10 CHEQUE GLOBAL FACTS

Cheque has been in the market for more than 35 decades. It is mostly used by SMEs in B2B transactions. See it in some perspective, some major historical occurrences and probably the way forward...

1.       It was first used in 1659 in the City of London. (Wikipedia)-over 35 decades ago.

2.       It started declining in early 90s as a result of competition from e-payments. (E-payments emerged as a result of PC revolution and birth of internet; Pay Pal (1998) and others emerged)

3.       Decline has been steady (72% in UK in about 2 decades(4bn to 1.1bn)- UK payment council statistics) up to 2009 and to 644m in 2014.

4.       Later, decline has slowed (2011-onwards) and its ultimate death; either seems impossible or possible with real demise. (Global Market Crisis)

       

Graph from research paper: Stabilizing the Global Market. (By Steve N. King’ori)

5.       Nowadays, mostly used by SMEs (UK, India, Australia). Why? 

6.       If it ends, each economy, globally, will save from 1-2% of their GDP, in terms of time taken for clearance and cost.

7.         A couple of interventions have been made to ease cheque payment.  Some of them are;

Ø  Introduction of CTS (cheque truncation system) to reduce fraud as well as reduce time spent/ number of days spent in clearing them.

Ø  Cheque image-capture by payee who sends it to their banks instead of going there by themselves.

But will these - and probably others to follow- make cheque equal digital payments when it comes to cost, time and other efficiencies? 

1.      An average cost per leaf is between US$ 3-4 whereas for a digital payment, it is about US$ 0.25. Its inefficiencies continue to grow day-by-day as well as widening its gap with the e-payments, in terms of time and cost. But it is still in use especially in the crucial situation (B2B transactions) and by the crucial group (SMEs). 

An average cost per leaf is between US$ 3-5 (or even up to US$15) whereas for a digital payment, it is about US$ 0.25.

8.       In 2009, the UK Payment Council, which monitors payments in UK, came to a decision; to phase it out of the system come 2018 and close all the clearing houses. This was after the 72% decline since early 90s. Everybody, starting from Ministers, Charities, Businesses and others objected the move. In 2011, the council reversed the move indicating that, come 2016, they will make an informed decision. Meanwhile, people should still get them as far as they request them.

9.   Check more from Check-And-Credit-Clearing-Company-UK  

10.   Is it end of cheque? Hard to tell. Since its users, SMEs, (as noted in 7.) are mostly middlemen, what happens if cheque ends? Will enough goods reach the final consumer or the chain of distribution of goods will break? Will trade volume fall now that goods bought with cheque are no longer bought? What will happen to these SMEs going by the fact that their businesses seem more attached with cheque than ever?

Now, is cheque here to stay or here to end?. It all depends with your views, at least for now. But, time will tell- come 5-10 from today. 

And if cheque persists, at least for another decade, and the gap between it and e-payments continue to widen, will many SME-businesses survive its hardships? 

EDUCATION VS INNOVATION: IS KENYA DOING ENOUGH?

EDUCATION VS INNOVATION: IS KENYA DOING ENOUGH?

Sponsored by my site www.dcskenya.com have a check at it and find how we will eradicate cheques in the payment industry as well as visiting the page  Stabilizing the global market to see how we can still move on unhurt even when cheque goes to ultimate silence of eternity.

a)      ***education vs innovation***

Education has always been source of knowledge. In fact, education is knowledge and it is key to success of any venture, career, and even life. Passing in education does not guarantee success in life, but it is crucial in life. Success in life involves interacting and relating well with people around since no one lives in isolation and we are all social animals, no wonder why Zuckerberg has minted billions by realizing this and making it a reality. Yes, we are social animals. Life does not end there. For us to survive we need necessities, we need sustenance. So, we need source of income to cater for our needs. We need jobs. Well, communication skills, negotiation skills and even marketing skills are all important in us. They all help use relate well with others. Specialized education tries to offer these and others but we also need the practical side of the game; experience.

Innovation is doing something better than the current way or creating a better product out of the current one. It improves life. It is a product of imagination, skills/ knowledge and practicability of thought. Education provides skills but it does not necessarily produce innovation.  In US (sorry for always relating things to it; but don’t forget it’s the world of opportunities, so, we can learn something out of it) education is key to innovation. Though the tech-giants were mostly founded by college drop-outs, they had enough education and knowledge to accomplish it. But they had more than this; they had ‘a product of imagination, skills/ knowledge and practicability of thought.’- INNOVATION.

