gmeltdown

M-PESA is the mobile money transfer platform introduced in Kenya by Safaricom - Kenya's arguably dominant mobile network operator. It is a fact that M-PESA has revolutionized lifestyles of Kenyans in the last three years. To-date there are about 20,000 M-PESA agents in Kenya according to statistics from Safaricom. It is the extensive network of M-PESA outlets that Michael Joseph - former CEO of Safaricom attributes to the phenomenal success of the M-PESA money transfer system (see my notes on ‘ reflections with MJ ’ in October 2010). Although the former CEO's assertion remains arguable, the significance of the agents and their outlets cannot be overstated in analyzing the money transfer system's success. Recently I engaged a couple of M-PESA agents in some discourse to try and understand their contribution to the platform's success. Perhaps it is because of our age old tendency to complain over everything that I caught a few concerns that would qualify to be the ...

Tweet  triggered In the afternoon of 23rd October 2010 I posted this micro-post (tweet): “ Thinking telcos' price competition for voice market is contributing silently to Kenya's knowledge economy ” As usual I got a couple of reactions. The reactions set off my intentions to say more and justify my thoughts - as it were, in this article, outside twitter’s confinement of 140 characters. A knowledge based economy can be viewed from Peter Drucker’s work in the 90s as “ an economy based on intangible goods and intellectual capital as the economic driver ”. To also quote Vern McCorkle the late publisher of Alaska Business Monthly magazine, “ In our traditional capitalist economy, a knowledge-based economy stands in sharp contrast to long-established economic theory because it relies upon innovation and intellectual capital rather than hard goods to generate economic value. ” Perhaps in the tweet I should have used the phrase knowledge-based economy as opposed to knowledge ec...

This Mashujaa Day was a lazy one for me - some kind of forced day of rest to nurse a sore throat I had. On this day I got a coveted opportunity to form part of some 60pax audience at the iHubNairobi listening in to reflections from Mr. Michael Joseph. Michael or MJ as we call him is the out going CEO of Safaricom LTD - East Africa’s largest firm by corporate earnings. It was a lazy day so I really did not want to tweet through the session. Nevertheless I yielded to the temptation - as usual, and had some 32 tweets with the hash tag #mjreflections . I was seated next to @UjenziBora who shared his intentions to blog his own tweet stream from the event. I liked the idea so here is my over-elaborated execution of the copied idea. I shall simply try and give my underlying thoughts on my ‘live-session’ tweets. I shall also number them so that when you get tired, you could go and come back to resume where you will have left. (tweet) Peculiar site to see MJ of Safaricom in blue jeans...

Many Kenyans still believe that 'their' Safaricom owns the patents to the M-PESA innovation. Some Kenyans even claim that Safaricom hijacked their idea and developed it into M-PESA - a court case was once reported on this. The reality being that the system  was 'developed' by Sagentia on behalf of Vodafone, it goes without saying that the corresponding intellectual property (IP) does not belong to Safaricom. That is also not to forget that Kenya has enough software development capacity to build such a system on a robust platform. Safaricom is paying patent fees to Vodafone just like any other network operator who will wish to use the money transfer platform. It might help for Michael Joseph to clarify if any benefits accrue to himself or others in Safaricom specifically for accepting to be the test platform for "Vodafone's innovation". Such a clarification should of course address the opportunity cost of a more direct contribution to Kenya's knowl...