Hi Odhiambo,
It is very true that Airtel, then Kencell was given the idea of Mpesa in early 2002.
I was part of the team that presented the idea. It had come from a S. africa company that had wanted to do mobile money
Their idea was formed by the fact that money transfer in Kenya was expensive. They had done a small research and established that
most kenyans sent money via freinds, matutus, buses and most teeliing, via post office normal letter which got stolen by posta staff.
The two guys approach us in IT department and we sold the idea to our chief who organised for meeting with management.
The reason the idea was shot down
was on the basis of how to manage the atual cash. When a user wants to deposit cash, he has to go to
the bank. Yet they were the same banks were the problem we were trying to address.
when one guy suggested partnering with Charity sweepstake to use their small booths for depost and withdrwals, the whole meeting
went into a chorus about insecurity and the risk involved. One manager even insinuated how africans will run with the money at the end of day.
Anyway, the rest is history. I don't know how the idea several years later ended into the MJ desk.
He was able to see the picture and ordered that it be implemented. All the emerging issues would be sorted out later.
Lesson:
Innovation requires you focus on the big
picture and the state of success. Let's deal with the obstacles when they arise.
I believe many of the issues on the mobile voting can easily be sorted our as the idea is developed.
Modification
Instead of a mobile application, why not have an OCR enabled ballot papers. The ballot box has a canner that automatically tallies the votes as they come.
At the close of voting, all results from each polling station are automatically tallied at the central tallying centre database
Regards
Shad
From: Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo@gmail.com>
To: Skunkworks Mailing List <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 6:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] voting on mobile
And @Gichingiri's idea becomes "still born"!
Kenyan's yawa. Instead of trying to nurture/develop an idea you just shoot it down?.
You are all like Celtel (or what was it called then?) who (so I hear) were given the M-Pesa idea and they said it CANNOT work.
BTW, is it really true ama hizo 'zinakuwaga' rumours?? :-)
I suggest all members of this forum buy the best flowers & chocolates for their mates. Shoot that down too.<LOL>
Heppy Furahiday!!
--
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254733744121/+254722743223
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I can't hear you -- I'm using the scrambler.
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
Kenyan's yawa. Instead of trying to nurture/develop an idea you just shoot it down?.
You are all like Celtel (or what was it called then?) who (so I hear) were given the M-Pesa idea and they said it CANNOT work.
BTW, is it really true ama hizo 'zinakuwaga' rumours?? :-)
I suggest all members of this forum buy the best flowers & chocolates for their mates. Shoot that down too.<LOL>
Heppy Furahiday!!
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 17:57, Kevin Oeba <oeba.kevin@gmail.com> wrote:
Gentlemen,
Putting the technical aspects aside, alot of factors come into play.
1. Does the law allow us to vote through any other means, except through the ballot ?
2. The government may need to budget, plan , etc for this sort of voting. Voter education , public awareness.
3. Going by the political events in the Kenyan arena, I would propose you bring up the issue in the next election.
Brilliant idea but I see alot of obstacles along the way...
Kind regards,
Kevin
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Moses Muya <mouzmuyer@gmail.com> wrote:Good.But you cannot "imagine" in a vacuum,you have to consider all the technologies we have.Unless you want to "imagine",write good papers about it and leave it at that without implementing it!Most Kenyans have feature phones,the only way to implement the system and ensure everyone can use it is by using USSD and other like technologies.
On 10 February 2012 17:42, Gichingiri Kuria <gmail@gichingiri.com> wrote:Ok, remove the USSD aspect. Imagine a system that is very simple to use, yet secure and works right. "Imagine" is just the first step...
On 10 February 2012 17:28, Moses Muya <mouzmuyer@gmail.com> wrote:
The idea looks brilliant on paper but if you look at the technical details you will discover it's not!USSD is not secure enough for this kind of work.--On 10 February 2012 17:23, Emmanuel Ochieng <emmanuelochieng797@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,@ Gichingiri Kuria, it can work well but consider a scenario where a Politician gathers a crowd of people and dishes out cash after confirming that you voted for him through your mobile phone!!! That will ruin the whole exercise....
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Gichingiri Kuria <gmail@gichingiri.com> wrote:
Hi all,Since mpesa has worked so well in Kenya, how about we put the next general elections on mobile using USSD.As you register to vote, you can choose to vote via mobile and provide the number that you will use.Come election day, prompts will be sent to batches of users to vote.If done right, more people will vote and results will be out faster._______________________________________________
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Best regards,
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Nairobi,KE
+254733744121/+254722743223
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