In the current global competitive economy, it means that education is not enough.  We need more to put an indelible mark globally. The question may now arise, how do go about it?

b)      ***Kenyan education system***

What’s the difference between University of Nairobi and Harvard? The distinction between TU-K and MIT? Moi university and Yale?  JKUAT and Calitech? They are all universities, sources of higher education. Even though the industry like Silicon Valley produce innovations, my last post <> indicated that SV was like a mouth that received food from SRI (Stanford Research International) Stanford University research arm. The higher education is meant to shape the industry through innovations. The Ivy League Schools have done it since the 19^th century. That now creates a variation between Kenya and US. Author Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, writer, speaker commentator and nonprofit leader  Ellen Goodman said that ‘act and the world will judge the results of your actions’, these colleges have acted and we, the world have judged their actions by the results we have experienced. In my 1^st semester 1^st year, in a Creative and Critical Thinking course –back in 2012- I wrote an essay as to why Kenya has been lagging behind in innovations. I also highlighted key solutions to this. One of the problems that I especially pinpointed was the education system that we have, especially in colleges. Well, we have done something that has hit a global mark, but we can do more, and I believe we have the capacity to do it.

If we correct some awkwardness in education, we will have won the battle in innovation and trend. In my post about talent, I showed how education is of essence when it comes to utilizing it. Talent with no education is like gold in the mine. True. Now, if education is not fulfilling, talents may not be discovered maximally. We don’t need to be chasing transcripts any more. After all, we are not learning to be employed, but to employ. They are nice, but the way we value them, make many use anything to get them. Finally, the few who are selected in the job market end up messing because they weren’t the one the market needed.

c)       *** Idea vs knowledge. Which comes first? Which is more worthy? ***

If someone comes and tell me that he/she had first class in college or even an A in high school, I would not hasten to brand him as genius. Why? Because, probably, he/she cheated to get it. He might have bribed the lecturer or even had an affair to get what she needed. This has been witnessed in our colleges. And when the market sees the shiny papers, they fall in the trap. Knowledge is not the real test of a genius, but imagination is. One idea can make you the next Bill Gates, but education, probably not. Ideas are born of imagination, not knowledge. With an idea, one can seek the relevant knowledge and skills to suit his/ her pursuit, and avoid the hassles of wasting time and money learning everything that comes on your way.

When I conceptualized the idea of DCS (Digital Cheque System) www.dcskenya.com back in 2010, I hardly even knew how to use MS Word well since I hadn’t taken a computer class in high-school. But I started drawing it on a piece of paper (I was damn jobless by then) trying to mimic M-PESA clicks and logic. By the time I joined college, it was just some mere drawings far from perfection, but good Heavens, I was to pursue a B.TECH in DESIGN bachelor degree. I vowed to myself that designing and developing this project would be what I would do once I arrive there. So, when I joined TU-K, I had only one mission; my project. I would have liked to see myself graduate with honors-of which I would have made- but my mission grew stronger that after 3 semesters, I had to do what Gates, Zuckerberg, Google co-founders or even Steve Jobs did; dropping out. The first thing I did was to conduct a research about cheque. In 6 months time, I was having a paper entitled; Stabilizing the Global Market which I have posted here. Then, knowing that it was worth the endeavors, I began learning programming, self-taught. In another 6 months, I was to host the site above, but I had no money to buy servers, for internet connectivity, an office (not yet a data center) a system admin/ a network engineer and others. After some time, I realized I needed no money, just host the site in Google Cloud Platform which offered 60 days free.

In the book entitled; magic of thinking big, (may check a pdf format online for free) there is a story of a guy who went to seek a job. He was asked some questions like the highest mountain in the world. The guy, not only answered which, but he also went ahead to give the coordinates of the mountain. The interviewer asked a colleague, how much would you pay this guy? He answered, US$300, not a day, a month or a year, but in a lifetime. Why? “Because this guy is no more than a human encyclopedia. At least, with US$ 2 or 3, I can buy one. “He has regurgitated what is documented in books, nothing more. He can add no value to the company. Now, is that not what is in the market today? Sometime back, Professor Jacob Kaimenyi, Education Cabinet Secretary, said that universities have been producing half-baked and quarter-baked cakes. I support him entirely. Many courses have been producing encyclopedias. I think that we have enough such books and directories (sorry if I sound offensive) in college libraries. TU-K has a couple. We need some change.

