Niti Bhan, the emerging markets strategy specialist, went to Kenya to participate in the Pivot 25 conference and wrote this guest contribution on her experience there.
[Disclosure: Experientia has worked with Niti on an extensive emerging market research project in 2008].
“I’ve just returned from Kenya where I was one of the judges for Pivot25, the first East African (and possibly African) mobile web developers app and startup competition.
Sponsored by the likes of Google, Samsung, Nokia and Tigo (where on earth where Safaricom and Airtel?) as well as the World Wide Web Foundation and the World Bank, Pivot25 showcased the local developer community’s offerings and shone a spotlight on the launch of the mLab, an incubation facility for such ventures.
The teams knew the odds and we saw them overcome their challenges. There was a wide range of skills, talent and quick thinking entrepreneurial attitude on display by the presenters as they gave their pitches to the judges and the audience. We all know that first impressions matter and the overall winner, MedKenya, is being sponsored by the conference to attend Demo in San Francisco this coming fall. I want to see what they think of the Valley’s startup culture from the inside track and I want to see what the Valley makes of them.
Reflecting on my observations after two weeks in the field, I see an elasticity in the transitional nature of this rapidly evolving landscape. The penetration of the mobile phone in sub Saharan Africa has doubled in the three short years since we went out into the field for the Out of Africa project I conducted with Experientia for a major mobile phone company.
That was then, this is now. We had to get our feet wet and print a local business card in Nairobi because of the sheer nature of the disruption that is taking place in the mobile platform and its attendant variety of industry players, movers and shakers and money.
This as good as time as any to talk about the Interface Innovation project I did for Kevin Farnham, CEO of Method back in 2005. The five year statue on non disclosure is over and one can already see the future through the small handheld screen. One worldwide river of information in all manner of media afloat out there to be snagged and reeled in using the best fishing lines and bait. Google as the OS by which to experience this inter-networked world wide web of humanity of ours. Kevin would have long debates around the future of branding in this environment. After all, if you’re experiencing reading this article via your mobile phone, which brand is controlling your experience?
The one on your handset? The one flashing on the top right hand corner of the screen connecting you to the rest of the world?
Or the one whose vision of the world correlates enough with yours that you choose to see the world through their interface.
Today, looking back at our conversations and now being able to look at the present and its fringes out in East Africa, innovation is already a matter of brand equity. You cannot afford to be seen as stodgy and slow, now matter how good your work may be. Sometimes timing is more important than perfection.
We’re already seeing an interest in tapping the informal economy which is primarily cash based and through a variety of sources such as kitchen farming, trading, specialising and cooperating fiscally.
Normal segmentation models based on income available to spend tends to skew the results. The rural population is actually far wealthier than the urban, its simply a tendency towards minimizing liquidity in a cashless environment of value exchange.
Variations on the prepaid model successful in the mobile industry seem to be the ones that work the best. However, the advent and successful adoption of mobile money transfer systems such as mPesa who permit holding onto cash electronically for periods of time are influencing change in the lower income traders and businessmen. Float and working capital are available in a manner that weren’t earlier. Cash circulates and that triggers a growth cycle.
We are watching a whole new industry and its attendant ecosystem emerge here in Nairobi, Kenya. The mobile information technology industry, where the concepts of time and space and money are far more sensitive to the environment due to the real time nature of the data flow.
Literally a case of “watch this space” carefully and learn.”