No bashing from me because you are very right. As much as Nairobi is one of the greatest cities in Africa, it's currently a joke compared to it's potential. A simple example is that Nairobi has TERRIBLE slums which are the largest in Africa and I think the largest and probably the worst in the world (I'm told Brazil has the largest though but Kenya is most likely ranking at top 3). It's shocking to have about 3 huge slums with a total population of about 800K people who live as families in small shacks made from soil, no toilet, no bathrooms, no kitchen, no water, no security. I think politics in Nairobi and generally Kenya has too much influence in economic growth and the general welfare of society. Politicians, their families and relatives seem to call the shots on almost all basic issues, which would not have been bad if they we making the right decisions for the entire country. The fear is that by the time the change comes, other countries could have taken up the opportunities. I heard Tanzania's port is handling a lot of traffic that used to be handled at Mombasa port. Other eastern Africa countries will have fibre access, if Kenya doesn't put it's act together, then business might shift to the other countries including Kenyans setting up businesses there instead of Kenya. 8~(   --- On Tue, 6/23/09, aki <aki275@googlemail.com> wrote: From: aki <aki275@googlemail.com> Subject: [Skunkworks] OT : back from a trip and disappointed To: "Skunkworks forum" <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009, 8:50 PM I'm sharing my opinion on tech sector, so any bashing welcome. :-)   I spent sometime in joburg. it was one city I wanted to know more about, and I did. arrived back and disappointed with our progress in tech sector. Eg, I could buy an HDMI cable in a smaller but well laid out city called bloomfontein than I can in nairobi. Policy makers and planners travel all the time to conferences etc. have they ever questioned themselves on how things should be? An eg : BMW have an assembly plant in SA, while we have a GM plant that mostly deals with buses!   Our tech sector is more like a inward internal operation than a global one. My impression is that of disappointment, our tech sector is very weak and has a bleak outlook besides things like micro solutions and short term stay alive injections of many solutions. We are missing a very vital link to the rest of the world. Something is wrong with our approach, method of doing things and a large portion of something holding us back. Or whatever serious proposals are most likely collecting dust. This is a disturbing trend.   We are trying to become a global player. Someone please tell me how we are achieving this?   A simple techie view....       -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Skunkworks announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general