Macro

Strachan Matranga, H., Bhattacharyya, B., & Baird, R. (2017). Breaking the Pattern: Getting Digital Financial Services Entrepreneurs to Scale in India and East Africa. Village Capital.

AO: This 2017 report has been particularly influential in the Kenyan technology space and continues to be cited in conversations regarding race, tech capital and privilege. The key finding that created a big buzz and is primarily what is referred to when people mention "The Village Capital...Read more

Zachary, G. P. (2008, July 20). Inside Nairobi, the Next Palo Alto? The New York Times.

This article written in July 2008 is particularly interesting to me because of when it was written. It predates the slew of international media coverage on tech development in Nairobi (most of which was written in 2010 - 2012) and the article also touches on some of the cultural orientations...Read more

2016 Kenya National ICT Policy

AO: This is the second publicly published national ICT policy which was a review of the 2006 policy. This document has been revised by the 2019 iteration.Read more

Learning from Nairobi

Something Kim said - about Nairobi being an important site to learn from given that many in the US may be forced to go into the more informal economy, etc. - reminded me of a twist of that point...Read more
Mwangi, E. (2010). Between imagination and delusion: Cosmopolitan postcolonial critique in Ken Walibora’s Ndoto ya Amerika [The American Dream]. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 46(2), 125–137.

AO: This article by Mwangi analyses the late Ken Walibora's "Ndoto ya Amerika", arguing that it promotes “rooted cosmopolitanism” as a framework for literary and political development.Read more

Kenya ICT Authority. 2014. “The Kenya National ICT Masterplan.”

AO: This five year ICT Masterplan was released by the Ministry of Information in 2014.Read more

AOk. African problems are "information" problems

AO: This quote (see copy-pasted below) states that IBM (Research) believed that "many of the hardest problems in our world today, particularly in Africa, are problems of information." The speaker...Read more

Government of the Republic of Kenya. (2018). Marking 10 Years of Progress (2008—2018). Government of the Republic of Kenya.

AO: This is the Government of Kenya's 10 year progress report on what has been achieved with regards to its Vision 2030 which former President Kibaki launched in 2008.Read more

Amrute, S. (2020). Bored Techies Being Casually Racist: Race as Algorithm. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 45(5), 903–933.

AO: This paper seems relevant to read in preparation for our macro chapter as it focuses on the racialization of Indian software engineers in the US and Germany. Does Amrute's concept of "race-as-algorithm" hold in the Nairobi context and help to explain the digitcal economy in Nai? What is...Read more

Republic of Kenya. 2020. Kenya Gazette Supplement: The Startup Bill. 163.

AO: The Senate on 14 September 2020 proposed the Start-up Bill, ostensibly to help support start-ups. However, the current draft appears to only add to the myriad of complications currently faced by start-ups operating in Kenya.Read more

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