Linda Kwamboka, 23, is the co-founder and marketing manager at M-Farm, an application that allows Kenyan farmers to learn local market prices of products they wish to sell.I asked how she defines innovation.Read more about M-Farm: M-Farm lets Kenyan Farmers find market prices with SMS
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On Innovation: Omar Christidis, Lebanon. – Francis Pisani
I met Oman Christidis during my stay in Cairo. Christidis, of Greek, Palestinian and Syrian origin, is the founder of ArabNet, a conference for Middle Eastern startups and investors.His goal: “Connect the region’s leaders and give them a chance to meet.”
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Alexandria: The library, from papyrus to bits – Francis Pisani
Alexandria – Located not far from the ruins of its ancestor, the building containing the new library of Alexandria (Bibalex) is alone worth the trip. The exterior of the building designed by the Norwegian firm Snøhetta looks like a sort of half-moon sitting on the horizon. The interior contains the largest reading room in the world, composed of […]
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Silicon Valley Cafes at Nairobi’s iHub – Francis Pisani
Nairobi’s iHub is an open space for geeks, hackers and investors. It acts as a model for all of Africa.The indisputable sign of legitimacy: they have a Pete’s Coffee, just like you can find everywhere in Silicon Valley. (According to connoisseurs – and who isn’t a connoisseur in the San Francisco Bay Area? – it’s […]
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Egypt: When Revolution Comes from the Mouths of Babes – Francis Pisani
Cairo – No one, except the activists preparing it, saw the Egyptian revolution coming. And yet they might have gotten a pretty good idea of what was coming if they saw what happened in a summer camp for Arab children aged 12 to 15 in August 2010. They came to the camp, located in Ismaïlia, […]
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The key to social media and traffic in Cairo – Francis Pisani
Very nice but not totally convincing, Aly Rafea told me a secret this morning, a secret that’s worth gold. Rafea is the founder of bey2ollak.com, an app that “lets people share traffic information for the primary streets in Cairo and Alexandria, (the country’s second-largest city),” he told me. Bey2ollak translates roughly to “what people are saying,” with […]
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“Social” Marketing and the Egyptian Revolution – Francis Pisani
Yesterday morning I attended a conference for entrepreneurs held near Cairo, in a “Smart Village” where Microsoft, Vodaphone, Intel, Alcatel and a lot of banks are located.The event included a Panel on social media, or, more precisely, on how marketing uses it.“Social is the new viral,” said one of the CEOs who spoke there.I heard […]
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Creating the African Gaming Industry – Francis Pisani
It all started as an ordinary rivalry, two young developers claiming at the same time to be the first game developer in Africa. No risk of it coming to blows with a continent separating them: one lives in Accra, Ghana, and the other in Nairobi, Kenya.Learning of their rivalry definitely piqued their interest, and they […]
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An Activist Entrepreneur – Francis Pisani
Bruno Legendre acts with an unrelenting logic that I described Friday in my weekly column in the Science & Techno supplement (Article in French; subscription required). But I wanted to talk about him in a little more detail on several points:As an agronomic engineer, he quickly realized that there was something wrong with traditional development […]
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M-Farm lets Kenyan farmers find market prices with SMS – Francis Pisani
Simple, efficient and effective, the application developed by M-Farm allows rural Kenyans to know the market price of the products they sell in regional markets. They can also use the service to transport their crops or buy fertilizer.And the best thing about it is the business was built by three young women still in school, after a […]