Talents boost thinking and imagination, the source of innovations. The problem with talents is that the environment that surrounds them may thrive or kill them. One such big environment is education.  I like saying that Gates started programming at the age of 13. No wonder why at 19, he was able to create an OS. What is a typical age of starting programming in Kenya? I suppose 20- in college. We start learning the basics and by the time one is through with the 4-year term, not much exploration has been done. Imagine one cause of intelligence in Harvard is that when one joins there, he/she must have shown some special abilities; a real author, programmer, engineer, musician among others. Which site have you created, which research have you done, which project did you contribute to, and which music concert did you organize.  It’s very competitive there. His time in college is not learning the basics; rather, it is for furthering research as well as creating something real. Many of IT firms in US and other developed companies were college projects.

 For me to join UoN, JKUAT, TU-K, Moi, Masinde Muliro, Maseno, Egerton and others here, I just need an A, B, or even C in KCSE, nothing more. But how genuine is it? No talent evaluation, no local volunteering test, no passion and experience. But we also face industry vs academia disintegration. Where do we get such experience?  Do more than class work, see below.

d)      ***It all starts with self***

 I have an idea. Start small, think big. Most of the things that you will do first are either free / volunteering, or at a small fee to your relatives and friends and people around you who need your services. Create a network with the nearby community, do more and probably expect less. Do it with all your heart, give out your best.  The nice thing to consider about the most successful people is that they gave out services for free. Google organized online information for free, gave out gmail, drive among others for free. Yahoo did the same. Microsoft, though considered and criticized for always monetizing almost all of its products, offered Skype services for free, not unless you need to upgrade to a premium option. Facebook account is free, and many of these companies have now generated revenue from ads business. They have won the online business.

One time, you will show up with a heap of portfolios that none of those big companies will ignore you. Probably, you will reach a stage where you will even need a job. You will have find a way to sustain yourself. The world is so generous to give back what you have given out to it. It is one of the universal laws that govern it. We always know that whatever goes around comes around. Also, whatever one sows, he reaps. It is biblically, scientific, and also philosophically proven.

e)      ***others participation***

-          Government

I was delighted when there was a rumor that 8-4-4 would be discarded in favor of 2-6-3-3. I never graduated from college, as Steve Jobs said in a commencement speech in Stanford University back in 2005, but I know where the shoe pinches. Let a programmer start his/ her prowess at a tender age. Let a musician do the same, an inventor does not need to learn much of languages. They should know enough to explain their discoveries and ideas. Let us send them to the lab early, so that by the time they hit 30, they can turn around and see what they have in the recent 15 years.

The vicious cycle is that by the time one graduates, at age 23-25, he badly needs a job to sustain him and start paying his HELB dues before they penalize him. He needs to marry ‘to pay his debt to his parents’. He needs a car and a nice home to enjoy his long-invested labor. He has no time to innovate. He’s tired and needs to rest a little.

Let us make this simple, enhance diversification at the age of 13-15. Let us focus more on talent than education, let education suit and support our talents. See TED talk by----- how education has been mined for long and now looks like an old dilapidated gold mine. The only left gesture is a degraded land, full of holes.

If someone read a book by Napoleon Hill, ‘Think and Grow Rich’, there is a full topic about sex transmutation. It says that the men who succeeded in history had either, a woman, girlfriend or a fiancé behind it. The force between opposite gender is so strong that if used wisely, can lead to great things done. From teenage, these forces start rising naturally, and this makes these teenage students active in everything, including talent showing. Let it be the time when they should be specializing in what they can do best, they will do it best.

-          Universities

The education system has failed us for a while. If we are diverse why should we be thrown in the same class, taught the same thing for at least 12 years (8+4), and the next 4, when we are about to marry, we start all again. One TED talk, by Susan Cain ’ThePower of Introverts’, she cites 3 items of the day. (For a Wikipedia note on the same, check HERE)

1.       Stop the madness of always preaching teamwork in schools. Thomas Alva Ediso, the great inventor, stated that ‘the best kind of thoughts comes in solitude.’ Steve Wozniac, Apple co-founder, spent   time in a cubicle designing the 1^st apple computer.

