November 2019 - Mugendi

Content on Borrowed Platforms

November 27, 2019 3 min read

The Apocalypse

One day you wake up to find that Facebook has closed shop, and so did Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Linkedin, Snapchat, TikTok, Spotify, and all of their kind. Suddenly, the online community you built is no more. Your careers as an influencer is gone. Your years of work on YouTube is no more. The photos you meticulously preserved on Instagram are gone. The companies attribute their collapse to a Cyber-Physical attack that destroyed all their data, fried all their servers and decimated all their possible backups.

While the United nations Security Council will be having an emergency meeting to discuss this possible trigger of the third World War, billions of people will be mourning the desolation of the planet. We have people who have lived all their lives with internet, and those who have gotten used to social media so much that they forgot that photos could actually be printed. Content creators will have lost years of work. It will be the beginning of the end.

Dependence

Today, our lives have become so much dependent on the Cloud to the extent that we are not conscious of it. We have gotten used to using systems and platforms that we do not care about because they always work, and are always available. Our emails simply work. We upload music and videos somewhere and they can be accessed anytime and from anywhere. We create websites on the Cloud and make our content available to everyone, without caring where that content is served from. We have redefined technology to mean something that simply works!

But how comes we have become so dependent on free platforms? Why are we so dependent on these platforms yet if you summarize their terms and conditions, it comes down to ‘we are not responsible for anything.’

Free Platforms

You know well that there is no free lunch, yet, Gmail, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google search, WhatsApp and many other platforms are offered for free. Who then pays the bill?

The answer is that the content that we feed into these platforms is the actual products that the creators of the platform are looking for. While we share cute cat videos, the platforms are learning more about our habits, likes, dislikes and interests, then using that information to make money. Their biggest product is the content that we provide.

Which brings us to the question, is this the best way to keep our valuable content? We used to have great family albums that were religiously preserved for future reference. Today we just post photos on social media and that is enough. What assurance do we have that the social media platforms we use will exist in the next 10-20 years? Where will our content go?

New Normal

There is no easy answer to this. Maybe this is the new normal, and any attempt to imagine they can fail sounds like a doomsday prophecy. Maybe we just have to live with the risks just as like we faced a Chicken Pox Armageddon a few years ago. However, having a way to store and archive your content can give you some little peace of mind.

How Online Ads Work

November 22, 2019 3 min read

A story is told of a lady who reported to the police a pair of shoe that was stalking her. The shoe kept following her to every website that she accessed. It would appear on the news website, in social media, blogs and every YouTube video that she watched. The shoe would show up in bright colors and blinking to draw her attention. To make it worse, the shoe was just her size and taste. It was after her by all means, and would still appear even if she switched browsers or computers. Her mind was haunted.

Welcome to the world of online advertisement. Unlike a few moons ago when advertisement was done on TV and targeted mass audience, today’s adverts have changed. They are highly targeted to reach a specific audience or person, and they appear to know the potential buyer. How does this work?

How they do it

As they say, in God we trust; everyone else bring data. Data is the main currency that is being used to deliver the online ads. Websites and companies work hard to know who you are and what you need. That is why we have services such as Google and Facebook offered for free, in exchange for the information about you that you give. This is the information that is later used against you, or for you.

Google knows who you are. You use their products such as Google Chrome browser, Google search, Gmail, YouTube and even the mother of all, Android. This means they can see online wherever you are. They know where you work, where you live, they see the places you visit and can tell the entertainment joint you spend every Saturday afternoon. This information is very useful to advertisers.

If an advertiser wants to reach to men aged 25-40 who live in Nairobi and love football, Google will deliver the ads just to those people. If the advertiser is interested in people who recently got married, Google knows them. If it is dog owners, Google knows them. If it is the people who love holidaying and traveling, Google knows who was in Maasai Mara last week and Amboseli last month.

The same thing works with Facebook. Facebook knows your likes and interests, and can tell who is likely to attend a music concert or buy a certain book. This is based on the information that you have given them, such as the post you like and pages you follow. If an advertiser wants to sell tickets for a play that will be aired in Mombasa and targets women who love poetry, Facebook and Google can deliver the advert to these people.

But there is another form of targeting that is very specific. If you visit a website, Google knows you are there, and from there it can keep showing you the ads from that website wherever you are. Remember the ads will keep following you in any place that shows ads, be it websites, apps and even YouTube channels. In Facebook, an advertiser can track you using your name, phone number or even email, and show their ads to you. If you go to Jumia and search for a certain shoe, you might start seeing the shoe advert on Facebook, because Jumia has asked Facebook to show you the shoe ad.

Do you see an ad you can relate to on this page?

Corruption is Eating Away our Future

November 14, 2019 3 min read

I have come to a conclusion that every Kenyan is corrupt, unless proven otherwise. My experience in business has taught me this. Take a look at this.

Examples

Whenever a government entity requests for service, someone will call you requesting to ‘talk.’ This is only if they actually need the service, for the many times an office asks you to quote for a certain service, they already have a service provider in mind. All they want is to use to lend credibility to the procurement process. The ‘talk’ is simply instructions on how much you should quote, and how much you will be expected to give back.

