should remain top-of-mind for those developing policy and strategy for e-government in Africa in view of the challenges of maintaining inclusiveness?

1. Continued investment in infrastructure. Any conversation about last-mile connectivity within the context of telecentres and cybercafés is of course restricted to facility level infrastructure. However, this infrastructure is for the most part transparent to those sitting behind the keyboard. In addition to the last mile, we need infrastructure that brings connectivity to the citizens finger tips. This is includes actual telecenter/cybercafé facilities that deliver internet services to the people. Incentives such as low cost loans can spur private sector investment in these facilities in places where they don’t exist in sufficient numbers. The Kenya ICT Board has a loan program for telecentre entrepreneurs called the Digital Villages Project or Pasha which is currently in its second cycle. An additional parallel program should be considered to put telecenters in areas where nascent demand exists but return on investment is low at best making them unattractive to investors.
2. Caps on pricing of e-government services. A tour of cyber cafes across parts of Kenya earlier this year revealed that it costs more to get a KRA pin in rural areas than it does in the large cities. At KSh200 in Mbumbuni and KSh100 in Mombasa the pricing is skewed in favor of those within walking distance of government offices. Of course walking there may not do you any good as services like those offered by the Kenya Revenue Authority are 100% online (unless KRA invests in some kind of cyber banking hall?). Pricing for e-government services at cybercafés is currently set by the market so capping it at a more accessible level would keep the services within reasonable reach of the masses.
3. Incentives for private enterprise – In areas where private enterprise lacks the incentive to invest in last-mile infrastructure or facilities (telecentres/cybercafés/digital villages et al), an incentive policy should be considered such as subsidies on Internet bandwidth, low cost space in government buildings or free technical support to encourage private sector players to make the necessary investments. Invariably, cybercafés play an intermediating role in the provision of these services by providing education and set up for customers. Incentivizing this and encouraging them to keep the services available ensures that the majority who will access e-government services in these places remain included.

Government efforts to ensure the survival of cybercafés through regulation, incentives and price caps should also take into consideration the existing free market environment in order not to create an unfair advantage for a few players.

This is by no means an exhaustive list as there are other considerations that should be given a high share-of-mind. These three, not necessarily listed in order of importance, are simply those I have pondered about in the last few weeks. I’d love to hear more and your opinion of course.

Sindo District Hospital in Western Kenya. source: Flickr - DFID-UK

There’s a health center in my village. I don’t know how many health care workers have been assigned to it, how much money it was allocated in the last fiscal year, how many people it serves or who’s in charge. I don’t know what the mortality rate is in my county or how we measure up when compared to the neighboring counties. If nothing changes, I probably never will.

I am, however, an optimist. Something will change. It’s starting with the Kenyan government launching its open data initiative on the 8th of July, 2011 in Nairobi. In the run up to the launch, the government released data sets to local software developers who developed web/mobile apps that turn those data sets into information which can be consumed by the public. I haven’t seen any yet but I am sure they will not disappoint.

By providing these data sets to the public, the government makes it easier to access public sector data without jumping through the hoops that exist in different government departments. For instance, from an online source, I could access Ministry of Finance data on budgetary allocations to government ministries, Ministry of Medical Services data on health care infrastructure, Ministry of Planning census data and layer this onto a map. Members of the public would then easily visualize how government resource allocations relating to health care infrastructure distribution affect mortality/morbidity and quality of life in their locality allowing them to draw conclusions on the performance of departments or the policies government has in place.

Here’s a scary thought. This open data initiative could fail. It’s a scary but highly probably outcome. Open data is about people. Starting there and working our way onto websites and mobile phones is a great way to ensure we create great stuff with open data. However, if we fail to put humans first, failure will be guaranteed. In addition to cuts in government spending on open data initiatives, I can think of three other factors that could contribute to the failure of open data initiatives in the long term:

1. No Edible Stuff. Open data is difficult to consume in its raw form. A member of the general public may not be inspired enough to pore through spreadsheets and tables looking for patterns and creating fancy graphs. If nothing is built to process the data into ‘edible’ information, the initiative will definitely come to nought. Whereas we can count on government departments processing and presenting this information to us as they have done in the past, this information will be from their departmental silos and mostly presented without additional context from other departments. Great and truly ‘edible’ apps on open data will most probably be citizen developed. I suspect we might not need to worry about this one.
2. No Relevant Stuff. We don’t eat rodents in my neighborhood. Even the exotic type called Capybara. And yet, they ARE edible. Contextually, this ‘edibility’ is irrelevant to my people. If we build fancy websites and mobile apps that address what people don’t care about, no one will look at it. It will be akin to serving  fried Capybara in East Africa. There will be very few takers. Use the data to build relevant stuff and the public will gorge on it.
3. No Interactive Stuff. Human beings generally prefer talking to other human beings. Talking to a wall, an answering machine or a piece of software doesn’t scale. Herein lies the biggest challenge and the least unique. It’s the same challenge that nags community policing initiatives, corruption crusaders and public health workers. How do we get humans to engage with the data, other humans and amplify their opinions and interactions? Create edible and relevant stuff humans can work with and which inspire action in offline life. Interactive stuff brings action and life to open data.

So will Kenya’s open data initiative give rise to great stuff? I am an optimist, I think it will. What do you think (about open data not my optimism)?

PIVOT25 - Nairobi, Kenya. 14 - 15th June, 2011

PIVOT25 is East Africa’s first mobile developer challenge and conference. Happening on the 14 & 15th of June, 2011 the event enjoys the support of Nokia, the World Bank’s infoDev, Google, DEMO and Equity Bank among others. The winner of the challenge will get an opportunity to pitch at DEMO in September 2011. See the press release here.

100 entries were received for the challenge with 25 qualifying for the final event. The categories and finalists are listed on the PIVOT25 website. For western venture capitalists and multinationals looking to expand into the region, the types of apps and services are illuminating. This challenge was not about apps for poverty or problems consumers at the base of the pyramid face but an open challenge for developers to showcase their talent. The developers therefore used their own observations, experience and networks to determine what kind of apps they think users in East Africa want.

There was a high focus on pragmatic apps that help consumers get common tasks done. There are no games like those entered in the Coca Cola challenge. I didn’t see any app designed specifically for the iPhone. I didn’t see an app that requires a credit card to work.

Does this focus on pragmatism imply a parallel but different path for the development of the mobile application industry in Africa or does it make sense for the conditions on the continent?

Update: Semacraft’s own Niti Bhan will be speaking at the conference.