2.       Introverts should take some time in the wilderness, alone, to come up with something as best thought-out thoughts always come in solitude.

3.       Once the wilderness is over, please open the briefcase to the world. Let them know what you have been doing.

In fact, most inventors and innovators are introverts. They spend most time thinking before they act. Larry Page, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniac Warren Buffett among others are introverts.  (Please Google for others, they are many). Bill Gates recommended this TED talk to be his favorite.

Let us support our students. Avoid teaching 70% theory as has been in most colleges. MIT revisited the issue, and have been the most practical institute in history. Everybody would dream of at least visiting it, leave alone take a postgraduate course. 

-          Media

We need exposure.  If all there was a media/ TV program where students showcase their ideas, at least an hour. Then, a well organized team of investors would pop in to fund a promising venture. You will be amazed on how creative and innovative our young people are and how many companies would we create in a matter of a year or two. I will stick to professor Kachieng’as advice, ‘Any country that will invest in human intelligence will emerge to be the best economy in history’. We need match-making here. If we do so, the issue of unemployment that always hurt the minds of many of our youths will fade.

From 2012, the government projected creation of 10, 000 jobs in the ICT sector. In US, this could be captured by Facebook only- 10,082 (March 2015). See Google, more than 55, 000 employees raging from software engineers, senior software engineers, network engineers, UI designers, accountants, site reliability engineers, project managers among others. Microsoft has been laying employees recently, especially in the Nokia section, but I assure you they have more than 100, 000 employees. Look at Apple, 120, 000 jobs, starting from designers, hardware and software engineers, Mac genius, database admin (DBA) among others

I do believe that Kenya has the capacity to hold such a big corporation. But it must be born of big idea, and some media exposure. I have heard of bring a couple thing home. In April 2015, Safaricom made their long-hoped commitment come true; bringing M-PESA servers home after 8 years of hosting in Germany. You remember of the ad that circulated in the media sometime ago; Bring Zack Back Home. Was it trying to raise funds to build a cancer or backbone facility where one would send just a bob a day? Am not sure.  We now need to bring our services home. We need to bring the next Google home. We need to bring our education home (of course from Britain "where it has been hosted").  If you know where the shoe pinches, you are able to talk. HOW MANY PEOPLE PROPOSED THE 2-6-3-3 CURICULLUM? HOW MANY SECONDED? Almost ALL of us.

We can, potus said. We can, I second the motion.

Well, that’s fine and well spoken for now but don’t forget to check to my site www.dcskenya.com and see full digital migration in the payment industry.

IS KENYA AND AFRICA DOING ENOUGH TO TAP TALENT?

TALENTS. DO WE REALLY TAP THEM IN KENYA AND AFRICA?

Sponsored by my site www.dcskenya.com have a check at it and find how we will eradicate cheques in the payment industry as well as visiting the page  Stabilizing the global market to see how we can still move on unhurt even when cheque goes to ultimate silence of eternity.

a)      ***talents***

Talent is innate/ inborn; we all have it, individualized by our maker. The diversity we experience has been designed to keep us dependent of each other, be intertwined so as we appreciate the work done by others to us. Consider a situation when all of us are doctors? Who would treat who? We may be healthy, advance research in health, live longer probably, only to forget that we would die in the lab due to hunger within the first week. My fellow doctor would die holding a pair of scissors almost to do a throat surgery to me. Funny! We may survive but die out of malnutrition since we lack a full grown diet from our gardens – I mean the forest. After all, there is no cultivated land. By who? We are all in referral and Level4 or 5 hospitals treating ourselves and doing a historical research for cancer.

We could be engineers. Every one of us building a road or even generating electricity. To whom would we sell to? Perhaps we could be all kings. A question now comes, who could be the subject. Who is the driver, a bodyguard, a chef or even the king’s wife? Diversity and talent comes in. talent is what makes us do things with ease, it energizes, delights us and make us do things with or with near perfection.

