Archive November 2009

Part 2 – Kai Wullf, CEO Kenya Data Networks gives a talk at Skunkworks meetup in Nairobi View Comments

Nov26
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Kai Wullf, CEO Kenya Data Networks gives a talk at Skunkworks meetup in Nairobi at the Multimedia University. Subject of talk was: Fibre is here…so what!

Part 1 – Kai Wullf, CEO Kenya Data Networks gives a talk at Skunkworks meetup in Nairobi View Comments

Nov25
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The video is very very shaky. I wasn’t using one of those miniature HD cams. Perhaps I should have done an audio cast…and maybe Paul Kukubo of the ICT Board will take me up on my request to use his hand-held for future events.

Business is war; building a strong team is the best way to prepare for battle View Comments

Stepping into self employment or what most would call as the entrepreneur mindset is not an easy feat. Becoming your own boss, finding and recruiting invaluable talents, creating your own projects, and ans running the show has led to many jumping impatiently onto the entrepreneurship bandwagon.Firing your boss is the clarion call, but 9 times out of 10…it is not that easy especially once you have become accustomed to a regular paycheck and a certain lifestyle.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence  and you may find that inexperience (not lack of knowledge), lack of talent or poor management will slowly drain your passion and your creative juices will cease flowing leaving you in a dry, sorry and depressed state of self. Have I convinced you to stay “employed”? If not read on coz you are one of the few people who actually have the balls to launch out on your own. That said there are some important characteristics that you must have in-place to ensure that you stepping out is not in vain and that you will at least cross that 3 year start-up ceiling that should see you well on your way to business stability and growth.

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Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and will be at Strathmore University today View Comments

Nov20
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Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. He leads the World Wide Web Consortium, overseeing the Web’s standards and development.

In the 1980s, scientists at CERN were asking themselves how massive, complex, collaborative projects — like the fledgling LHC — could be orchestrated and tracked. Tim Berners-Lee, then a contractor, answered by inventing the World Wide Web. This global system of hypertext documents, linked through the Internet, brought about a massive cultural shift ushered in by the new tech and content it made possible: AOL, eBay, Wikipedia, TED.com…

Berners-Lee is now director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which maintains standards for the Web and continues to refine its design. Recently he has envisioned a “Semantic Web” — an evolved version of the same system that recognizes the meaning of the information it carries. He is also a senior researcher at MIT’s Computer Science and AI Lab.

For his next project, he’s building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together.

He will be at Strathmore Universtity this afternoon, more from that event. We will showcase Sembuse at the gathering.

East African report on new media on CNBC Africa by Terryanne Jebet View Comments

Nov19
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Years ago print was King and yes it was also once referred to as new media.In the East African context, Print Media has suffered the same fate as most others in the industrialized world, the sector now commands a paltry 21% of advertising revenue, way below what Television and Radio commands.Now, the latest kid on the block, New Media is making in roads into the market.

What an entreprenuer needs to know about those Request for Proposal documents on those juicy tenders View Comments

Been off the radar recharging, life can become abit overwhelming at times… now….

Young business…heck even old business glean at paid up adverts by large corporations that call for Request for Proposal. This flavor of contracts usually make any CEO and his CFO grin wider than the joker as they see the bottom line get bumped up and the promise of that end year bonus seem more attainable.

Thing is at the end of the day, everyone thinks that they can offer the best value for money and as such most firms win the said tenders…at least in their heads. And while the opportunities offered by that request for proposal seem like a blessing, there are a couple of things that any entrepreneur gunning for these jobs needs to be aware of…and not just aware of but understand… as it will prevent that mild depression that comes “Bid not successful ” letter.
Here’s the intel :-)
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Sembuse walkthrough…a quick and dirty video View Comments

Nov14

Sembuse walkthrough video for the Nokia Calling All Innovators Competition, abit shaky on the camera there but hey…you will get the gist and the opportunity presented by Sembuse to the african market as well as diaspora.

Part One

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Googles billions come in handy…AdMob purchased for 750 million USD View Comments

For a three year old company not bad at all. AdMob founder Omar Hamoui sent the following letter to customers:

Today we announced that AdMob has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google for $750 million. We are extremely excited about this new partnership and what it means for our advertiser, developer and publisher partners.

AdMob’s people, products and tools will continue to work to deliver successful campaigns for you and to effectively monetize your mobile traffic – no interruptions. Our product and engineering teams will keep building great products for our customers. Our sales team will keep working with our thousands of advertisers to deliver successful campaigns. Our business development team will keep working to maximize ad revenue for the more than 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications that make up AdMob’s publisher network. continue reading »

Mbugua Njihia – the mind of is a personal soapbox: views, opinions and thoughts reflected here can be ingested and regurgitated in support of knowledge sharing.