Education and culture cannot be separated, part of our culture is formed through the education system.

Our system is just targeted at passing exams (KCPE and KCSE) and students are encouraged to do this at whatever cost. We compete so much internally and forget the we should bench mark against the world and not based on which district was leading and which student was best in the country.

You cannot build a national vision or industry by referring people to the internet and YouTube. There needs to be proper investments in education facilities. You need more than the basic education to be globally competitive.

Even the so loved MPesa system was not built in Kenya, despite it's market success being in Kenya.

@ Chessmaster I have had a few interactions with IT projects managing teams and unfortunately most Kenyan blogs, that are updated, are run by IT heads.

The question the whole sector should be asking is who will pay me for this crap I'm writing and why should he pay me? The current answer is write programs for IPO48. All this does is create professional competitors who have no clue to taking a product to market or scale.

Let me give an example I saw a few months/years back some students made a mobile phone app called Mfarm where farmers could share price information. The imaginary story went once they know the true price farmers can then move their product to the market that has a better price. They solved an imaginary problem in the most complex way possible.

Before I get bashed which of this thousand apps and programs that show our originality are actually in use despite several competition winners and apps created for the contest.

I heard about that mfarm app sometime back, I think its a good concept (if they have a good database that is up to date) - but the target market is wrong, they should have gone for the middle men not the farmers. Its more of a marketing/sales app

Very true Mfarm didn't consider there target market especially with the youth avoiding farming. I believe there time will come especially if commodity trading goes mainstream in Kenya and Africa in general. I'm surprised I never knew that the blogs we done by IT heads. I'm for pushing for apps and other solutions since that's the only way the market will develop over time. I agree,the problem is monetizing. Just like in investing(at least value investing),concentrating on creating a good solution is how we should approach it not creating hubs and cities that in the end will have nothing to offer consumers and investors.

Interesting to see how this post has evolved. One consistent thing I see in all postings, is that "We Believe, we CAN and we SHOULD."

While many will rush to blame education system, I believe in it strongly. It's not perfect, but I am very sure that they are not what is holding us from Success. At all.

Don't we have 'successful' people who are doing nice things to society now, and never stepped out of the Country for Education?

Would be glad to be corrected, But we are on a Slow But "Most Sure" path to NICE things.

And to be futuristic; Here's examples of how I see it.
- That in x Years, Kenya will have 1000's KM of a Perfect Rail system, supported by a Robust IT system.
- That in x years, Kenya will have fully functional Traffic Lights in all Roads, again supported by a Robust IT system
- That in x years, Kenya will have a Fully automated Social Security System, tied to ones Property, Address, Family, Cars etc etc.
- That in x years, Kenyan Counties, will be fighting to have Fully Automated Govt services, for Utility payment systems et al, again supported by IT systems.

I could go on and on...... This is just a snippet of my Wish List and Dream for .KE . As you will notice, all are related to IT, I have not mentioned any non-IT projects which may be more important to Wellbeing of Citizens. Plus, at-least I don't just Dream of My Big Home and My Big car, in x years. :)

Maybe it's time we debate less, and put in more of this time, to Work. Let's review as we progress.