Talents have seen people move far. Be it in music composition, discoveries, inventions and innovations among others. Discovering a talent might be a simple task or even the most difficult thing in one’s life. It may also require higher education and specialized skills or even no formal skills at all. Compare a today’s medicine course and traditional herb medicine which required an old man’s time to venture in to the forest with a basket and an attentive mind of the learner.

What amazes me is the perfection that is attached with talent. If you do what you are talented for, you will do is with gusto, passion, energy, motivation and even if you may be far from excellence for the first time, something inward will keep telling you; try more time. This time round, you will do better because you have learnt a lesson where you went wrong. When Edison tried 10 000 times to create a light bulb, every time he tried, he was better and near perfection than the presiding time. To him, it was not 9 999 times failure, but he said that he learned 9 999 ways of creating a bulb that does not work. He added that ‘the greatest failure lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try one more time.’ That’s why perfection is not instant; it is a process and many trials that leave the person nearer the gates of success. Bill Gates didn’t learn programming instantly. It is said that he forgo class work and home chores just to be in the computer lab with Allen.  He spent more time here and his curiosity and love for the machine helped him to go deeper and learn more of it. He started programming at the age of 13. At 19 he built the 1^st PC OS for MITS, which it is told that even if it worked, it was far from perfection.

b)      ***  Talent vs knowledge & skills vs destiny***

Do they relate? Talent is innate, it’s a seed. But talent alone is not enough. Every person has that talent, the individuality that makes us unique. But don’t forget that every child is born empty only that seed of talent. It has to be nurtured, cultivated and prepared to reach the next level; destiny. The preparation involves acquitting the relevant skills to be able to tackle the challenge at hand. Someone said that ‘a talent with no education is like gold in the mine.’ True, we need skills to utilize the talent. Was Gates a born programmer? Absolutely no. yes, we may say he had a big task at hand. His long friend and a future president of Microsoft, SteveBallmer said that Gates had something disturbing his mind at Harvard. He could leave the class, go straight to the dormitory, and sleep with shoes and door open. After a few hours, he could wake up and walk out without a word. (See Bill Gates documentary in you Tube).

Well, we may say that he had a real task, somehow God-factored. But Gates spent a couple of years training and learning coding (from age 13-19) so that he could be well prepared to write the OS. He needed skills, and good Lord he got it. The good thing is that he discovered his talent early. He pursued his dreams and passion to a point of even being the best in class, he had to leave Harvard to follow his future; his destiny.

Here’s the pattern, discover your talent, know the right skills to dig out your gold mine –your talent of course – and with the duo, and probably some believe and karma, you are ushered to your divine destiny with first-class flight.  

c)       ***talents in history***

 Talents may also be discovered early in life or even when one is now an old man or woman. Consider the life of Thomas Alva Edison who grew interest in science at a very young age and by around 12, he had read so many books that many of our scientists may not even reach in their lifetime. Remember, there were all self-learned. He is termed in history as the father of light bulbs. It is true. But the amazing part is that by the time of his death, aged 84 in 1931, he had patented 1093 works, light bulb being just one of many. Well, I don’t know how many patents a Kenyan can make in lifetime. Remember that, he had only around 2-3 years of formal education. All the rest was self-made.

Life of people like Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Marie Curie, Henry Ford among others spent their life making discoveries and inventions. It was because they developed interest and passion in their work that even if their work didn’t even pay financially, they would not feel discouraged or even move to the state of despondency.  Their work energized them. It was a talent. We may say anyone could have developed the bulb, but nobody else did except Edison. Someone could have discovered radioactivity, but no one did except Marie. We have all at one time or another, used telephone before cell phone emerged.  Bell made it to happen of which no one else had done it or even tried it earlier and if there was one tried, never succeeded, or even gave up before making it happen. Ford had little formal knowledge. He may not have invented a car but he was the first to make mass cars, Vehicles that could be sold in and outside US. He did it.

Lots of stories have been told of people who left a trail in history. We may not believe all of them or simply all, but even today we have seen the technological advancements, at least in our lifetime. We are bound to believe.

