Aki, Your premise sounds good in theory. I agree with the general thoughts around local production and innovation. My issue though is that your suggestions lack basic praxis. There is no hard and fast rule on innovation. The chinese started out from what you call an evil position. Getting HQ's of multinationals in their countries. They learned. They copied. Think Lenovo, ASUS etc. What you are suggesting is putting the cart before the horse. We have technology needs *now* that cannot wait for the local innovation cycle. What we should be looking at is ensuring that all the companies that get consulting contracts etc are local. Not that all the equipment and code is made in Kenya. Apple does *not* build everything in the US. Even then, we *don't* have to be the next Silicon Valley. It's not our God given right. We don't have to build the next Shenzen. There are different paths to financial and technology prosperity. We could build our own Wipro (that has higher revenues than HTC) - no innovation, primarily services), and still be a tech hub. We just need to realize that there is no hard and fast rule on how tech is supposed to develop in Kenya and give guys the breathing room they need. If you build a great product, people will come. M-Pesa did not have a lobby, asking guys to ditch banks. Apple does not even have presence in Africa, much less Kenya. It's up to us/policy makers/educators etc to figure out how to create a robust culture of discipline (yes, it's needed, think Job's in his 20's), design, business acumen and technical innovation to build products people will want to use. The other way (forcing everyone to use half baked local produce) will simply skew the incentive structure (the producer does not have to build a great product, he has a guaranteed market). Unless your model for innovation is KPLC, this is not a model that works. The local devs/businessmen etc need to see that there is money to be made, they will come to the table. So all I kindly request, please, cease the flame wars, they are not conducive for any form of meaningful discourse, realize that it's a case of five blind men and an elephant. Nobody is wrong. Different perspectives. Who know's, we may strike oil and all this tech talk will be passe as we morph into the 'Crude oil Savannah'. -- Regards Phares Kaboro Kariuki --Sent from my BlackBerry®-- -----Original Message----- From: aki <aki275@gmail.com> Sender: skunkworks-bounces@lists.my.co.ke Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:05:49 To: Skunkworks Mailing List<skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> Reply-To: Skunkworks Mailing List <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] Server Mirroring Software _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke ------------ List info, subscribe/unsubscribe http://orion.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke