http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sF2wL5cFAsY#t=11<\/p>\n
When I met Njeri, her students were busy finishing their group projects with the deadline just 4 weeks away. This exercise was a way to\u00a0turn theoretical lessons into practical use<\/strong>, allowing the students to apply\u00a0all that the mentors and teachers had taught them over the previous 2 months.<\/p>\n To build a capable\u00a0faculty<\/strong>,\u00a0Njeri turned to her network and Twitter<\/strong>, where she grabbed every opportunity to invite guest speakers to her school. Thanks to her persistence, her students had the opportunity to meet\u00a0coders, creatives and entrepreneurs from all over the world,\u00a0including San Francisco and Australia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The school is\u00a0free <\/strong>for students but Njeri incurs the costs of running it, including\u00a0rental of two rooms in a shared residence near\u00a0iHub<\/a>, the main tech workspace in Nairobi.\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0The first room is where we have the courses. The second room is to allow each team to brainstorm and work on their projects, I want to put more big pillows and couches, and also boards to put post-it notes everywhere\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>. The\u00a0rent<\/strong>\u00a0forms the main chunk of her costs and to fund everything, Njeri turned to the larger community on social media. Her\u00a0$15000 crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0will pay for roughly a year of the project, after which she will have to find another source of revenue.<\/p>\n Welcome to the Dev School of Nairobi !<\/p><\/div>\n The value proposition of the school is\u00a0not just coding skills. <\/strong>After all,\u00a0tutorials for that very purpose are widely available online. Instead, Njeri wants\u00a0to work \u00ab\u00a0around the code\u00a0\u00bb on the business, management, marketing and consumer needs,<\/strong>\u00a0so that the students focus their efforts on tech that\u00a0serves the needs of Kenya<\/strong>\u00a0right now. 2 of the student projects are on the\u00a0travel industry<\/strong>, a key asset of the country, where ICT can definitely improve the experience – and the conversion – of visitors.<\/p>\n Where does the\u00a0Nairobi Dev School fit into the local startup ecosystem?\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0Well, even before something like Startup Weekend\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>, says Njeri.\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0With both tech and business skills, you can then go to a hackathon with more impact. Developers need to write, to identify problems, to have this impact\u00a0\u00bb.<\/em><\/p>\n Say hi to 20 y.o Njeri and her hack school!<\/p><\/div>\n Njeri’s project needs to be thought about in the\u00a0broader context of innovation in Africa<\/strong>. Eustace Maboreke works at\u00a0Afralti<\/a>, a center for excellence in ICT that has been in operation for more than 20 years.\u00a0Martin Obuya<\/a>\u00a0is a polyvalent individual at iHub. They both\u00a0envision iHub in Nairobi as a blender<\/strong>\u00a0where the maximum collision must be created between people, projects, and potential funders. As actors and keen observers of the tech scene in Kenya and Africa as a whole, they also\u00a0warn against short-sightedness<\/strong>. For instance, the success of\u00a0MPesa<\/strong>\u00a0has pushed\u00a0many developers and entrepreneurs into the world of finance and banking<\/strong>. As a result, other local needs have been neglected, such as the digitization of culture, one of Africa’s assets, or solutions to the jams of Africa’s cities.<\/p>\n Rather than just focusing on breeding startups in community workspaces, which is a common strategy in many parts of the world, Eustace’s mission is to\u00a0have the core concepts of the startup economy (prototyping, incubation) migrate to the more traditional SMEs and big corporations,<\/strong>\u00a0so as to turn them into\u00a0entrepreneurs; <\/strong>basically to \u00ab\u00a0Startupify\u00a0\u00bb the old business. To do so, Afritel runs incubation programs <\/strong>and\u00a0skill assessments to more efficiently utilise the many skills of their youth.\u00a0\u00ab\u00a0For kids, right now, it’s all about apps, but maybe they have a profile that can fit better elsewhere\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>, says Eustace.<\/p>\n![\"Martin](\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/nairobi-dev-school-njeri-chilemo-martin-pasquier-afrikoin-innovation-bottom-up-innovation-startup-ecosystem-kenya-africa-3-1024x768.jpg\")
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<\/a>Kenya’s growing innovation ecosystem: Pitfalls and Solutions<\/h2>\n
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