The above historical stories revolve around US and Europe. We may not have heard about Asia and Australia but today, we have seen what China could do. South Korea, once a poor country, has been transformed in our era. We may not know much about her, but if any of us have not owned a Samsung smart phone, at least we have seen it in shop windows while passing along the city streets.  Toyota has lived to rule Kenya, dubbed ‘the car in front is Toyota.’ But today, Hyundai and KIA motors have stormed in with thud. South Korea!

d)      ***Talent in Africa***

Now, what about Kenya and Africa? Sometimes I wondered whether God, or whatever your Supreme Deity you think of, hated Africa in a way that we could live to be followers. Conformists! That He never blessed us with imagination. Is it that we could not produce inventors? And here is where James Mwangi of Equity Bank said that Africa is “a resource-rich but poor” continent. (see the Equity News Sep 2012 LET AFRICA ARISE page 3,  ‘The power of Entrepreneurship’ )We may not be inventors, but about 70% of arable land globally comes from our continent. And what follows? We have not been able to have a stable food security. Don’t you see a tremendous inconsistency here? What do we lack? Water, we have perennial rivers. Labor, we have the highest percentage of energetic men and women (about 70% of our population) who always cry for employment. Plans, yes plans. We lack plans.

Africa is a great continent, but we are greater and if we stay idle, we will live to say –long live Africa – yet, we diminish slowly by slowly. We are greater that it and we can transform it. In 2014, Bill Gates, founder Microsoft said that African challenges can only be solved by Africans. I agree with him.

e)      ***Talent at work in Kenya***

Sorry guys to take you in a long walk. Let’s not lose the point. Do we really tap talents in Kenya and Africa?  Not fully. Let me give a Kenyan scenario. In 2014, there was a shamba-boy in Murang’a County, a std 6 drop out, who had tried to create an airplane. He said that he had spent about KES 60 000 on his project, which he funded form his pay savings. Sometimes he could borrow some from his employer, an elderly lady who seemed generous and supportive. Indeed she was. The plane engine was a motorcycle one (is my English making sense) I mean, it was a motorcycle engine.  This boy had tried fly a few times to a point where the area chief stopped him because it seemed precarious. 

Let’s reason here. I don’t want to know whether the boy had the capacity to make a flying plane that could one time carry me. I will not judge his education level (a primary school skills) or even the work he was by then doing - garden-boy. But I know something for sure. The boy risked his life trying to fly something he wasn’t sure of. I hardly believe that he had carried out some maths regarding aerodynamics, Bernoulli principle among others; he doesn’t know them. Secondly, he risked his meager money to invest in something that -to me- was beyond his scope.  He could have spent his lovely evenings drinking with friends the little he earned. He perhaps could use it to take his girlfriend out on weekends or even keep for dowry. BUT HE DIDN’T!

How many aviation schools do we have in Kenya? How many students that have been taken to such schools yet, they didn’t have interest in air? How much could he spend if he were taken to one of such schools and mingle with lecturers and professors who could help him reach his goals?  Here, we could have done match-making - mix TALENT and SKILLS. It could have been, what do books say? – to professors. And what does instinct, imagination and talent tell us? – to the boy.  These are talents that could probably educate us about how Godly things work.

Cases of extra-ordinary talents and potential have been spotted here and there but we assume them. Another boy, still from the same county, had generated electricity that he was supplying in the neighborhood. 

f)       ***talent treatment example***

If someone have watched a new 2014 series entitles ‘Scorpion’ which revolves around one Irish gentleman, Walter O’Brien who is said that at the age of 11 he had hacked NASA systems to get blueprints of his wardrobe, gets my idea right. It is inspired by a true story. The US government later picked him gave him E11 passport to become a government asset. With his Scorpion Computer Services, O’Brien is said to have done a lot to save the country lots of massive damages. You can see how US respects and value talents. SiliconValley was developed out of talents and ideas, nothing more.

Now, from now henceforth, will we tap such talents? Will we nurture this scarce treasure? I hope so.

 Remember, as has been prof. Kachieng’a’s anthem, ‘Any country that will invest in human intelligence will emerge to be the best economy in history’. And so is why US has remained to be in power. Not because of army, unity, progressive research or even development.  All these are funded by funds. They need wealth to write a big pay-cheque for their esteemed security apparatus. Funds are gotten from investment from the intelligent guys and companies – power of human intelligence.

Well, that’s fine and well spoken for now but don’t forget to check to my site www.dcskenya.com and see full digital migration in the payment industry.

