Unvailing of 'The Student Engineer'

After years of squalor and despair the magazine that gives the story of the future Kenyan Engineers is back. Furnished with a futuristic design of 'Nairobi 2030' on the cover, the publication is a must read. Free copies are obtainable at the University of Nairobi, ESA Office at the Engineering Block.

Inspiration... Where art thou?

Some time in high school I came across some words whose complete translation have baffled me since eons. Maybe because he did not speak the ‘tongue a few land grabbing cohorts who settled the motherland a century ago’^*1.

“Does not matter how many times you fall but rather how many times you begin again... ”,

so he said. Not so verbatim, that was. So you’d wonder why I bother to tell you these. I have just stumbled upon who I now call my favourite blogger. I have to say, not much in the Kenyan blogging scene has aroused that ka-something in you, so to speak, that makes you want to echo your bizarre inner being to the world as candidly as Mwanafalsafa has.

This is my second attempt at blogging and as you may witness from the last post date, inspiration seldom knocks at this writer’s door. Not to bore you with the many excuses I have conjured up though, I have decided to take one for the team and prove to blogosphere that the phoenix shall rise once more.

Back to life as I used to know it. A b****. End-semester exams that lasted a fortnight are past me. Watch this space

^*1Isn’t there one word for these?

BarCamp Nairobi '08

Barcamp Nairobi '08 is an unconference made up of of technical professionals, Internet enthusiasts, bloggers, designers and other clever people in the Nairobi area who wish to share and learn in an open environment.

See you there... ...I'm addressing the free food!

A Noble Initiative

WAZA is an up and fast becoming popular club in the School of Engineering at the University of Nairobi. Participants meet every week on Thursday and Saturday for interactive sessions that revolve around how innovation and technology can be used to provide modern and affordable solutions for our day to day challenges.

The participants who are mainly engineering students (though not limited to) the have taken up ambitious projects some of which will be on exhibition at the annual IEEE competition. Sessions involve a variety of interests like hardware and software programming, micro-controllers and the open-source movement.

A brainchild of Dr. Kamau Gachigi, it is providing a much needed avenue for young and aspiring innovators to share ideas and learn from each other in an informal setting, and in the long run realise their potential. Through his assistance, the University of Nairobi and consequently the WAZA Platform is expecting to acquire Fab Lab equipment which enables ordinary people to design and manufacture fairly complex creations cheaply. We hope that this will soon be a re-known business incubator for our future inventors country-wide. There are six other such facilities in South Africa and one in Ghana.

Sessions take place on Saturdays from 10am at the Mechanical Engineering computer lab and Thursdays from 4pm at Rm E001 Engineering Block. All are welcome.

Watch this space for the WAZA Website (Under Contstruction)

Invitation to Tender: Episode 1.5

On a quick rejoinder before episode 2, Micheal Joseph is pulling hidden cards off his sleeve. In his latest invention since "Please call me. Thank You."- my pal's favourite quote, MJ doesn't think Kenyan's have peculiar calling habits after all... or so he says.

Three days after introducing the Ongea Tarrif Safaricom advertise that if you buy credit worth Ksh. 100 during the day, your calls would be free from 9pm that night to 6pm the next day. Too good to be true? Well, yesterday a peculiar Kenyan like me topped up my account with Ksh.100 and couldn't wait for my reward come 9pm.

9pm came and passed, my calls were still being charged! Wait a minute, did they say buy credit worth Ksh. 100 or 'spend credit worth Ksh.100 which you bought that day and exhaust any credit balance which may have been in your account, then...'.

Invitation to Tender: Episode 1

An invitation to tender was offered by the kenyan populace to all GSM Mobile Phone Service Providers to offer a cost-friendly and best quality round the clock network tariff to its subscribers. My verdict... Celtel wins hands down!

For a very long time many Kenyans have had a sort of psycological inertia preventing them from shifting alliance from the ever-so-ineffecient Safaricom network to the more loyal and trustworthy Celtel network. These being the two main mobile phone networks with a large subscriber base in the country, Kenyans have had little choice but to keep up with mellow-dramatic soap opera that the tariff -war has become.

The beginning of this week saw both companies introduce a new tariff each, Safaricom with a ksh. 10/- flate-rate 'better option' and Celtel 'made life better' with a ksh.6/-peak, ksh.3/-offpeak tariff*. It is however a win-win situation, whichever side of the divide one finds him/herself since this is. The problem though is the interconnection charges still remain more than double the intraconnetion charges between the two networks, Celtel being the 'imp' (ksh.16/-) and Safaricom the 'demon'(ksh.25/-).

To me, the battle is done, but the war is just beginning! Watch out for 'Invitation to Tender, Episode 2: Bamba-net vs Uhuru-net'.

*Both of these are 'per minute' billing rates charged by the second.

KDN to offer Free Internet!

Yesterday, I attended a talk given by Kai Wulff, CEO -Kenya Data Networks, organised by the Engineering students Association at UoN. Yes, the reigning two-time ICT CEO of the year, for the rest of us who don't know. So what did the tough-talking, average build, german-born have to say?

According to Mr. Wulff, if you want to take over Safaricom's business hands-down (as KDN did Telkom Kenya), you have to be ahead of the 'Hype Cycle'. This he described as a recurring phenomena, specific, but not exclusive to technology. Every major new technology has a hype created around it and being hype,its benefits are often greatly exaggerated in anticipation.

For his case, take Wi-Max compared to Land-laid Fibre which is more feasible in Kenya(Nation-wide) for the fore-seeable future. When KDN laid their Cable in Kenya other companies concentrated on rolling out new-tech wi-fi et al in urban areas, taking for granted the wider customer base and opportunities of service to the rest of Kenya. Now they (FON .ie GoK) including telkom Kenya are struggling to play catch-up while KDN ponder free internet for all. KDN is even planning to implement micro-power-grid systems in less urban areas plus have ATM Network Backbones, etc

KDN's popular individual-customer services are Butterfly Wi-Fi (Ksh.2900/-p.m.) and DSL* (4400/-p.m.) for unlimited internet access. Since there are no incremental costs to the company for access, this pricing system is thus unnecessary and illogical. If a shift from the traditional business model occurs, Internet connection, like free-to-air tv should be free. KDN is planning to pioneer this shift.

*Subject to confirmation