I always wonder why we struggle to skip stages and try and be 'Developed' economies without minding the basics.
We ignore what the Asians did to climb out of poverty and struggle to emulate Americans. Different culture, ideology and needs.
So long as we neglect our small scale farmers and 'informal sector' players we will limp along ever behind everyone else.
Little if any of this technology that is fueling the Savannah is made here including M-Pesa. If it was then the powers that be are happy that Vodafone own the rights and are happy with this status.
Other than KopoKopo, BRCK and a few other sms based school management systems the rest are a cut and paste from somewhere else. And 90% of these are run by foreigners. I know Eric Hersman is as much a Kenyan as any of us but I trust you understand what I mean.
In my opinion this is a good thing though that we attract talent that can see a market we cant. The ecosystem grows and that is progress.
My major gripe is in our dependence on foreign journalists/investors to tell our story. I would think by now there would be a serious rebuttal by a local journalist on the points raised here offering local insight or an opinion from the said innovators.