WILL TECHNO CITY BE AFRICAN SILICON VALLEY? MAYBE NOT

KONZA TECHNO CITY VS SILICON VALLEY

Sponsored by my site www.dcskenya.com have a check at it and find how we will eradicate cheques in the payment industry as well as visiting the page  Stabilizingthe global market to see how we can still move on unhurt even when cheque goes to ultimate silence of eternity.

a)      ***Kenyan innovation spirit***

Kenya has been dubbed as the ‘silicon savanna’ in Africa due to its success in terms of innovations and technology.  Companies have been born in this line; SST (Seven Seas Technology), Craft Silicon, Onfon Media, Weza Tele, Symbiotic Kenya, M-Farm, Ushahidi… among many others. We all know and many times have used M-PESA to send money back home in the village to our parents and relatives. Initially we had to either go home ourselves, send someone who belonged to our vicinity who was going home that weekend or even send a driver/ conductor with an envelope of which we were 50-50 whether the prestigious cargo would reach the hands of the intended destination. We call all this- M-PESA revolution- the 2007 deliverance.

I remember when potus offered an official and friendly visit to Kenya 0n 24^th-26^th July (of which others proclaimed it as a warm homecoming) he said that M-Farm was helping and advising thousands of farmers on when to plant, cultivate, fertilize, harvest and even where to sell their produce. Ushahidi is helping citizens send confidential information from Zimbabwe to Baghladesh yet it was born here in Kenya. Wow!

When M-Shwari –a partnership between Safaricom and Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) – was launched in 2013,  it took about a month to have over a billion in savings and 23  billion in short loans. The designers seem to have known the real disease and definitely resulted to deliver the best medicine ever.

Equitel, Equity Bank Group mobile-services arm, had at first launched in the midst of controversy; we all watched the battle of titans. At last the consumers might say they got what they would term as envious in their life: choice.

The government has not been left behind in this. Huduma centers have seen a couple of things get done. They have merged the state services on one doorstep; renewal of driving licenses, application of national IDs, registration of new businesses… among others. Also, systems that were once criticized over the years due to failures on being disorganized and scattered all over different buildings were seen brought together for the sake of the common mwananchi to the point of some other African countries revealing that, they too, would replicate the same to their countries. A nice move!

These and more have sent a clear signal in the outside world. Global corporations which like terming themselves as (Inc.) have seen a silver lining in our country. In 2013, International Business Machines -mostly referred to as IBM- set a research lab in Catholic University of East Africa, Langata campus. They have done some progress.  GSMA also set in here – along Ngong road to increase some warmth next to I-hub and Nailab. Microsoft E.A. …aaaaaaah! ...the list is endless.

Well, we may not be able to name all the success stories and THE-NEXT-BIG-THINGS we have witnessed in the previous years because they are beyond our expectations and thoughts.

Now my fellows let me not lose focus on my point here. I may glorify all of us and most notably these initiators and fail to get my …eeh…thesis. Back in 2012, Konza city was launched to foresee more innovation prospect as Silicon Valley did back in 1940s-50s. l know that we may not replicate SV as it has been hard to do so by even other countries like Israel, London- UK, Dubai among others. Konza is somehow different from SV in a couple of things.

b)      ***SV Foundation and history *** (courtesy of Wikipedia)

                              An air-view of Silicon valley 

Before I analyze the differences, and even the similarities, let’s see more of Silicon Valley (SV). It is the southern region of San Francisco Bay Area in northern California –San Jose in Santa Clara valley. It is next to SRI (Stanford Research International). It has been the leading tech-hub with 1/3 of all venture capital in USA. The name comes from semi-conductor companies that were set in 70s-80s which used silicon to make chips and transistors, now used in electronics.

In 1940s-50s, Fredric Terman, Dean of Engineering in Stanford University started to encourage his students to become self-employed (as has been a Kenya’s cry off late). Two students, William Hewlett and David Packard joined to form  Hewlett-Packard Company –HP, the giant PC, servers and printer maker till date. So, when students came with ideas, they could be vetted and developed in the research lab arm of Stanford University- SRI and once valid and sustainable, they could be “thrown” outside the school for further development and business set up. Many ideas came up and followed the same route and expanded in the Santa Clara valley.  Later, other companies followed the bee to eat the honey- Microsoft, Adobe, Macintosh (Apple), Cisco and others. More research heated to develop more sophisticated products like GUI interfaces, the computer mouse, Ethernet, laser printers, O-O-programming. There was more than a mere drive that saw SV trail the journey towards computer development and technology at large - THE DRIVE THAT COULD NOT BE EXPLAINED.

