STORIES FROM MY HEART

This week I had the opportunity to moderate and MC  Pivot East Africa 2014. The yearly event seeks to receive amd award pitches from app developers,  both Web and mobile. What an incredible event it was, a first for me. It was inspiring to see about 20 start ups across categories such as utilities,  enterprise, finance, social and entertainment share their ideas on how they want to make a difference given the opportunity they have seen in the market. In between the pitches we had 'fireside chats' that Focused on issues facing the industry that's still in its infancy stage compared to other developed tech cities across the world with a comparative  look at Telaviv,  Berlin and of course Silicon Valley.  One of the fireside chats I moderated focused on the hype vs substance debate across the tech start up ecosystem in Kenya, with topics ranging from sources of funding and the almost controversial role of NGO funding in the start up ecosystem and it was inte...

Dear Activists, Perhaps I have never really understood how activism works, you see I am just a journalist. It disturbs me each day when I recall how 276 girls were kidnapped in Nigeria, something that took the world about 3 weeks to notice. Over lunch a few weeks ago I mentioned to a friend how I was at a complete loss following the overflow of "Hash tag activism" that even got the attention of #Flotus among many other leaders locally and internationally. But several weeks later, only 50 girls gave been reunited with their families,  (I hope to God that it is true) leaving 226 still missing. The offial number communicated in 219 girls still missing, I don't know what happened to the 7. Now the world has gone silent on #bringbackourgirls. If this doesn't call for change of tack in the world of activism,  then you should hang your brand new boots because there's no *walking* on those twitter streets. Once upon a time, Noise = Activism,  but the world has changed sin...

Greetings, I'm sure your in-tray, your Excellency does not need an envelope from another anxious Kenyan. But things are thick, and you probably feel the heat a lot more than we do. But I am getting anxious sir. I had a conversation with a friend today and we spoke about Economic Sabotage and where that can lead us as a country. You see sir, I've been following the conversation about #KenyaRising keenly since 2006, when we first began to fully realise and define the growth the country had had since 2002, when President Kibaki came to power. There's a host of things that are feeding into a full blown economic sabotage, MRC, Alshabab have already done well in that regard. 2007 is a memory I wouldn't want to awake, for you, for me now for the millions of Kenyans who have tried to rise above the fateful bloody days. But it happened, and close on it's heels the global crisis happened. We were back to scratch as a country. We saw investors flee, but shortly afte...

Thursday was one of the busiest days in any Business Journalist's calendar. However Budget day, 2014, in today's form is no longer the secret it always was under the old constitution. By April the estimates are out, and most accounting/audit firms and economists begin to do their analyses of how Government will spend it's monies. For a government that has been criticised to live above its means, we were keen to find out how the Cabinet Secretary, Henry Rotich was planning to raise the 1.8 trillion shilling 2014/2015 budget. Most economists agree however that we as a country are still within manageable debt levels as far as international standards are able to go by, therefore the question of whether we will borrow the money and the impact of this did not feature as much of a question. These were the key issues I wanted to centre on: 1. Is this a growth focused budget? 2. Is the budget deficit a real problem, REALLY ? 3. Are we convinced that treasury will ach...

Last time I wrote about the issues a working mother faces, It was picked up by a blog and taken way out of context. It went from being something I was feeling terrible about to "She thinks she is the only one who feels this?" It pained me to read some really hatefull comments, and have since learnt not to go through with it, but I still strongly believe most working mothers go through exactly what I blogged about last time, and it eases the burden to share what we are going through as mothers. Anyway, motherhood is a calling, (take that!) no matter what our jobs are, and I know that every working mother wants to have the best relationship with her children, and be the best mother she can be. This year I decided to start cooking and doing DIY crafts with my daughter as one of the ways in which we can truly bond and for me to create a better relationship with her. I have learned with time and hindsight that mothers have the greatest influence on their children, and I ...

I would have sworn the light skin debate belongs in 1983. Dead and buried together with culottes and Kenya Uniform long and wrinkled skirts or Irene Lipstick, a cheap favorite way back when it was fashionable to wear lipstick only on the lower lip. Make that a lipstick that was green and turned red on application. I would have safely assumed that skin lightening is dead. Buried 6 feet under together with words like Cutex, 'don't touch my toes' or tinga tinga, which was village speak for 'Tractor'. The #bleachedbeauty tirade of tweets and blogs recently perked a desire to rethink values. The good old values that taught us how to be girls, ladies then women. When the debate was at its peak, I sent out a tweet that said "change your values,not the color of your skin". If you think this blog is about Vera Sidika exit stage left. But since I have already mentioned her, I will let you know like her spunk. It takes a gutsy woman to be confident i...

I attended a rather interesting launch by Old Mutual Kenya last evening. What they are trying to do is something I believe can evolve into a movement and not the constant usual annoying one sided conversations done by insurance sales people. You see, today, I hardly pick up the calls of several insurance people because a majority of insurance sales people are trained to be long winded and annoying. But, whichever way we look at it, insurance is an almost sure route towards financial freedom. What Old Mututal kenya is trying to do is to change the conversations around why it is important for us as parents and young adults to begin to secure our financial freedom. I was asked to speak for a quick minute, and here are the thoughts I shared. "Conversations about Finance, Economy and money in Kenya and many places across the world are generally carried out by Men. Yet across a huge number of Kenyan households it is the women who control the purse strings, working day and ...