Not just in the government. Even from the private sector, the conversation goes like this: “My name is AB and I am the head of IT in company CD. We are looking for somebody to offer us service EF, but I would want us to ‘talk’ first to see if we can work together.”

What is happening here is that employees are working hard to defraud their employers, be it in the private sector or in civil service. Is there a cost to be paid for this?

Hotbed of Corruption

Kenya thrives on corruption. 33% of the budget is wasted through corrupt dealings, even though we are only able fund slightly over 50% of the whole budget. A big portion of the budget is borrowed, then misappropriated. This means that we have devised an art of stealing not only from what we have, but also from what we and our future generations will have. That is how the government runs, even most people who are motivated to serve in public offices are motivated by the same factor.

The main motivation why someone self-funds 75 million campaigning for a political post which will pay him 60 million in five years is the money expected to flow back through corruption and position influence. The main reason why being a headteacher is lucrative is the opportunity to manage the money, and of course gain from the managing. The reason why county and national governments want to run healthcare docket, yet everybody knows for sure that healthcare is a loss making sector, is simply to run the big budget, and from there make some money out of that.

Effects of the Corruption

Starting a business is hard, unless you are willing to give enough kickbacks. Tenders are awarded to the person who will give the largest kickback, and this happens in 99% of all offices. The effect of this is that genuine businesses fail, while tenderpreneurs thrive. This killing of genuine entrepreneurs means that the people who have the capacity to build enterprises and create jobs end up failing, and so job opportunities are not created. The end result is unemployment, now and in future.

Many SMEs have died thorough supplying goods and services to the government. They offer their services, but several years down the line no one is willing to pay for those service. Yet, doing business with the government holds an allure to many new and old businesses alike. The margins are attractive, but payments never come. Of course, payments do come if you are willing to give some kickbacks. Once SMEs are not paid, they end up not paying their staff, who end up not paying their children’s school fees, which leads to schools crumbling. The possible outcomes are many and gross.

There is hope

They say that the early bird catches the worm. In Kenya, it is the known bird which is given the worm. If you are not known, woe unto you. You will strive to make it, and you will have to work harder than any business that is dealing with the government because your margins are small while your operating expenses are the same.

But this resilience is needed while things are still murky, for there will come a day when things will change. As we long for those days, remember that we are the ones expected to create those days.

Chinese Engineers in Kenya

November 2, 2019December 3, 2022 3 min read

Chinese contractors have found a golden goose in Kenya, almost taking all the megaprojects in the construction industry. Most of the major state and private infrastructure that has been built in the last ten years have some form of Chinese signature in them. From roads, buildings, railways, to water and sewerage projects, Chinese companies have proved to be efficient and reliable. They show up armed with equipment, labor, and most important, capital which allows them to complete the project in record time.

The Standard Gauge Railway

Take the example of the Chinese-made Mombasa – Naivasha railway. The line was funded through a loan from China, built by a Chinese company, and now is operated by the Chinese. It is the Chinese railway in Kenya. Despite protests on the feasibility of the project and accusations of kickbacks and disregard for the environment during the construction, the railway line was eventually built.

But it is the manner in which the new railway is run that has proved to be a rip-off to Kenyans, more so to Kenyan engineers. To date, control panels and boards are written and programmed in Chinese. The primary language used in the operations by the Chinese people is the Chinese language. The engine drivers of the trains are Chinese, while Kenyan engineers are forced to do lowly jobs. Some forty Kenyans have been trained on to how to operate the trains, but they remain spectators as they are not allowed to do the real work.

At the same time, the Chinese have brought people from China to do menial jobs while Kenyans continue to grapple with joblessness. In some other projects, the Chinese have even been accused of ferrying everything from China, including the brooms to be used on-site.

Lack of Knowledge Transfer

From the onset of the project, there was no plan to ensure the deliberate transfer of skills to Kenyans so that they can take over the running of the project. Yet, the project costs Kenyan dearly, amidst a growing national debt. Why didn’t the government care about equipping its engineers to not only operate the Railway but also make them competent enough to build other sections that will need to be built in the future?

The problem persists not just in the Madaraka Express railway, but in other sectors as well. Highly qualified Electrical, Mechanical and Civil Engineers continue to grapple with joblessness, while mega projects are being handled by the Chinese. While it is understandable that they bring in certain expertise and skills, projects must be designed in such a way that they ensure maximum skill transfer to the locals. The overreliance on Chinese contractors also means that local construction companies have faced severe competition.

What Next?

The Kenyan government needs to prioritize the needs of its young people, and not focus on giving them a fish. That people from China are employed as engineers in a Kenyan railway, while many competent Kenyan engineers are jobless, is shortsighted and stupid. The worst part is that even very low-level jobs such as cleaners and security guards are being done by Chinese nationals, in a country that has very high levels of unemployment. Building the human resources should be a top priority for any country that wants to develop.

Monthly Archives November 2019