 Let me end with this –I-don’t know how to describe kind of- information from Wikipedia.

In most inventive towns in US, California carries 12 and 10 out of them comes from SV (meaning, half of US inventions come from SV). San Jose/ SV filed 3867 patents in2005, followed by Sunnyvale with 1881 utility patents. By the way, how many innovation patents were filed in Kenya in 2014?  Between 5 and 10, I surely don’t know.

c)       ***Will Techno city be the SV of Africa? ***

***Konza Techno city was launched in 2012 by the government of Kenya under the ICT Board and marketed by Kenya Vision 2030. It is located in Makueni County in a 5000 acres piece of land, 64 km south of city of Nairobi. It is said to cost 1.2 trillion (approximately US$ 14.5 ). (Source: Wikipedia)

It will host BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), ventures, a science park, a convention center, a shopping mall, hotels, international schools, a health facility all allowed by Parliamentary Account Committee.  It’s a sustainable, world-class tech-hub also dubbed as ‘where African silicon savanna begins’.

                                  How Konza is/ will be 

d)      ***the difference between Konza and SV***

1.       SV was developed out of scarcity in resources but abundance in ideas. When the students developed their ideas, they were released outside to the market and the ‘outside’ was Santa Clara valley. They created their own offices with anything they had, thanks the little help the university offered. The venture capitalists arrived later when they realized there could be something to bite after all. The market defined the success or even failure of someone’s project. It was where author Ellen Goodman said ‘act and the world will judge the result of your actions’.

Konza is the opposite, developed out of scarcity in ideas but abundance in resources. A master-plan has been drawn, cost of 1.2 trillion presented, 5000-acre land surveyed, water, electricity and roads developed. I have seen the master-pan, wow! It is indeed overwhelming. That’s pretty good.

 We might see almost all of the prestigious space being taken by incomers. Yes, they have the ideas, research labs and of course the best human intelligence. Well, the government may decide to reserve at least 30% for Kenyan companies. It’s better.  But even if it does so, we might miss a point because of Konza’s foundation: developed out of scarcity in ideas but abundance in resources. We may suffer from lack of well developed ideas worth the investment carried in the area. When that happens, Konza may not fulfill its mission: a sustainable, world-class tech-hub, ‘where African silicon savanna begins’.

2.       SV was highly linked with the power-source: the university research lab and Stanford University at large. Taking both to be located opposite to each other and a road dividing them (a thought, I’ve never been in US leave alone SV) I can spiritually see ideas criss-crossing the path from SRI to SV. I can also see Terman visit SV occasionally to see the progress of his children in this new land – A REAL PROGRESS. I can also see him try to get feedback from the market on how the products are fairing and where to advise his students to improve – A NICE ECOSYSTEM.

Konza on the other side stands stand-still. It’s alone like a lone survivor. I will not say it’s not linked with anything but not with the power-source.  “Any country that will invest in human intelligence will emerge to be the best economy in history”. Prof. Kachieng’a noted in one of his articles. Kachieng’a is a lecturer in the school of Engineering in Technical University of Kenya (TU-K). I don’t know Prof. Kachieng’a personally, but his articles (which he pins in the admin block) amaze me. US has done it; invest in human intelligence. They have grown to be the wealthiest economy in history and hence, the global super-power.  They have done it by joining networks- the power-sources. You will bear with me that almost all tech-giants in US were founded by drop-outs (like me). They had nothing materialistic, just a brain/ idea, a computer and a garage (Google in Wojcicki’s home and Apple in Steve’s garage) or even a dormitory for Zuckerberg’s case. IDEAS rule the world.

 It is because university collaborations and networks with industry are like combining a data center with the power-source. There will be no down-times, no slumps and no down-trodding.

 

Well, that’s fine and well spoken for now but don’t forget to check to my site www.dcskenya.com and see full digital migration in the payment industry.