On 6/20/2011 10:15 AM, saich wrote:
http://www.techmtaa.com/2011/06/20/how-kenya-ict-board-kills-the-spirit-of-t... <http://www.techmtaa.com/2011/06/20/how-kenya-ict-board-kills-the-spirit-of-tech-innovators-and-content-generators/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter>
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Afew good points raised there, but as usual, Alai kills the good points with the bad ones. He hit the nail on the head when he asked for a review into the progress of the grantees from last year's Tandaa Competition. I don't think any of them have made the progress they were expected to. It seems as if they made up some fancy presentations and were rewarded on that basis. Take for example Kenyabuzz, who were supposed to 'mobilize' their website. One year later, and all to show for it is a faulty mobile site: http://www.kenyabuzz.com/mobile Take another company, ibid labs. These guys were supposed to create a virtual museum for Kenya. But alas, they conveniently folded soon after the grants were issued: http://www.ibidlabs.com Jumuika media solutions site seems to be down, and on their Facebook group, it seems their subscribers started having issues with their SMS network early this year: http://jumuika.co.ke According to this Powerpoint presentation <http://www.mespt.org/documents/Media%20Edge.pdf>, Media Edge Communications conveniently changed their name to Edge Africa shortly after the competition. They were supposed to produce an m-farming product from the grant, and have only a pathetic shell of a website to show for after the Tandaa competition: http://edgegroupafrica.com Jamobi were supposed to make a Jua Kali book keeping app with their Tandaa money, but it seems they have not got down to it. Their product page leads to a service page, which in turn leads to lengthy descriptions, with no app in sight: http://www.otbafrica.com/OTBWeb/Products.html Kenya school of technology studies have come out with a mobile learning portal, which seems to have been done half-half, but I think it's a commendable effort when put side by side with the rest: http://m.ksts.mobi Makutano Junction and Ask a Doc are the only ones to come out of that Tandaa grant with some credibility. They implemented their solutions fully and beautifully: http://askadoc.co.ke <http://askadoc.co.ke/> http://www.makutanojunction.org.uk/